How best to deal with user on maternity leave or extended holiday

[Stephen Pryke]

I'd like to ask for some advice / guidance on how best to deal with a yammer user going on extended leave (in this case maternity leave, but it could be any break over 90 days). 

One of our product managers will be away and I want to make sure that 1) people are aware she is away for an extended period 2) people don't try to contact her 3) people know who her replacement is 4) when she comes back she can continue where she left off.

I've updated her name in Yammer (via bulk update csv) to "[Name] MATERNITY - contact [Replacement]" which should help with recognition and directing questions to the correct person covering her position, points 1 - 3, but I'm a little concerned about point 4.

I've deactivated her account, but I'm aware that this means her account will be automatically deleted after 90 days. Will she be able to pick up where she left off if she tries to log in again? I suppose so, as her email will be the same, but can anyone confirm that's the case? FYI we also use an Active Directory sync to O365, so I suppose at some point she will be deactivated there too. I hope that won't make any difference. 

Thanks in advance for any help!

Stephen

[#2]

We don't disable users for Mat/Pat leave. Is there a specific reason for doing that?

In theory the first time your user logs into Yammer she'll see the number of unread messages in her groups. She'll likely be able to catch up with Yammer faster than any other platform!

[#3]

Thanks. I deactivated her account as extra secrurity to stop people messaging her. Perhaps it's unnecessary, though. 

[#4]

I'd rather avoid the headache of potentially having the account deleted. If Flow added a trigger for an @mention you could auto-reply in the thread or privately.

[#5]

We had a similar situation for co-ops / interns and found that your method works very well - to simply update the name to indicate that the person is not an active user, and in that same bulk update, changed the password for each account to a random string.  That last step is probably obsolete - I don't think there's such a thing as Yammer passwords anymore but wanted to mention that.  Security is generally handled through existing procedures for the primary Windows account associated with the Yammer account.  In other words, there's like already a procedure in place to handle access.

[#6]

Thanks for all the advice, fellas. I think it's probably best to keep the user active, but with a clear name change. I'll reactivate her.