Staff member leaves - what to do with their mailbox?

Do you sync your local Active Directory with Azure AD Connect?

---

Ed Kenworthy wrote:

I am just wondering the best way to handle staff leavers' email accounts.

---

Ed Kenworthy wrote:

I am just wondering the best way to handle staff leavers' email accounts. 

 

What I would like to do is convert the users mailbox to a shared mail so that I can then share it with whoever needs to view the users emails. 

 

I would also like to stop emails being delivered to that mailbox and redirect them to a general mailbox so if any emails are sent to the old staff member they wont get missed.

 

Maybe this isnt the correct way to approach this situation. 

 

The part I am struggling with is removing the old staff members email address from the shared mailbox so I can add it as an alias of the general mailbox. I have tried deleting the address via the gui and using powershell and the address just comes back. I have tried changing the address by adding .old to the end (e.g staff.member@company.com to staff.member.old@company.com) but after saving the change does hold but it automatically adds another address of  staff.member@company.com.

 

Until I can remove the address I cant add it as an alias of the general mailbox.

 

Any advice would be appreciated.

---

 

I would also like to stop emails being delivered to that mailbox and redirect them to a general mailbox so if any emails are sent to the old staff member they wont get missed.

 

Maybe this isnt the correct way to approach this situation. 

 

The part I am struggling with is removing the old staff members email address from the shared mailbox so I can add it as an alias of the general mailbox. I have tried deleting the address via the gui and using powershell and the address just comes back. I have tried changing the address by adding .old to the end (e.g staff.member@company.com to staff.member.old@company.com) but after saving the change does hold but it automatically adds another address of  staff.member@company.com.

 

The proper way is to Reset the password. Convert the mailbox to a shared mailbox. Or, keep as an User Mailbox and tag it with a litigation hold to preserve the content in the mailbox.

For the Smtp address issue. I've seen this in Exchange 2013. Try moving the mailbox a different database (New-MoveRequest smtp@address.com). Once that's completed, try again. If you're hosting your own  Exchange server. Checked the AD Object for ligering smtp values. You can always setup a transport rule to distribute the email sent to that smtp address to the respected recipients.

---

you can try below exchange PowerShell script and it will stop automatic creating  aliases value 

Set-Mailbox -Identity Username -EmailAddresses SMTP:staff.member.old@Company.com

Have you seen these steps listed here, or is that what you are already following with step 2 - https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Remove-a-former-employee-from-Office-365-44d96212-4d90-4027-9aa9-a95eddb367d1.  More details here - https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Convert-a-user-mailbox-to-a-shared-mailbox-2e122487-e1f5-4f26-ba41-5689249d93ba

Also, there is an option to preserve the user's mailbox if needed for compliance - https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Overview-of-inactive-mailboxes-in-Office-365-1fbd74e8-7a60-4157-afe8-fe79f05d2038, which means the user account can be deleted subsequently.