What you get
No working document lost, no access remaining after the departure, and colleagues who keep working without interruption. The order of steps matters: recover first, close afterwards.
Two different situations
| Situation | Main step | What the person keeps |
|---|
| Change of team or end of assignment on a project | Remove them from the relevant group | Their account, personal space and other groups |
| An entire team or a contractor leaving | Remove the group from the team folder, or empty the group | Their accounts, if they are used elsewhere |
| Leaving the company | Recover their files, then deactivate and finally delete their account | Nothing |
If your working folders are team folders, most departures are handled by removing a group. Files placed in a team folder belong to the organization: they stay in place when their author leaves. Setting up groups is described in Controlling who sees which documents.
Before the departure date
Carry out these checks while the person is still there. They know what matters in their space.
- Inventory of the personal space. Anything useful to the company must move to a team folder: ongoing quotes, customer files, templates.
- File transfer. From their settings, the person can transfer ownership of a file or folder to a colleague. The colleague accepts the transfer and finds the items in their space, with their shares. For a departmental document, the simplest option is still to move it to the team folder.
- Folders shared from their space. If they were sharing a personal folder with colleagues, transfer or move it before the account is closed: otherwise it will disappear with the account.
- External links. Review the links they created. Remove those no longer in use. Recreate, from an account that remains, those a customer or partner still uses.
- Devices. Plan to sign the sync client out on their computer and phone, and to remove local copies from returned equipment.
On the day of departure: deactivate the account
An administrator of your instance deactivates the account. Effects:
- the person can no longer sign in, either in the browser or from their devices, which stop syncing;
- public links and email shares they had created stop working;
- by default, internal shares they had made remain accessible to colleagues, who keep working;
- their files are retained. The account can be reactivated without loss.
Deactivation is therefore a safe holding step. It gives you time to check that nothing is missing.
After the departure
If files remain in the space of a deactivated account, a bulk transfer to a colleague can be carried out on the server side. Ask Klytic support for it, specifying the original account and the account taking over.
Only then does the administrator delete the account. Caution: deletion immediately erases all files in the personal space, including those the person was sharing. It can only be undone for a few seconds.
Forgot something after deletion? Klytic backups allow a recovery requested from support, from the backups of the last 30 days. For an account deleted too early during a departure, this recovery is included, within the limit of 3 requests per month. This safety net is not an archive of the employee’s folders: after 30 days, anything not recovered is lost.
Example: a saleswoman leaving
A saleswoman is leaving the company at the end of the month. Two weeks before, her manager helps her move her ongoing quotes to the “Sales” team folder. She transfers to her successor a personal folder she was sharing with two colleagues. Her links to three customers are recreated by her successor, with a new password. On the last day, the administrator deactivates her account. A month later, after checking, the account is deleted.
What this page does not cover
- The person’s mailbox is handled separately: Mailbox of a departing employee.
- How long certain HR or sales documents must be retained is a matter for an archiving policy: see the guide Retaining important documents.
- A copy already downloaded to a personal computer cannot be recovered by Klytic Docs. That is a matter of internal policy and equipment management.
Frequently asked questions
Should the account be deleted right away?
No. Deactivate it first: access is cut off and nothing is lost. Delete it once you have checked that no useful file remains.
How can I avoid this work at the next departure?
By working in team folders rather than personal spaces. See Controlling who sees which documents.
A customer was using a link created by the employee. What should I do?
Recreate the link from an account that remains, with a password and an expiration date. See Sharing links, partners and uploads.
What about their mailbox?
It is handled in Klytic Mail: Mailbox of a departing employee.
