Offboard someone who left

Remove a departing colleague from every group and the organisation, rotate the keys, and hand over what they owned.

The situation. A colleague's last day is Friday. On Monday they must not be able to read anything new, and nothing they owned should be stuck.

What you will use. Group and organisation member management, and key rotation.

Why removal alone is not enough #

Everything in a group can be read by every member. Removing a member does not take back what they already had, so Databeamer rotates the group's key the moment you remove someone: the remaining members get a fresh key, and anything added from then on is unreadable to the person who left. Content from before the rotation stays readable for the remaining members.

1. Hand over ownership #

If the person owns a group, change the owner first: in the group's Settings › Members, give another member the Owner role. The same applies if they are the only owner of the organisation. Databeamer blocks removing or deleting an account that is the sole owner of anything.

2. Remove them from each group #

In each group's Settings › Members, choose Remove member. The key rotates automatically and a Keys rotated notice confirms it. Only if a Key rotation required banner appears instead, for example because another rotation was still in progress, choose Rotate now. Repeat for every group they were in; the organisation's Settings › Groups page lists them all.

3. Remove them from the organisation #

In the organisation's Settings › Members, choose Remove member. If you use single sign-on, also disable their account in your identity provider.

4. Check what they were involved in #

Open requests where they were a reader: open the request's People tab and Remove reader.
Transfers they sent on behalf of a group stay visible to the group.
Their personal files, transfers and contacts are theirs and are not affected; the organisation never had access to them.

What the person sees #

The groups and the organisation disappear from their Databeamer. Their personal space keeps working until they delete their own account.

Checklist #

Ownership of groups and the organisation handed over.
Removed from every group, with no Key rotation required banner left behind.
Removed from the organisation and from single sign-on.
Removed as reader from open requests.