Handling staff leavers in hybrid Exchange Online setup

[mistersparky]

Good evening everyone!

 

I’ve got a question regarding handling the Exchange Online mailboxes for staff leavers.

 

We currently have a hybrid setup with Exchange 2010 on-prem servers running alongside Exchange Online E1 and E3 licenced users. With have Azure AD sync in place to replicate relevant AD details to Office 365.

 

For leavers with on-prem mailboxes, we will disable the account and remove from groups, leave the mailbox active for a few months with necessary auto-replies and forwards in place, then delete the mailbox after a given period of time.

 

With Exchange Online mailboxes, the mailbox is lost within a short period of time of the associated AD account being disabled. I’d like to find a tidy way to disable the accounts as required, whilst maintaining the mailboxes. I believe holds and converting to shared mailboxes are the recommened approach for this, however I’ve got a few questions:

 

1. Is an Exchange Online license reserved for the duration of a hold on a mailbox?
   
2. Holds only seem to be available for E3 licenses and above. Is it possible to just upgrade an E1 license to E3 shortly before implementing the hold and disabling the account?
   
3. Do holds allow mailbox, auto-responses and forwards to run on the mailbox?
   
4. With the approach of converting to a shared mailbox, what’s the best way to keep track of desired deletion times for such mailboxes?
   
5. How difficult is it to handle return staff for mailboxes that have been converted into shared mailboxes?
   
6. Finally, I’d love to hear what approach you take, and the pros and cons of your choice.
   

 

Thanks in advance for any help or advise!

[free780]

I've also got this issue.

So I think I need to move the mailbox back to on prem then export-mailbox as you can't do this directly on 365.

[Tefters]

E3 is what you need for hold and can just upgrade the license before disabling and set to hold. Of course this costs more money for a mailbox that isn't being used...

 

Transfer the mailbox back on-site and then just disable to save the pennies...

[CAWJames]

We transfer them to an Alumni licence via powershell linked to a flag on their account, this gives them the standard exchange online free service, and allows them to keep their address for alumni purposes

[burgemaster]

Holds only seem to be available for E3 licenses and above.

Of course this costs more money for a mailbox that isn't being used

 

If you Add for free (£0.00 user/month) "Exchange Online (Plan 2) for faculty/Students" that includes "In-Place Hold and Litigation Hold".

 

Now when we have a staff member leave we add them a EO Plan 2 licence and put them in "in-place hold" indefinitely. We rarely use it as we encourage staff to go through their mail and files before they leave.

 

https://products.office.com/en-us/exchange/compare-microsoft-exchange-online-plans?legRedir=true&CorrelationId=e451158a-4835-45f1-a4b7-f45f3e291ec8

Edited February 17, 2017 by burgemaster