Deactivating a Staff Account
This article outlines the considerations and required actions in SupportAbility when a Staff member leaves an organisation.
We do not recommend repurposing Staff Accounts for another individual who may be filling the same role, or deleting a Staff Account when a staff member leaves your organisation.
It is important to retain a historical record of all actions completed by and relating to an individual in your organisation's installation. Therefore, our recommended approach is to make the Staff Account inactive when the person leaves.
To assist with this, SupportAbility has inbuilt functionality which prevents Staff Accounts from being able to be deleted when they are associated with another record e.g Journals.
Once a Staff Account has been deactivated several actions will be automatically triggered, including revoking the Staff Member's access to SupportAbility.
Before making a Staff Account inactive, several actions are required to be completed by your organisation in SupportAbility as part of managing the exit process. Therefore, prior planning may be required to complete all of these actions in a timely manner, so the Staff Account can be made inactive and the individual's access revoked at the appropriate time.
Information about the automated changes and actions requiring completion is outlined in detail below, along with information on how to identify those records requiring an update.
Audience: Authorised Representatives, HR Specialist, and Team Leaders.
Summary
The following list summarises the content of this article. Click on the links below to take you to the relevant sections:
- Prerequisites
- How to deactivate a Staff Account
- Automated Changes
- Summary of actions requiring completion
Prerequisites
In order to complete the actions outlined in this article the following Staff Account Privileges are required by the Staff Member completing the action/s:
- The 'Edit User Accounts' privilege is required to access the 'User Details' tab of the relevant Staff Account in order to make it inactive.
- The 'Team Leader' privilege for the relevant Site/Services the exiting Staff Member worked for, is required in order to update the Roster and remove the exiting Staff Member from Activities. This privilege will also provide access to the relevant Client records where the exiting Staff Member is listed as the Key Support Worker in order to update this information.
- The 'Edit Client Records Across ALL Services' privilege is required when needing to access and update Client records across all Site/Services.
How to deactivate a Staff Account
Once the 'User is Active' checkbox in the Security Privileges section of a Staff Account has been deselected and the Staff Account saved, the Staff Account is deemed as inactive:
Select the 'Save User' button to save this change:
Automated Changes
The following actions are automatically completed once a Staff Account is deactivated:
- The Staff Member's access to SupportAbility is immediately revoked.
- The Staff Member no longer appears in the 'Quick Search' tool, provided the filter for 'Quick Search Finds' is set to the default setting 'Only active records' as set in System Preferences on the Settings tab.
- The Staff Member no longer appears in search results of a 'Staff Accounts Search', if the filter for 'Default Detailed Staff Search Finds' is set to the default setting 'Only active staff' as set in System Preferences on the Settings tab.
- Removes the Staff Member as a selectable option in the 'Add Staff' list when creating Activities or when adding a Staff member to existing Activities.
- The Staff Member is no longer available for selection in the 'Staff Members' section of the 'Showing Roster For' list when accessed by Staff with high-level access e.g. 'Team Leader' privilege. The Staff Member will however still display in the 'Staff' column of the Roster for Activities they have been rostered for.
- When a Staff Member subscribes to a Roster/Calendar, every time their calendar checks SupportAbility for updates, SupportAbility checks to ensure their Staff Account is active and does not provide any information if the user account has been deactivated.
N.B. While the above actions are automatically completed when a Staff Account is made inactive, there are further actions that need to be completed by your organisation. We recommend completing these prior to deactivating the Staff Account.
Summary of actions requiring completion
Once a Staff member is no longer working with your organisation the following actions need to be completed in SupportAbility by your organisation, as these are not automatically triggered when a Staff Account is made inactive:
- Remove the exiting Staff Member Shift from all future scheduled Activities.
- Reassign outstanding 'Incomplete Client Journal Actions' which have been assigned to the exiting Staff member.
- Reassign all Client Documents set to notify the exiting Staff member.
- Update the 'Key Support Worker' in the 'Client Service Participation' section of all relevant Client records, where the exiting Staff Member is listed as the Key Support Worker.
- Deactivate the Staff Account.
Remove the Staff member from future scheduled Activities
To remove a Staff member from future scheduled Activities it may be helpful to first run an 'Activity Staff Report' filtering by the relevant 'Staff member' and setting the 'Staff Shift Date:From' as the Staff member's final date with the Organisation:
This will bring up all future Activities from that date forward which the Staff member is rostered for. The Staff member can then be manually removed from each Activity.
Remember to select the 'Save Activity' button for each Activity to save any changes you have made:
Two helpful tips for completing this are as follows:
- Right mouse click on each different type of Activity to open them in separate tabs. The relevant Staff member can then be easily removed from each of these Activities while retaining the report open as a helpful overall reference.
- If the Activity is part of a replicated set, first remove the Staff member from the current Activity, then check the 'Staff' setting for 'Replication Management Settings', and Save the Activity. When this setting is turned on any changes made to the current Activity record will be replicated across all future occurrences of that Activity i.e. removing the Staff member from each future-dated Activity.
N.B.
- When making this adjustment to Activities, it is important to check that no-one else is in the middle of working with any Activities in the same set, as any Staff changes they make to an individual Activity may be replicated or overwritten, if the Staff Replication Management Setting is turned on when saving an Activity.
- Remember to turn this setting off again once you have applied and saved the required change, to avoid other changes which may only apply to a singular Activity being replicated.
- Changes cannot be applied to Activities that have already been signed off.
Rosters
When a Staff member who had previously subscribed to their Roster/Calendar, leaves your organisation, as soon as their Staff Account has been made inactive, they will no longer be able to access any information. This is because every time a calendar checks SupportAbility for updates, SupportAbility will first check to ensure their user account is active, before providing any data.
Reassign outstanding 'Incomplete Client Journal Actions'
As Journals form part of the critical evidence required to meet your organisation's compliance obligations, it is important that any associated Journal Actions are completed. Therefore when a Staff member exits your organisation it is important that all 'Incomplete Journal Actions' which have been assigned to the exiting Staff member, are reviewed and reassigned for completion, where required:
Visibility of 'Incomplete Client Journal' Actions
Journal actions by
Similarly, if a Staff member ceases to work in a particular Service for which they have been assigned a Journal Action, but the Staff member still has access to the related Client record via another Service in common, any 'Incomplete Journal Actions' will still be visible to them in their Dashboard Notifications. Only when the Staff member ceases to have access to the related Client record will the 'Incomplete Journal Actions' Notification no longer be visible on their Dashboard.
N.B. Once the Staff Account of the assigned Staff member has been deactivated, any Incomplete Client Journal Actions assigned to that Staff Member will continue to appear in Dashboard Notifications for the author.
Reviewing Incomplete Client Journal Actions of an exiting Staff Member
Regrettably, there is no report to identify all 'Incomplete Client Journal Actions' for a specific Staff member. Therefore we recommend that those Staff with either the 'Team Leader' privilege for each of the Site/Services which the exiting Staff member worked in, or a Staff member with the global 'Team Leader for ALL Services' privilege, reviews the outstanding Journal Actions and reassigns them to another Staff member/s for completion.
Staff with the 'Team Leader' privilege for specific Site/Services
Staff with the 'Team Leader' privilege for specific Site/Services can select 'Show Dashboard For' any of the Staff who work in the Service they have this privilege for.
Selecting the exiting Staff member's Dashboard will display any Incomplete Client Journal Actions for that Staff Member:
Selecting the target Icon will open the Journal, from where the Journal Action can then be reassigned to another Staff member and a comment added to the Action Note advising that the action has been reassigned for completion:
Staff with the 'Team Leader for ALL Services' privilege
Staff with the 'Team Leader for ALL Services' privilege can select 'Show Dashboard For' either a whole Site or individual Staff member. Which option is the most suitable will depend on the requirements for this review:
The 'Incomplete Client Journal Actions' notification portal displays all outstanding Journal actions relevant to either the individual Staff member or all Staff working at a Site, relative to the Dashboard perspective selected:
As outlined above, selecting the target Icon will open the Journal, from where the Journal Action can then be reassigned to another Staff member and a comment added to the Action Note advising that the action has been reassigned for completion.
Reassign Client Documents
All Client Document records where the exiting Staff member has been set as the person to 'Notify' will need updating:
It may therefore be helpful to perform a 'Document Search' to identify the Client Documents records which require updating. This Search is accessible via the Reports menu, and can be filtered by the following search criteria:
- Record Type - Client
- Document Status - select all options
- Notify - the relevant Staff Member's name
The results generated list all Client Document records where the exiting Staff member has been set as the person to 'Notify':
N.B. The results displayed are dependent on the access level of the Staff Member generating the search.
We recommend right-mouse clicking on each of the target icons in the list, and selecting 'Open link in new tab', to preserve the Document List as a helpful reference source. The 'Notify' field can then be updated in each of the Client records.
Remember to select the 'Save Client' button after each change.
Primarily your organisation will be focusing on Client Documents in this Search, however depending on the exiting Staff member's role and responsibilities, and features which your organisation is utilising in SupportAbility, it may also be relevant to perform a search for one of the other record types - Contact, Staff, Opportunity for Improvement (OFI), Accident/Incident, Accident/Incident Investigation, Accident/Incident Injury.
Update the Key Support Worker information
When a Staff member exits an organisation, it is important to update the 'Key Support Worker' field in the 'Client Service Participation' section of all relevant Client records where this Staff member was selected.
This is important for 2 purposes:
- Ensure information in the Client Record is accurate and current
- Assists with generating accurate results in a Client Search when filtering by 'Key Support Worker' as the search criteria.
Client Search
Performing a Client Search filtering by the relevant Staff member in the 'Key Support Worker' field will assist with identifying all relevant Client records requiring an update.
N.B. The results generated from the Client Search are dependent on the level of access the Staff member generating the Search has to Client records from each of the Site/Services. A Staff member with the 'Edit Client Records Across ALL Services' privilege will have the broadest level of access to all Client records across the organisation.
The results generated list all Client records where the exiting Staff member has been set as the 'Key Support Worker', relative to the access level of the Staff member generating the search:
We recommend right-mouse clicking on each of the target icons in the list, and selecting 'Open link in new tab', to preserve the Client List as a helpful reference source. The 'Key Support Worker' field can then be updated in each of the Client records as required.
Preserving a History of Clients' Key Support Workers
Rather than updating the name of the 'Key Support Worker' in the existing entry, your organisation may choose to preserve a historical reference for each Key Support Worker who supported a Client.
To achieve this an 'End Date' would need to be applied to the relevant existing 'Client Service Participation' entry, and a new 'Client Service Participation' entry be created with the new Key Support Worker and the 'Start Date' when they commenced with this Client:
Once the Key Support Worker information has been updated, remember to select the 'Save Client' button to save the changes:
Once an 'End Date' has been applied, this entry will be greyed out and moved to the 'historical services' section.