Background
People come and go in organisations.
The responsible IT administrator makes sure when people leave their digital information is taken care of.
In this specific article and instance we are referring to an organisation possibly paying for a license that they are not using.
In Microsoft Office 365, we typically recommend that a user who leaves mailbox is converted to a shared mailbox, because this way, email will still be arrive, data will still be available, but no license fee is incurred. All that can’t happen is the user can’t log in, as you don’t have an individual mailbox anymore. But for all intent and purposes you can use it, even specifying the FROM: address as say [email protected]
Steps
1. Log into Office 365 Admin. This is a big interface, with most important stuff on the left. Look for the cog wheel.
We like to use this link: https://www.office.com/?auth=2 to log in
Or admin.microsoft.com to go there direct
The bog wheel has A for admin and a cogwheel
2. Go to active users, and click the user you want to convert
3. Mail tab / More actions / Convert to shared mailbox
Note
Shared mailboxes let a group of people monitor and send mail from a common email address, like [email protected].
When you convert a user’s mailbox to a shared mailbox, all of the existing email and calendar items will be available to members of that mailbox.
User impact
Users won’t sign into a shared mailbox with a username and password, but people who are members of the mailbox can access it with Outlook.
4. Click convert
IMPORTANT NOTE
5. Microsoft’s interface doesn’t automatically release the license. You have to click on the user, and release it.
Click on the user. Click on the Licenses and apps tab. Untick the license.
6. Contact your licensing provider and make sure they have reduced your costs with Microsoft.
References
Learn how to use Shared Mailboxes in Outlook