Make sure projects stay on track when someone leaves
December 16, 2021
Required Access: Superusers
From time to time, someone may leave your organization, either temporarily (for example, a medical or parental leave) or permanently (if someone retires or changes jobs). As a Superuser, you can reassign their work in Borealis while they’re away to make sure nothing slips through the cracks.
Let’s look at some things you can do to manage long-term absences in Borealis. You may not need to use these tips right now, but make sure you keep them handy for the next time one of these situations arises!
Assign a Delegate
The delegate feature lets you select another user (or users) to manage a team member’s assignments until they return, or a replacement is hired. Delegates are also copied on the email notifications from Borealis for the original user. To learn more about delegates, check out this article.
Reassign their Responsibilities
When someone takes an extended leave, it’s a good idea to redistribute certain duties:
Assign a new (or interim) Relationship Manager
You may wish to temporarily reassign their stakeholders to a new relationship manager. To do this:
- Open the Individual registry and select “detailed view.”
- Filter the list to display only the stakeholders assigned to the absent employee.
- Select them all, and use the “Batch update” button to change the relationship manager in one step.
(Don’t forget that you can navigate from left to right in the registry by holding shift and using the scroll wheel on your mouse.)
Notify your Stakeholders
Depending on the length of the absence, you might want to notify your stakeholders of the change and introduce them to their new contact person. You can do this in a few different ways.
- Tasks and Activities
Create tasks to contact the relevant stakeholders in Borealis and assign them to the team members who should be in charge. (If the person who is absent managed a significant number of stakeholders, you may wish to create an activity instead. If you’re not sure which one to use, these tips will help you decide.) - Smart Communications
If you have the Smart Communications add-on, you can create a distribution list for the absent employee’s stakeholders and send a personalized email to each one.
Designate someone else to handle open Engagement Plans
It’s also a good idea to change the ‘responsible person’ for any active engagement plans just to be sure everything stays on track.
Batch upload emails to Borealis
If it's not already part of your standard practice, don’t forget that you can batch send the person’s emails to Borealis. This helps ensure that important information isn’t left in someone’s personal inbox where it is lost or inaccessible. And don’t worry, if some of those emails have already been sent to Borealis, the system will not create duplicate communications!
Deactivate the user in Borealis
If someone leaves your organization permanently, locking their account is an important step to prevent unauthorized access. It’s generally a good practice to deactivate a user instead of deleting their account to be sure their history remains available. This needs to be done manually; unless a Superuser deactivates a user, the account remains active. If your organization has implemented SAML authentication, the user will not be able to log in, even if their account is still active in Borealis.
Tip of the month
It’s a good practice to keep track of which people in your organization have worked with your stakeholders. As a Superuser, you can also activate a field called “Other Relationship Managers” to help monitor this. That way, when you need to assign a different contact person, you can look back at the engagement history to see if there are any existing connections. Maybe someone from your business worked with certain stakeholders in the past, but they have changed positions in your company. People tend to feel more comfortable opening up to those they’re familiar with. For that reason, your stakeholders may find it reassuring if you can assign them to someone they already know or have worked with before.