Onboarding a replacement custodian, and what they inherit

When a records officer leaves, everything they were working on stays in Govflo. Their successor inherits the whole record rather than a handover document.

What transfers automatically

Nothing has to be copied. On any request they take over, the new owner sees:

• The full correspondence thread with the requester.
• Every internal note, with who wrote it and when.
• The documents, with their review statuses and any redaction already applied.
• The approvals and the decisions recorded on them.
• The complete activity log.

That is the point of working inside the product rather than alongside it. A request explains itself to whoever opens it next.

What does not transfer

Ownership. A request keeps its assignee until someone changes it. A request owned by a deactivated user is still assigned to them and will not appear in anyone else's queue, which is the quietest way to lose track of a live deadline.

Saved views. A view belongs to the person who made it. Send the successor the URL of the useful ones so they can save their own.

Reasoning that was never written down. The log records what happened. Only a note records why.

How to hand over

1. Go to Requests and filter the queue by Owner to see everything the departing officer holds.
2. Reassign each request, or change Team so the team's default assignee picks it up.
3. Check Approvals for anything waiting on their decision, and reroute it.
4. Only then deactivate their account under Settings, then User Management, then Users.

Deactivate rather than delete. Their name stays attached to what they did, which is what keeps the audit trail readable.

What to give the new officer

Their role, first. Access is granted by area, so check they can reach Requests, Documents, Requesters and Approvals as their job requires.

Then the filtered queue link from step 1. A link to "everything that was theirs, still open" is a better handover than any list of reference numbers, because it stays accurate as the work moves.

Ask the departing officer for notes, not a summary

The most valuable thing a leaver can do in their last week is write internal notes on their live requests explaining the reasoning behind anything non-obvious: why a search was scoped that way, why a document was treated as it was, what was agreed with the requester by phone.

A handover document goes stale and gets lost. A note on the request is read by whoever opens it, for as long as the request exists.