# Employee offboarding checklist that does not miss a step

> For the full documentation index, see https://250highstreet.com/llms.txt

> Build an employee offboarding checklist in SharePoint: one list of departures, one of tasks with owners and due dates, and a view of what is still open.

Build two linked SharePoint lists: Offboardings (one row per leaver) and Offboarding tasks (one row per task with owner, due date and Done). Start with 8 to 12 tasks such as return laptop, return badge and keys, hand over open work, and close shared accounts. IT does the real access removal.

## Sample task list

Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: use this as a starting set and let your HR lead change it. Each row is one task with an owner role and a due offset from the last day.

1.  Return laptop \| Owner: IT \| Due: last day
2.  Return badge and keys \| Owner: Facilities \| Due: last day
3.  Hand over open work \| Owner: Manager \| Due: 3 days before last day
4.  Close shared accounts \| Owner: IT \| Due: last day
5.  Update the team calendar \| Owner: Manager \| Due: last day
6.  Forward the mailbox or set an auto-reply \| Owner: IT \| Due: last day
7.  Remove from distribution lists \| Owner: IT \| Due: last day
8.  Exit conversation held \| Owner: HR \| Due: 2 days before last day
9.  Return company card \| Owner: Finance \| Due: last day
10. Confirm final paperwork with HR \| Owner: HR \| Due: 1 day after last day

The same steps as a flow: manager confirms the departure, you add a row to Offboardings, the task rows are added, each owner marks Done, the manager sets Status to 3 Complete.

## Why offboarding steps get missed

The steps are known. The trouble is that the steps live in different heads and different places. HR has a form. IT has a ticket. Facilities has a note on the manager's desk. Nobody sees the whole picture.

Signs that steps are being missed:

- The manager sends a long email on the last day, and not everyone on it replies.
- Equipment comes back late, or not at all.
- A badge, key or shared account is remembered later.
- Each departure uses a copy of an old checklist, and the copies drift apart.
- Nobody can answer "which departures still have open items?" without asking three people.

## Read this first

This guide is about a tracking list. It records who must do what and by when. It does not tell you what steps your organization must take, and it makes no claim about employment law, final pay, benefits, data retention or security rules. Follow your HR and IT policies, and ask your HR lead what belongs on your checklist. Items such as "remove access" are only wording on a to-do row. IT does the real removal, in the tools IT uses. This is not legal advice.

Decide these now. They are easy now and hard after 50 rows.

- Your standard task list. Start from the Sample task list above and ask your HR lead to change it to match your policies.
- Who owns each task. One way to start: each task has one owner from HR, IT or Facilities. A task with three owners has none.
- How you name a departure. To keep personal data out of the list, use the first name and the department only, such as "Sam, Finance". Do not put reasons, notes about the person, pay or health details in this list.
- Who can see the list. Views are not security (see Who can see and edit).

## The Offboardings list

This list is the parent. Think of it as a roster of departures, one row each. Exact names may differ on your screen.

Setup, in order:

1.  From your team site or the Lists app in Microsoft 365, start a new list from blank.
2.  Call it "Offboardings".
3.  Leave the built-in Title column as the row label. Fill it with a first name and department, such as "Test 1, Finance" when you test, so the Tasks list has something clear to point at. Renaming it "Departure" is fine.

Then add three columns:

- Last day, Date and time, date only. Microsoft says this type is used "to store calendar dates, or both dates and times."
- Manager, Person or Group. Microsoft says you can "limit the number of selections to only one option." Pick one.
- Status, Choice, with these values on separate lines: 1 Planned, 2 In progress, 3 Complete. Make 1 Planned the default.

Microsoft describes the Choice type this way: "Use this column field type to let people choose from a list of options that you provide."

## The Offboarding tasks list

Create a second blank list named "Offboarding tasks". Title holds the task, such as "Return laptop". Add these columns:

- Offboarding (type: Lookup). Pick the Offboardings list as the source and the Title column as the one to show. Microsoft says "Lookup columns should be created and used within the same site." Microsoft also lists which source columns a lookup can show, and a single line of text is one of them, so Title works. A Choice or Person column cannot be the one you show. If the column looks empty, see "[SharePoint lookup column shows blank or too few fields](/guides/sharepoint-lookup-column-not-showing/)".
- Owner (type: Person or Group). One person. This is the person who does the task, from HR, IT or Facilities.
- Due (type: Date and time, date only).
- Done (type: Choice). Choices: 1 No, 2 Yes. Set the default to 1 No.

Mark Offboarding, Owner and Due as required, so nobody adds a task with no owner or no date. Microsoft says "You must have Manage Lists permission on a list to create or modify delete relationships." If you have that permission, one way to start is to choose Restrict delete on the Offboarding column. Microsoft says this means "no items from the source list that appear on the target list can be deleted." A departure that still has tasks cannot be removed by mistake. Without Restrict delete, a related delete can remove the tasks too, so decide this on purpose.

## A test departure

Prove the two lists connect before real names go in. Add a throwaway pair of rows, then remove them.

Offboardings row

- Title: "Test 1, Finance"
- Last day: 14 days out
- Manager: yourself
- Status: 1 Planned

Offboarding tasks row

- Title: "Return laptop"
- Offboarding: pick "Test 1, Finance" from the lookup
- Owner: yourself
- Due: the same day as Last day
- Done: 1 No

Check that the lookup shows the title. Delete both rows when satisfied.

## Loading the standard tasks

Now add the real task rows. Every departure needs its own set. You have two ways:

1.  Add each row by hand. This is fine for a few departures a year.
2.  Keep the Sample task list in a short Excel file. Open Offboarding tasks in grid view (Edit in grid view) and paste the block of rows. Fill the Offboarding column with the departure's Title in each pasted row, and check one row to see that the lookup took.

Either way, set Due by working backward from the last day. One way to start: equipment and key returns are due on the last day, and handover tasks are due a few days before. Your HR lead may have its own rule for the timing, so ask.

## Views for each owner team

Microsoft says filtering lets you show only the items you want in a view. These views use only "is equal to" filters, so you can build them from the column header.

In Offboarding tasks:

- "Open by owner": Done is equal to 1 No. Group by Owner. Sort by Due, ascending. IT sees its own group, and so do HR and Facilities.
- "By departure": no filter. Group by Offboarding. This shows all tasks for each person.
- "Done": Done is equal to 2 Yes.

In Offboardings:

- "Active": Status is equal to 2 In progress. Sort by Last day, ascending.
- "Upcoming": Status is equal to 1 Planned. Sort by Last day, ascending.

Save these as public views where you can. A personal view shows up only for the person who made it.

## Late tasks

Late tasks are the whole point. Here are two ways, from simplest to a little more work.

Option A: a "Late" view. Microsoft says the \[Today\] keyword works on date columns, and also says: "You must use the classic view editor to filter columns using these keywords." Microsoft says it is "not possible to use the \[Today\] or \[Me\] filters when filtering using a column header." So build this view in the classic view editor: Edit current view, then Filters. Set Due is less than \[Today\] and Done is equal to 1 No. Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: set blank and "is not equal to" filters in the classic view editor too.

Option B: color the late rows. A calculated column cannot use today's date, because SharePoint blocks \[Today\] in formulas, so a "Late" calculated column would go stale. See "[Turn overdue rows red in a SharePoint list](/guides/highlight-overdue-rows-sharepoint-list/)" for color that updates when the list loads.

## Create the standard tasks automatically

This step is optional. Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: a Power Automate flow can start when an item is created in Offboardings and then add one row to Offboarding tasks for each standard task, with the departure filled into the Offboarding lookup and the due date set from Last day. Because the flow reads one list and writes to a different list, it does not trigger itself. Build it after the lists work on their own.

## Remove access takes time

Microsoft's Entra page on revoking user access names employee termination as a scenario that can require an admin to revoke all access, and says "In some scenarios, there could be a period between the initiation of access revocation and when access is effectively revoked." Microsoft says that for apps using access tokens, the user loses access when the access token expires, and that by default access tokens issued by Microsoft Entra ID last for 1 hour. So a Done on an access task means IT started the work, and your IT team should confirm the result.

## Reminders

A list does not nudge anyone. If owners forget, set up an automatic reminder that messages each owner before a task is due. See "[Send a reminder before a due date in a SharePoint list](/guides/send-reminder-before-due-date/)". Our advice, not a Microsoft rule: send one message per person. This step is optional. Start without it and add it once the list is in use.

## Who can see and edit

A saved view is a display choice, not a gate. Whoever can open the list can switch views and read every row, and a roster of departing staff is sensitive even when it holds first names only. Have your admin restrict who can open both lists. A view limited to the viewer's own rows is described in "[Let each person see only their own items in a SharePoint list](/guides/people-see-only-their-own-items-sharepoint-list/)", along with where that approach stops working.

## The first real departure

1.  When a departure is confirmed, add a row to Offboardings with Status 1 Planned.
2.  Add the standard tasks, each with an owner and a due date.
3.  Change Status to 2 In progress when the first task starts.
4.  Each owner opens "Open by owner", does their task and sets Done to 2 Yes.
5.  When every task for that departure shows 2 Yes in the "By departure" view, the manager sets Status to 3 Complete.
6.  Follow your HR and IT policies for how long to keep the row, and ask your HR lead. Do not delete it on your own.

## What to avoid

- Putting personal details in the list. Use a first name and department, and nothing else about the person.
- Tasks with no owner or no due date. Mark those columns required.
- Free text for status or done. Use Choice columns so you can filter and count, and keep the number prefixes.
- Treating a row that says "remove access" as the removal. It is a reminder only. IT does the real work.
- Relying on views to hide rows.
- Copying an old checklist file for each person. Use one task list.
- Treating this guide as legal advice, or as a list of what you must do.
- Building every step for every role at once. Start with one standard list.

## Honest limits

A list records that a task was done. It does not remove an account, take back a laptop or confirm that anything was returned. It depends on owners marking tasks. Your standard task list will need changes after the first few departures, so keep it short at first. You are building your own checklist. Start with one team for a few weeks, fix what is awkward, then add the rest.

Related guides: A person arriving is the subject of "[New hire onboarding checklist scattered? Build one trackable list](/guides/new-hire-onboarding-checklist-scattered/)". Pass or fail walk-throughs of a space sit in "[A safety inspection checklist in SharePoint](/guides/safety-inspection-checklist-sharepoint/)". Rooms, ratings and photos are in "[Property inspection checklist with photos and sign-off](/guides/property-inspection-checklist-sharepoint/)". The focus here is one departure at a time: a short task list, one owner per task, and a view for each owner team.

## When to get help

You can build all of this yourself in Microsoft 365. If you would rather have it built and tested for your team, I do that. A tracker like this is a fixed price: \$5,000 for one, built in 2 weeks. See "[What a SharePoint tracker costs to build](/guides/what-a-sharepoint-tracker-costs/)". Bring one example of the problem to a free call.

I am Al Davies. I run 250 High Street LLC and build SharePoint trackers and Power Automate flows for operations teams. I work remotely. The first call is free, and I will not try to sell you anything.

See trackers I built: [Tools I built](/portfolio/)

## FAQ

### Why two lists and not one?

One departure has several tasks, so separate rows give each task its own owner, due date and Done choice.

### Is there a sample offboarding checklist?

Yes, the Sample task list section above shows 10 tasks with an owner role and a due offset.

### Does marking a task Done remove someone's access?

No. The list is a record, and Microsoft's Entra page says there can be a period between starting revocation and access ending.

### What are the steps of the offboarding process?

Confirm the departure, add a row to Offboardings, add the task rows, let each owner mark Done, then set Status to 3 Complete.

### Is there a matching onboarding checklist?

See "[New hire onboarding checklist scattered? Build one trackable list](/guides/new-hire-onboarding-checklist-scattered/)".

## Sources

- [Microsoft Support, List and library column types and options](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/lists/data-and-lists/list-and-library-column-types-and-options)
- [Microsoft Support, Create list relationships by using lookup columns](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/lists/data-and-lists/create-list-relationships-by-using-lookup-columns)
- [Microsoft Support, Use filtering to modify a SharePoint view](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-filtering-to-modify-a-sharepoint-view-3d8efc52-0808-4731-8f9b-3dfaeacea3d4)
- [Microsoft Learn, Revoke user access in an emergency in Microsoft Entra ID](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/users/users-revoke-access)

## Related guides

- [New hire onboarding checklist scattered? Build one trackable list](/guides/new-hire-onboarding-checklist-scattered/)
- [Expense approval with a SharePoint list](/guides/expense-approval-sharepoint/)
- [Wedding planner client tracker in SharePoint](/guides/wedding-planner-client-tracker-sharepoint/)

Source: https://250highstreet.com/guides/employee-offboarding-checklist-sharepoint/