How to automatically assign a Google Workspace archived user license

Quick summary: When an employee leaves, their Google Workspace license keeps costing you money, unless you take action. BetterCloud lets you automatically archive departing users and assign them a Google Archived User (AU) license as part of your offboarding workflow, stopping the billing clock and preserving their data in Google Vault. This post walks through why it matters, how to set it up, and what compliance requirements it helps you meet.

Every time an employee leaves your organization, a clock starts ticking. If you don’t act fast, you’re still paying for their Google Workspace license, even though they can’t and shouldn’t be using it. For companies managing dozens or hundreds of departing users per year, those lingering licenses add up fast.

Google offers a cost-effective solution: the Archived User (AU) license. AU licenses let you maintain a departed user’s data securely in Google Vault, block their access to Google Workspace services, and pay a fraction of what a full license costs.

The problem is that manually assigning AU licenses during offboarding is easy to forget, especially under the pressure of a tight offboarding window. That’s where BetterCloud comes in. With BetterCloud’s “Archive User” workflow action, you can automatically assign an AU license the moment an employee is offboarded, no manual steps, no missed licenses, and no wasted spend.

How to set up the archive user action in BetterCloud

Setting up automatic AU license assignment takes just a few minutes inside BetterCloud. Here’s how to do it:

Step 1: Navigate to workflows

Log in to BetterCloud and open the Workflows section from the left navigation menu. This is where you build and manage automation rules for user lifecycle events.

Step 2: Open your offboarding workflow (or create one)

Select the offboarding workflow you want to add the archive action to, or create a new one. If you’re starting from scratch, name it something like “Employee Offboarding – Google Workspace.”

Step 3: Add the “Archive User” action

Inside the workflow builder, click to add a new action. Search for or select “Archive User” from the list of available actions. This action will automatically assign the departed user an Archived User license in Google Workspace.

Step 4: Configure your trigger conditions

Define when this workflow should fire. Common trigger options include:

• A departure event from your HR system (Workday, BambooHR, Rippling, etc.) via a native integration
• A user being removed from an active employee group or OU in Google Workspace
• A manual trigger initiated by an IT admin at the time of offboarding

For fully automated offboarding, connecting BetterCloud to your HR system as the trigger source is the most reliable approach, the moment HR marks someone as departed, the workflow fires.

Step 5: Position the Archive User action correctly in the workflow sequence

Order matters. The Archive User action should typically run after other critical steps, like transferring Drive files to a manager or exporting calendar data,  but before any steps that permanently delete data. A good sequence looks like:

1. Transfer Google Drive files to manager
2. Forward email to manager or shared inbox
3. Remove from distribution lists and shared drives
4. Revoke third-party app access
5. Archive User (assign AU license)
6. Remove from Google Groups
7. (Optional, after retention period) Delete user permanently

Step 6: Save and activate the workflow

Review the full workflow, confirm the Archive User action is in the right position, and activate it. BetterCloud will now handle AU license assignment automatically every time the trigger condition is met, no manual steps required.

Pro tip: Pair the Archive User action with other offboarding steps, like revoking third-party app access, transferring Drive files to a manager, and removing the user from distribution lists, to build a fully automated offboarding workflow in a single run.

Why automating AU license assignment matters

For organizations in regulated industries, employee offboarding isn’t just an IT task, it’s a compliance obligation. Many regulatory frameworks require companies to retain employee data for a defined period after their departure, even after they’ve left the organization.

When it does, the consequences are real:

• Unused full licenses accumulate on your bill
• Former employee accounts sit active and accessible
• Data that should be archived gets left in limbo
• Compliance timelines for data retention start from the wrong date or not at all

Here’s how AU licenses help across common compliance frameworks:

HIPAA (Healthcare)

Healthcare organizations must retain certain patient-related communications and records, including those created by former employees. AU licenses ensure that a departed employee’s Google Workspace data, including emails that may contain covered health information, remains accessible in Google Vault for auditing and legal holds.

SOX (Financial Services & Public Companies)

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires publicly traded companies to retain financial records and communications for a minimum of seven years. AU licenses let finance and accounting teams retain former employee email history in Vault without maintaining expensive full licenses.

FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority)

Broker-dealers and financial advisors subject to FINRA rules must retain business-related electronic communications. AU licenses keep those records intact and auditable after a registered representative leaves the firm.

FERPA (Education)

Educational institutions handling student data have their own retention requirements under FERPA. AU licenses can help schools and universities maintain former employee communications that may be relevant to student records disputes or audits.

The bottom line: automating AU license assignment isn’t just about saving money, for regulated organizations, it’s a critical step in ensuring that offboarding doesn’t create compliance gaps. With BetterCloud, this step happens automatically every time an employee departs, with no risk of it being forgotten.

Want to see how BetterCloud can automate your full offboarding workflow, not just AU license assignment? Request a demo or explore the offboarding automation use case.