Validity, renewal and expiry of user accounts

You can renew your account via the MyAccount service.

You can accept the new terms of use electronically via the online tool mentioned above or when activating a new account.

If your user account has already expired, you can still renew it via the MyAccount service, provided that your contractual obligations are in order.

The validity period of the student user account will be extended automatically if the student

• has accepted the new terms of use (available on the helsinki.fi website).
• has registered for attendance at the university
• has used their user account in the last six months

Student user accounts are valid for a term or for the academic year, depending on attendance.

• For those registered for attendance for the whole academic year or for the spring term, user accounts are valid until September 30.
• For those registered for attendance for the autumn term, user accounts are valid until January 31.

Graduating in the middle of the semester does not end the validity of the user account. Your account will remain active for five (5) months after graduation. Note! Open University accounts are only active for the duration of the course.

Minor subject students and Open University students can extend the validity of their user accounts in the MyAccount service. The user account is valid for the duration of your study right, but for a maximum of one year at a time.

See the Studies service for more detailed instructions on registering for non-attendance.

Staff user accounts are valid for the maximum of one and a half years at a time.

For temporary staff members, the user account validity period is linked to the duration of their employment relationship. User accounts for temporary employees will expire 14 days after the end of the employment relationship. However, user accounts can still only be valid for the maximum of one and a half years at a time.

The validity period of the staff user account will be extended automatically if the staff member

• has accepted the new terms of use electronically
• is currently employed by the university
• has used their user account in the last six months

The validity periods of user accounts are extended according to the employment relationship information available in the university’s HR system.

The automatic renewal of user accounts applies only to standard staff accounts. Special staff accounts (e.g. group accounts and administrator accounts) are not renewed automatically, so the users must request their renewal from IT Helpdesk.

The University has many kinds of agreements, such as for grants, visiting researchers, professors emeriti, etc. The user account will be automatically renewed according to the agreement. The account expires on the agreement’s expiry date.

External user accounts are extended via the Kamu service. 

Read more about the Kamu service in the separate instructions. 

Notifications about an expiring user account will be sent by e-mail two months, a month, two weeks and a week before the expiry date. The notifications are sent based on the information available in the university’s user account database.

You can check your personal information in the MyAccount service.

The user accounts whose validity period has not been extended by the expiration date will expire automatically. After this, all e-mails sent to the user will be returned to the sender with an attached error notification. The user’s personal website will also no longer be available.

Users may regain access to a deactivated user account and its files within one year of the account's expiration. Reactivation requires students to be enrolled and staff to have a valid employment contract. The account can be reactivated via the MyAccount service.

At the termination of employment or studies at the University, Office goes into the reduced functionality mode, which enables viewing and printing of documents. The user cannot edit documents or create new documents.

If you have taken a break from your studies or work and are returning, here is a checklist for your return:

• Reset any expired passwords in the MyAccount service.
  See also the separate instructions for resetting your password.
• Students must register for attendance.
  See more detailed instructions in the Studies service.
• You can check your user account details (e.g. validity of the user account) in the MyAccount service.

The simplest way to copy the files in your home folder is to put them on a flash drive or disk at a computer facility workstation or a laptop from Laptop Lender.

You can also access the files in the home folder by using a VPN connection and linking your home folder to your own computer.

• Instructions for forming a VPN connection

You should announce your new e-mail address to those who need it well in advance before the university e-mail address expires. After this, you can direct messages arriving to the university address to the new address for the last few weeks. There you can track who is still using the university address and notify them of the new address separately. 

Personnel should also take notice of the rules concerning official e-mail when forwarding their messages (in Flamma, requires login).

You should save the messages that have accumulated during your time at the University before the user account expires, as there is no way to read the mail after expiry.

Staff members may only save emails related to personal matters: forwarding work emails to an external email address is prohibited.

A: Transferring e-mail messages to another address

If you want to transfer your university e-mail messages to another e-mail account so that they can be read as normally, create an account in an e-mail software (such as Outlook) for both the University's mail and the other e-mail address (such as Gmail). When both accounts have been created, copy the messages on the University e-mail server to a folder on the other e-mail account.

• Creating an account in Outlook

B: Transferring e-mail messages to your own computer

If you have a personal computer available, install an e-mail software (such as Outlook) on the computer and create an account for the University's mail. After this, copy the messages into the program's local folders. This way, the messages will be safe on the computer's hard drive and can be easily browsed using the e-mail software.

When you graduate from the University of Helsinki or stop working there, you also lose your right to use the helsinki.fi e-mail address.

You can replace it with an alumni e-mail address in format firstname.lastname@alumni.helsinki.fi. Please note that the alumni e-mail address is just a forwarding address. It does not contain a mailbox, and your old e-mails are not moved to it automatically.

• Get your alumni email address from the university’s Alumni website.

See also the checklist for departing employees (on Flamma, requires login). 

At the termination of employment or studies at the University, Office goes into the reduced functionality mode, which enables viewing and printing of documents. The user cannot edit documents or create new documents.