This article provides information about moving a user from a guest account to a paid subscriber account for your company, from the user and administrator perspective.

[Note: Trial accounts are out of scope for this article. If you have a trial account, you will receive an email with information for moving to a paid subscriber account as the trial nears its expiration.]

As a user

You can be invited as a guest to IBM COnnections Cloud by a colleague who has information to share with you. If your company has an IBM Connections Cloud account, at some point you might want to transition to a subscriber account with your company, rather than accessing Connections Cloud as a guest. You can only have one active account for your email address at a time.

What a "Guest User" can and cannot do in IBM Connections Cloud

If you no longer need the guest account or any of the information within it, you can remove the guest account and its data. Alternately, you can work with your company administrator to transfer your guest account to a company account.

Remove guest account

WARNING: Using “Delete Account” deletes the guest account and all data associated with it (files, activities, etc.). This data cannot be recovered. Make a local copy of any data you need before deleting the guest account.

To remove your guest account, use the following steps:

1. Log in to IBM Connections Cloud
2. Click your avatar or picture (Right hand top Navigation), then select Account Settings > Delete Account

You are immediately logged out from the server, and your account is deleted. An email confirmation of the deletion is sent to your email address.
Once the guest account is deleted, you will be able to use the same email address with your company's Connections Cloud account. Follow your company's procedure for requesting an account.

As an administrator

As your company's administrator for Connections Cloud, from time to time, you may be asked to convert someone in your organization who currently has a guest account to a subscriber account with your company. Or when adding a user account, you might see a message such as “This user (user name) already has an existing account.” While this error can occur for multiple reasons, one cause is an existing guest account using that email address.

Before submitting a request to convert a guest account user to your organization, be aware of the following:

• The request to IBM Connections Cloud Support to move a guest account into an organization or company account must be submitted by a company administrator.
• Make sure adequate seats or subscriptions exist for the new user.
• Plan for preserving the user's data from the guest account, if needed.
  The type of account or subscription to be added for the new user determines what, if any, data can be transferred from the guest account to an organization account. Some account types allow for data transfer, other types do not; when you submit a request, the Connections Cloud Support team will inform you of the data transfer options. Make sure the user is aware that data cannot be transferred in all cases and that the user has a copy of any important data before the account is converted.

Options for converting to a company account:

• Ask the user to follow steps above to delete his or her guest account. Then proceed with adding a new user (Administration > Manage Organization > User Accounts > Add User Account).
• Or, submit a request to IBM Connections Cloud Support to convert this user from guest to subscriber. Information to include in the request:
  • From the Administration panel > Organization Account Settings link:
    • Organization name
    • Customer ID
    • Tip: Take a screen capture of this information to include in your request
  • Administrator name:
  • Administrator email address:
  • Administrator phone number:
  • Email address of user (user ID) to convert from guest to subscriber: