"Same access as last year's locum, but this one also needs the X-ray archive, and can they have the on-call rota?"

That is a complete-sounding request. It is not a complete instruction. The dangerous part is the word same: it hides the exclusions that were the whole point of last year's setup, and it treats a new permission as a small add-on.

Say you're the one-person office-systems helper at a small veterinary practice — this is a labelled hypothetical, not a client story. Twice a year a locum covers holidays. I build Maildoer, and follow-up emails like this one are why I care about the brief below. The brief itself is useful even if you never touch the tool: it is the page I would fill in by hand before cloning anyone's account.

Why "same as last year" is an incomplete instruction

Last year's locum note, if you still have it, usually contains three different kinds of fact:

  1. Standing exclusions — things no locum should get, such as the payroll folder, or full after-hours alarm rights.
  2. Last time's exceptions — a one-off that applied to that person only (a shared inbox for a particular consultant, a temporary ultrasound login).
  3. This year's additions — the X-ray archive, the on-call rota, a new lab portal.

If you copy last year's account and then add the new items, you may also copy a one-off that should have died with last year's locum. If you build a fresh account from the new email alone, you will drop the exclusions, because the new email never mentions them.

There is often a fourth problem: the new ask conflicts with a standing rule. "Can they have the on-call rota?" sounds reasonable until you look back and see that locums only receive the rota after their first day, once a named vet has walked them through the out-of-hours list.

The four-block locum access brief

Keep one short page per locum visit. Four blocks only:

LOCUM ACCESS BRIEF Practice: [name] Cover dates: [start] – [end] Person: [locum name] 1. STANDING EXCLUSIONS (do not copy these away) - Payroll / accounts folder: no - Full alarm set/unset rights: no (day-one set only, if needed) - Owner WhatsApp group: no 2. THIS LOCUM'S EXTRAS (new this visit, not assumed) - X-ray archive: requested - On-call rota: requested — see open question - Lab portal: not requested 3. SYSTEMS AND INBOXES IN SCOPE - Clinical system: yes, standard locum role - Shared "nurses" inbox: yes - Shared "accounts" inbox: no (see exclusions) - Last year's one-off: consultant inbox for Dr X — expired, do not recreate 4. OPEN QUESTION - On-call rota: last year's rule was "after day one, once a named vet has walked through the list." Grant now, or keep that rule?

The brief has one job: make "same" explicit before anyone presses Duplicate User.

A two-email walkthrough

Email 1, last summer (kept as the access note, not as a ticket comment that later gets buried):

Locum cover 4–15 August. Standard clinical login and the nurses inbox. No payroll folder. No full alarm rights — reception will set the alarm on day one if they stay late. No owner WhatsApp group. Do not give the on-call rota until a named vet has walked them through it on day one. They will not need the consultant inbox for Dr X after this fortnight.

Email 2, this autumn:

Same access as last year's locum, but this one also needs the X-ray archive, and can they have the on-call rota?

Email 2 is only safe if Email 1 is still in front of you. The exclusions and the expired consultant inbox live only in the first message. The rota question is not a yes; it is a conflict with a rule already written down.

Before any account is copied, the confirmation back to the practice manager should restate all of that, not just the new extras:

I'll set this up as last August: clinical login, nurses inbox, no payroll folder, no full alarm rights, no owner WhatsApp group, and I won't recreate the Dr X consultant inbox. New this time: X-ray archive. One question before I go further: last year the on-call rota was held back until day one, after a named vet had walked through the list. Do we keep that rule, or grant the rota from the first morning?

Do not grant the extras until the open question is answered. Adding the X-ray archive and the rota in the same step as cloning the account is how an exclusion disappears without anyone noticing.

Pitfalls I would watch for

  • Treating the newest email as the whole spec. "Also the X-ray archive" is an addition, not a replacement for the earlier note.
  • Cloning last year's account as a shortcut. You will revive expired one-offs (the consultant inbox) along with the useful access.
  • Silent yeses. "Can they have the on-call rota?" may already have a written answer from last year. Surface the conflict; don't resolve it quietly.
  • Leaving the brief in your head. If you are off, the next person will only see Email 2, and the exclusions will vanish.
  • Offboarding that only disables the login. When the locum leaves, tick the brief: extras revoked, shared-inbox membership removed, any temporary password notes destroyed. The brief is also the leaving checklist.

What I'd do differently next time

I would date every line in the exclusions block, so a two-year-old "no" can be reviewed rather than treated as law. I would also keep this brief as a living file in the same place as the earlier email, not as a comment on a closed ticket. And I would never use "Duplicate User" as the first action; I would fill the four blocks first, even if that feels slower than copying a known-good account.

Where a later email fits

The habit above stands on its own. Where Maildoer comes in: a later email from the same person is read together with their earlier ones, not as if it were the first. "Same access as last year's locum, but…" can be checked against the August exclusions and the rota rule, instead of starting from a blank account. They can also reply to a result and adjust it without restating the whole history. I don't claim it holds every message forever — only that a follow-up is not handled in isolation.

Want to test the brief above? Send the two emails (or a close stand-in) to do@maildoer.com. 100 credits come with your first email.

When you set up a temporary account, do you keep a written list of what last year's person was not allowed to see, or only a list of what they could do?