Deactivated vs Suspended User

[Lori Milam]

I'm trying to understand the difference between deactivated and suspended users. I'm trying to do some analysis on the users of our cloud instance to make sure we aren't using up more licenses than we need to.

[Utkarsh Singh · Accepted solution]

Hi @Lori Milam

Deactivation can be done only for managed users. Once managed users are disabled, they won't be able to log in and won't be able to access any site. They are also not counted for billing.

Suspend operation can be performed for both managed and unmanaged users. Once a user is suspended, they can't access the site from which they were suspended but can log in and access other sites. The suspended users aren't counted for billing.

I hope that helps. :) 

[Lori Milam]

Yes, that helps a great deal. Thank you.

[Chris H]

Hi @Lori Milam 

Id like to add on to @Utkarsh Singh 's answer that a benefit of a managed account is that any existing content or data associated with that account can be retained after the account is deactivated (employee leaves the company but you want to retain pages and spaces they have created)

I am assuming you can change ownership of these spaces/pages to a new owner to retain the content if you decide to delete the account at a later point. 

[Gary Spross]

If you're in Cloud, you'll need to convince Atlassian support to help you perform any sort of content re-mapping.

[Ajay Jain]

@UTKARSH I was the owner of my space on a free plan. All of a sudden my account is suspended and now I cannot access the space myself and no other users can access either. How can we recover the access. I get this page when I go to it:

[Dan Breyen · Accepted solution]

Hi Lori, nice profile image!  I found this community article which should answer your question.  Deactivated vs Suspended. 

It's my understanding that deactivated is removed, but suspended is still there, but doesn't have access to anything. 

Hope that helps

[Lori Milam]

Hi Dan, thank you. I'm notorious at work for my Mt Dew obsession. Thus the profile. Anyway, thanks for the link I will check it out.

[Utkarsh Singh]

Hi @Dan Breyen Hope you are doing well.

Deactivated doesn't mean removed. Please refer to my comment below. 

[Collin Lemons]

None of this appears to be wholly accurate.

Utkarsh Singh says, "...Once a user is suspended, they can't access the site from which they were suspended but can log in and access other sites..." but when I look at a suspended user in my org it says "<User Name's> access has been suspended. This means they can no longer access any of the products in your organization."

I found this (https://support.atlassian.com/user-management/docs/remove-or-suspend-a-user/) (My instance is on centralized management) but it doesn't include any info about deactivation. I found this (https://support.atlassian.com/user-management/docs/deactivate-a-managed-account/) about deactivating managed accounts, but it doesn't explain the difference with suspending other users.

I also do not understand why, if there is a section specifically for managed accounts, that managed accounts are still listed on the Users page, or why there is no option on the Users page to view non-managed accounts only. Also, I have managed accounts that are suspended instead of deactivated, but when I look at active managed accounts, I can't find an option to suspend. 

Is there seriously not a page on Atlassian's site specifically explaining this? One of the department managers is asking, and telling them Atlassian doesn't seem to know will probably not go over well.

[Ed Letifov _TechTime - New Zealand_]

@Collin Lemons 

If a human left your company – deactivate them.

A deactivated users = ex-employee. This will retain all references to their name (e.g., as a Confluence page author) but will stop this email address from being used anywhere in Atlassian systems. A similar logic extends to non-human/bot accounts.

If you need to stop someone from using products in your Atlassian Cloud organisation (this doesn't have to map 1:1 to your real world company – could be bigger, could be smaller, could be multiple Cloud orgs) on all of your sites (under centralised management) – you suspend them. This will still allow this email to be used in other places e.g. someone else's site or this very Community.

In the old user management there is really no such thing as "suspend" – the equivalent will be removing (or revoking) access to a site, which will have to be done per site. You can also remove the user from the site – the difference is whether you want to keep the record on the site for future use or not.

[Collin Lemons]

I would love to, but I don't appear to have the option to suspend managed accounts, even though I have hundreds of managed accounts that are currently suspended. 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯