How to set up the Extermal user's session timeout or force logout after a certain period of inactivity? I just saw the guide below, but I'm stuck on step 3. Set idle session duration in external user policyThe default setting for idle session duration is 30 days.To update idle session duration:Go to Atlassian Administration. Select your organization if you have more than one.Select Security, then select User security, and then select External users.Select Edit for the policy you want to modify.On the Settings page, select length of time for Idle session duration. After step 2, I cannot find Edit button, and just saw "Guard warning"Does this service need a charge after 30 days free trial?

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Setup the external users session timeout or force logout after a certain period of inactivity.

Setup the external users session timeout or force logout after a certain period of inactivity.

How to set up the Extermal user's session timeout or force logout after a certain period of inactivity?

Screenshot 2026-07-28 150154.png

I just saw the guide below, but I'm stuck on step 3.

Set idle session duration in external user policy

The default setting for idle session duration is 30 days.

To update idle session duration:

Go to Atlassian Administration. Select your organization if you have more than one.
Select Security, then select User security, and then select External users.
Select Edit for the policy you want to modify.
On the Settings page, select length of time for Idle session duration.

After step 2, I cannot find Edit button, and just saw "Guard warning"

Does this service need a charge after 30 days free trial?

3 answers

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Answer accepted

Hi @Aidan Chiu

This is a duplicate post from https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Jira-Service-Management/Setup-the-specified-users-session-timeout-or-force-logout-after/qaq-p/3267953

@Nikola Perisic FYI

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Yes, because I need to remark "External Users". Hence, I created a new post.

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Like • Arkadiusz Wroblewski likes this

Hi @Aidan Chiu

As in your other post, this still requires Atlassian Guard and this is paid subscription.

You can trails this, but this will become a paid option if you want to retain this and make use of session time out functionality.

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1 vote

Answer accepted

Hello @Aidan Chiu

You would need Atlassian guard for external users. You have a free trial for 30 days that you can use and after that, you will be needing to pay for it to use it. You won't be charged during the trial period.

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Hi Nikola,

Thanks for your fast response.

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Hi @Aidan Chiu , adding to what @Marc -Devoteam- and @Nikola Perisic correctly said about Guard being required, two things worth knowing before you decide on the cost:

You may not need to pay per external user. Guard lets you make the default external user policy non-billable: users in it do not count toward the Guard bill, and a non-billable policy still supports session expiration (15 minutes to 30 days), which is exactly the timeout you are after. You give up SSO enforcement, nothing else you asked about. I run this exact setup today with a few hundred external users, none of them billed. There is also an Add test policy option to trial settings on up to 5 users first.

One check before configuring: this policy only covers external users (people with their own Atlassian accounts outside your domains). If the people you want to log out are JSM portal-only customers, this page does not govern their portal sessions at all, so worth confirming which group you mean before any Guard spend is decided.

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Setup the external users session timeout or force logout after a certain period of inactivity.

Set idle session duration in external user policy

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