How can I provide access to a user after accidentally Denying them access previously?

Question

Hi,

We have a user that when I attempt to invite them to Jira/Confluence we receive this message

The user currently does not exist in our list of users.

What can we do to provide them with access?

Sequence of events.

* That user previously had access. 
* They lost their access due to inactivity (I think we suspended them)
* They requested access again. 
* In the recent past (not sure if before or after they requested access) I denied several access requests and cannot remember if this user was included. I am unable to find a log/list of this action.
* We deleted their account from our list of users.
* We send them an invite (failed as shown above)
* Waited 24 hours.
* We send them an invite (failed as shown above)
* Two different admins have tried.
* We cannot find the user listed anywhere in our system.

Trevan Householder_Isos-Tech-Consulting_ · Answer

Hi @Andrew Rusling, I'd bet the deletion is what's blocking you, not the denied request. @Sami Shaik and  @Arkadiusz Wroblewski are on the right track: deleting a managed account deactivates it for 14 days before it's gone for good, and deactivated accounts can't be invited.

If you're still in that window, an org admin can go to Directory > Users, filter Account type to Managed accounts, open the user and choose Cancel deletion. Access comes back right away. If the account syncs from an IdP, reactivate it there instead.

Is their email domain verified in your org? If not, it's the unmanaged route in this KB, where the user re-enables their own account.

Sami Shaik · Answer

@Andrew Rusling ,

@Arkadiusz Wroblewski KB is the right page for the “deactivated” case. Your sequence has one extra step that changes the picture: you deleted the account, and on Atlassian Cloud a deletion is not immediate.

What a delete actually does. Per Delete a managed account, the account is deactivated for 14 days first (“to comply with mandatory security and legal compliance requirements”; the page says the period “can’t be expedited”), and only then permanently deleted, at which point the name becomes “Former user” in products. During those 14 days the account is in exactly the state the KB describes as uninvitable, and it no longer appears in Users or Managed accounts, which matches “we cannot find the user listed anywhere”.

The fix inside the 14 days. An organization admin goes to Atlassian Administration, Directory, Users, sets the Account type filter to Managed accounts, finds the user and selects Cancel deletion. The page says access returns immediately. Then grant product access the normal way; no invite needed. This only works if the account is managed (your org has verified their email domain). If it is an unmanaged account, the user cancels it themselves by signing in at id.atlassian.com, as the KB’s third route describes.

After the 14 days. The old account is gone for good and a fresh invite to the same email should create a new account. If invites still fail at that point, the KB’s steps apply, and the message you are seeing (“does not exist in our list of users”) is not one of the strings the KB lists, so take a screenshot of it to Support with the deletion date.

On the denied access requests: I could not find a documented audit log activity for an access request being denied, so I will not claim one exists. A denied request does not deactivate or delete anything, so it is not what is blocking the invite; the deletion is.

Two admins trying, 24 hours apart, both inside the 14-day window, would see exactly what you saw. Check the Managed accounts filter first; it is a two-minute fix if the account is still there.

Arkadiusz Wroblewski · Answer

Hi @Andrew Rusling

Atlassian documents this exact invitation error:

https://support.atlassian.com/atlassian-cloud/kb/cannot-invite-to-atlassian-cloud-site-user-is-deactivated-or-disabled/

Removing someone from your directory doesn't necessarily deactivate their Atlassian account.

Check admin.atlassian.com → Directory → Managed accounts for the account's status.

Managed accounts require an organization admin to reactivate them; unmanaged accounts may be reactivated by their owners.

Best,

Arek🤠🧙‍♂️