Deactivating users via groups or active checkbox

[Rutger S.]

Hi,

From JIRA 5.1, I read there is a new way of deactivating users.

Old method: remove user from group 'jira-users'. The person cannot log in anymore and doesn't count towards the license limit.

New method: uncheck user's 'Active' checkbox. Same (and some more) results. This can be read here: https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/Managing+Users#ManagingUsers-Deactivatingauser

From that page, the sentence about the license limit, is a reference to the global permissions page: https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/Managing+Global+Permissions

There, under the JIRA users group, you can also read that by not including someone in the group, the person cannot log in anymore and doesn't count towards the license limit.

So the question is: there seem to be two methods for reaching the same goal (not logging in, not counting towards license limit). Why is this, and when to use which method? Wouldn't it be smart to provide the 'active checkbox' info on the Global Permissions page too? Or am I missing something?

Cheers!

[StevenA · Accepted solution]

Hi Rutger,

The active checkbox would make it easier for admin to grant access for users to JIRA / Confluence. Because in some scenarios, the admin want some users to be able to access Confluence but NOT JIRA, some users can access BOTH applications and some users ONLY access JIRA.

Best Regards,

Steven

[StevenA]

Hi Rutger,

The Active Check box is where you grant application accesses for user to JIRA and/or Confluence. In summary, To deactivate a user you need to do BOTH followings:

1. Remove user from the Application Accesses (in order words, to remove user from Active Check Box).

2. Remove user from the group that is associated to JIRA-User global permissions (usually, it is users group).

You can see my previous feedback that explained why we need to do both steps to complete the deactivation process.

Best Regards

Steven

[Rutger S.]

Hi Steven,

Thanks again! I'll check it out as soon as we have the new JIRA version.

Best regards,

Rutger

[StevenA]

Hi Rutger,

Actually there is only one method, which is you must remove both application accesses and group subscriptions from user. Lets see this example:

You have purchased 10 user licenses. In your JIRA instance, you have 11 users:

-10 of them are subscribed to users group which associated with JIRA-Users global permission and they all granted application accesses to JIRA.

-The remaining 1 user does not have either JIRA application accesses OR belong to users group

Now, you want to remove 1 JIRA application access in order to give it to the remaining user. However, you did not remove the old user out of users group. Therefore, you still able to grant JIRA application accesses to new user but you will not be able to add him to users group as the license count limit has been reached.

So, the best advice is, everytime when a user is deactivated, he must be removed both from application accesses and the users group which has JIRA-Users global permission.

Best Regards

Steven

[Rutger S.]

Hi Steven,

Thanks for the explanation, I think what you explain is clear to me. However it seems you did not mention the 'active' checkbox which will be new to me. When to use that one? If seems to have the same function as being added (or not) to the jira-users group, i.e. being able to log in and count towards the user limit. It seems not very logical to have two methods to reach the same goal so I guess that's not a right conclusion. ;)

Otherwise, after installing the new JIRA v6, I'll try myself.

Regards,

Rutger