What is the difference between deleted vs disabled(inactive) users? cloud/server Jira

Yevhen Levchenko
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
February 16, 2023

This is a complex question, so please feel free to share your any considerations or proposals where I should look for any relevant/actual info.

CLOUD JIRA  = CJ
SERVER JIRA = SJ

User management features/ behaviour is under discussion.

1) What is the difference between CJ remove user and SJ delete user? From BA view and software point of view.

    - If we are looking for a deleted user by using CJ API, this user will be returned and we can get access to user Full name/mail/username. In a case of SJ API, it will resolve this user as NOT EXISTING user and everything that we can get this is user USERNAME. In short, for SJ deleted user will be hard deleted, for CJ user is still present.


2) What is the difference between removed/deleted CJ SJ user and inactive/disabled CJ SJ user? From BA view and software point of view.
   - CJ API and SJ can return info about users if they are disabled.

3) Who can make user disabled? or what makes user disabled?

4) What information SJ will store? in case   
      - user was disabled/deactivated
      - user was deleted


     What information CJ will store? in case 
         - user was disabled/deactivated
         - user was removed

1 answer

1 accepted

1 vote
Answer accepted
Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
Rising Star
Rising Star
Rising Stars are recognized for providing high-quality answers to other users. Rising Stars receive a certificate of achievement and are on the path to becoming Community Leaders.
February 16, 2023

Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

It is worth understanding the underlying Jira user structures here.

An account identifies a user to Jira.  Jira needs this for tracking what people do, who is assigned to what, who to email, who can do what in various places and so on.

To do this, it needs a user directory to work with (a list of users with some data about who they are, name, email, etc)

Various Jira systems do this in different ways.

 Directory Server/DC Cloud   
 Internal Y  Directory built into Jira
 External Y  AD, LDAP, Crowd, etc
 Atlassian ID N Y  The external account we are using to post here!
 Google Accounts Y  Mostly just a linked Atlassian ID
 External via Atlassian Access N Y AD, LDAP, Crowd, etc

So, you'll notice one immediate difference between Cloud and Server - Cloud does not hold it's own accounts.

Server/DC accounts are added to your system, they exist within it.

Cloud accounts are not added, they are granted access.

When you delete a Server/DC account, it's gone, you've destroyed it.  There's nothing for Jira to report on any more.  (which is why the standing advice is "do not delete" - it destroys your tracking information.

You can't delete Cloud accounts - they don't belong to Jira.  But you can remove their access.

Deactivate works roughly the same in both.  You put (or remove, I can't remember which without looking again at a Jira database) a flag on the account that says, "this account cannot use the system any more".  It does not destroy any data, and you can still report on it.

Martin Strak
I'm New Here
I'm New Here
Those new to the Atlassian Community have posted less than three times. Give them a warm welcome!
September 5, 2023

Hi Nic, I'm currently looking for official information on how user at-mentions and assignations react to the deactivation and deletion of cloud accounts. Then I bumped into your thread here.

 

And I need to add that via Atlassian Access you can delete entire cloud accounts. Of course, this only applies to managed accounts. Then it's gone. 

 

Do you have good sources I can send a customer for explaining the consequences in JS, JSM and CON when users are deactivated vs. deleted?

 

Thanks,

Martin

Suggest an answer

Log in or Sign up to answer