---
title: "Organization Users — Active and Inactive Accounts"
description: "Why a user in the Organization Users list shows Inactive, what an inactive account can and cannot do, and how to reactivate it."
date: 2026-10-25
lastModified: 2026-10-26
category: "admin"
author: "Dr. Umesh Bilagi"
beta: false
---

## Overview

Every user account in NICE HMS is either **Active** or **Inactive**. The **Organization Users** table — and the admin **All Users** table — shows this as a green *Active* or red *Inactive* badge.

**Inactive is a stored setting on the user account.** NICE HMS never switches an account to Inactive on its own: there is no expiry, no inactivity timer, no bulk deactivation, and no change to user status when a subscription is renewed or expires. An account shows Inactive only because someone created it that way or set it that way later.

## Where the status is shown

| Where | Who sees it | What it shows |
|-------|-------------|---------------|
| **Admin → Users** (All Users) | Hospital admin | Every user, with an **Is Active** column; click the user's **ID** to open **Edit User** |
| **Reseller → My Organizations → organization ID** | Reseller | The **Organization Users** table with an **Is Active** column |

The reseller view is **read-only**: a reseller can see whether each user is active but cannot change it. Only the hospital's admin account can change a user's status. See [Reseller Panel](/docs/reseller-panel) for the table layout.

## Changing a user's status (hospital admin)

1. Log in as an **admin**.
2. Go to **Admin → Users** and locate the user.
3. Click the user's **ID** to open **Edit User**.
4. Set **Is Active** to **True** (active) or **False** (inactive) and submit the form.

The edit form and the list use different words for the same value: the form offers *Is Active — True / False*, while the list displays *Active / Inactive*.

## What an inactive account can and cannot do

| | Active | Inactive |
|---|--------|----------|
| Sign in | Yes | **No** |
| Reset its own password | Yes | **No** |
| Count toward the plan's user limit | Yes | **No** |
| Keep its clinical history and audit trail | Yes | Yes — the account is not deleted |
| Appear in doctor dropdowns and on printed documents | If a doctor profile is attached | Still appears if a doctor profile is attached |

An inactive user cannot sign in or reset their password because both flows look up **active** accounts only. This produces misleading messages rather than a clear "account is inactive":

- **Sign in:** *"Invalid user Name and/or password"*
- **Forgot Password:** *"This email not found"*

If a user reports either message, check their **Is Active** status first — reactivate the account and then have them use Forgot Password.

There is no **Delete** option on the Users screen. Deactivating is the correct way to retire an account: it removes the subscription seat and blocks access while preserving every record the user created.

## Why a user shows Inactive

There are exactly two ways an account becomes Inactive:

1. **It was created inactive.** On a paid plan, an admin can create a user with **Is Active** set to **False**. (The Free plan cannot create inactive users — *"Only Paid plans can create inactive users"*.)
2. **An admin set it inactive later** through **Edit User**.

A frequent — and intentional — use of case 1 is the **visiting doctor**: the user account stays Inactive so the consultant cannot log in and does not consume a seat, while the attached doctor profile still appears in all clinical lists. See [Creating Doctors](/docs/creating-doctors).

## Why you cannot set a user Inactive

NICE HMS blocks deactivation in three situations:

| Block | Message | Why |
|-------|---------|-----|
| **Last admin** | *"Your organization has only one admin so he can not be set as inactive"* | Every organization must keep at least one active admin. The same guard also blocks demoting the last admin to another role. Create a second admin first. |
| **Currently working employee** | *"This user is a currently working employee, so 'isActive' must remain true."* | The user is linked to an HR employee record whose status counts as working — Active, Still Not Joined, Waiting to Leave, or Suspended. Change the HR status to a non-working one (for example Resigned or Terminated) before deactivating the account. |
| **Changing a doctor's role to Visitor** | *"This user Id is associated with Doctor so role cannot be visitors"* | A user with a doctor profile cannot be given the Visitor role. This is a role restriction, not a status one — the account can still be made Inactive. |

## Why you cannot reactivate a user

Reactivating an account adds a billable seat, so the plan limit is checked:

- **Below 20 users / 50 beds:** reactivating a non-visitor role fails when the active user count has already reached the plan's user count — *"Upgrade your pricng plan as you have hit active max user limit"*. Visitors are counted against a larger allowance of `users × 2.5` and fail with *"…max user limit Even for Visitor has been exceeded"*.
- **At 20 users / 50 beds and above:** the user limit is lifted, so reactivation is never blocked by the plan.

To make room, upgrade the plan, add extra users, or deactivate another account first. See [Beds, Users & Plan Limits](/docs/beds-and-users-policy).

## Effect on billing

An inactive account does not consume a seat, and only active accounts are counted for the plan limit. Renewal at a smaller user count therefore requires inactivating unwanted users first — the renewal is rejected while the active user count exceeds the new plan size. See [Beds, Users & Plan Limits](/docs/beds-and-users-policy) for the downsizing rules.

## FAQ

**Q: Nobody deactivated this user — why is it Inactive?**
A: The account was created with **Is Active = False** or was set inactive through **Edit User**. NICE HMS has no automatic deactivation, so no other cause is possible. Check the account's creation when investigating; visiting doctors are the most common intentional case.

**Q: Does an inactive user still appear in the system?**
A: Yes. The account, its history and any doctor profile remain. A visiting doctor's profile still appears in OPD registration, prescription and discharge-summary screens even though the user cannot log in.

**Q: Can an inactive user be deleted?**
A: No. The Users screen has no delete action; deactivating preserves the records the user created.

**Q: Can a reseller activate or deactivate a hospital's users?**
A: No. The reseller's Organization Users table is read-only. The hospital's admin must change the status from **Admin → Users**.

**Q: The user was reactivated but still cannot log in.**
A: Ask them to use **Forgot Password** after reactivation. While the account was inactive, the password-reset request would have failed with *"This email not found"*, so they may not have a working password.