How to inactivate inactive users? Automation? Reminder e-mail?

We've seen and used different methodologies that are highly situation-dependent.

Most use a form of automation to remind people of their account renewal or send a "we miss you" reminder.
Sometimes internal processes determine the deactivation policy. Especially with gated communities, it is important to validate if a user is still working for the company whose domain is approved. This then ties into Email validation, where a user is additionally checked via email if it is still working there.

If the community is 100% transactional and self-service, we see a simple "mass delete after X years of no login activity". 

So, if you want to have a conversation, then YES, an automation campaign is used. If you are happy with self-service for the masses, then simple account deletes are the most common practice.

A little side note. Weeding out your community of dormant or dead accounts does impact your reporting ratios. For instance, the % of active users is measured against your total registered audience.

Thanks! I'll have a look into this. 

Hi Irene van der Zanden 

Just seeing this thread! Apologies for my formatting, pulling from some content I share with clients:

Great question — this comes up often, and there are a few common approaches depending on how strict you want your membership lifecycle to be.

Best Practices for Handling Inactive Users

1. Use a Scheduled Review Instead of Automatic Deactivation (Most Common)

Many communities avoid immediately disabling users automatically because:

• Some members return only seasonally or during specific projects.

• Auto-deactivation can cause confusion when users suddenly lose access.

Instead, admins often run a quarterly or annual audit using the “Last Login” report and manually deactivate accounts that clearly won’t return (e.g., departed employees, expired programs).

2. If You Want an Automation

Verint doesn’t deactive users out-of-the-box purely based on inactivity, but you can automate it using:

• Automation Rules (if enabled in your environment)
  You can trigger actions when a user hasn't logged in for X days.
  While you can’t directly deactivate accounts through a rule, you can:

  • Tag the user

  • Move them into a role (e.g., “Dormant User”)

  • Send them a nudge email

  Then an admin can periodically deactivate users in that role.

• External identity provider (IdP)
  If you use SSO, many organizations manage active/inactive status through their IdP (Azure AD, Okta, etc.). When a user leaves the organization, they lose access automatically.

3. Sending Reminder / Re-engagement Emails

Yes — this is a good practice.

Most communities send a reminder at:

• 30/60/90 Days

For Longer Term: 

• 6 months inactive

• 12 months inactive
  and then deactivate shortly after unless they return.

You can send the email through:

• Automation Rules (Send Email action)

• Campaigns / Email Services Through an external system like Marketo or HubSpot via user export

Typical message:

“We noticed you haven’t logged in for a while.
If you’d like to stay connected, just log in within the next 30 days.
Otherwise, your account may be deactivated as part of routine maintenance.”

4. Things to Consider Before Deactivating

• Deactivated users lose access to their private content.

• Their posts and comments remain but are no longer tied to an active profile.

• If your community is part of a company’s digital workplace, check HR/IT rules first.

Summary

Most communities don’t auto-deactivate — they nudge, review, or rely on SSO lifecycle.
But it’s absolutely possible to create a light automation process in Verint to support this.

Thanks Sara, very helpful!

Thanks Sara, very helpful!