Hi everyone,

I have an application with a large number of external users. Many of these users access the application only occasionally, in some cases only once or twice a year.

I am considering implementing a user hibernation/inactivation mechanism for users who have not logged in for a defined period, for example, 30 days. One of the objectives is to reduce the active external-user count by making long-inactive users inactive, where permitted under the applicable OutSystems licensing model.

Our proposed approach is:

1. Identify users who have not logged in for more than 30 days.
2. Mark those users as Inactive in the OutSystems Users entity.
3. Maintain the required user/application information separately for historical and reactivation purposes.
4. When an inactive user attempts to log in, check whether the user exists in our inactive-user repository.
5. If the user is eligible, automatically reactivate the OutSystems user.
6. Allow the user to continue with the normal login process.

I would like to understand:

• Is this approach considered a good practice in OutSystems?
• Does marking an external user as Inactive reduce the active external-user count for licensing purposes?
• Are there any security, performance, or licensing considerations with frequently activating/deactivating external users?
• Would it be better to retain the user record in the OutSystems User entity and set Is_Active = False, rather than moving the user to another table?
• Are there any limitations when handling a large number of inactive external users?

The main objective is to avoid keeping long-inactive external users as active users throughout the year, particularly for applications where many users may only log in once a year, while still allowing them to regain access automatically when required.

I would appreciate feedback from anyone who has implemented a similar approach.

Thanks in advance.