The users that you define in CentraSite can be active or inactive. An active user has an associated user account on the external authentication system and is permitted to log on to CentraSite. Inactive users exist in the registry, but they are not permitted to log on to CentraSite. Additionally, permissions cannot be granted to inactive users nor can ownership of assets be given to them (inactive users retain ownership of objects that already belong to them).

Administrators generally deactivate users that leave the company or otherwise cease to be valid users of the registry. Inactive users are also useful for representing individuals who figure prominently in your SOA environment, but are not direct users of CentraSite. For example, you might create users to represent individual members of a key steering committee. Although these individuals might never use CentraSite, by including them in the registry as users, you enable assets and other objects to be associated with those individuals. Furthermore, if the user definitions for these individuals include email addresses, an administrator can develop policies that send email alerts to these individuals when significant events occur in the registry. Points-of-contact for external entities such as suppliers and distributors are other individuals that you might want to model as inactive users.