> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.harmony.io/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.harmony.io/ai-agents/employee-lifecycle/inactive-employees-agent.md).

# Inactive Employees Agent

The Inactive Employees agent monitors your workforce for employees who have gone inactive and surfaces them for review or action. By focusing on real, human users, the agent helps you maintain accurate records, reduce security risk, and keep your systems free of stale accounts.

This article explains how the Inactive Employees agent works and how to configure it to fit your organization's needs.

***

### What the Inactive Employees Agent Does

The Inactive Employees agent continuously scans your connected applications and directories for user accounts that have shown no activity within a defined period. When it detects an inactive employee, it can trigger notifications, kick off offboarding workflows, or flag the account for manual review - depending on how you configure it.

Common use cases include:

* Identifying employees who have left without a formal offboarding process
* Surfacing accounts that may pose a security risk due to prolonged inactivity
* Keeping your HR and IT systems in sync by catching stale records early

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### Excluding Service Accounts

By default, service accounts can appear in the agent's inactive user results alongside human employees. Because service accounts are often intentionally dormant for extended periods, this can create noise and cause your team to spend time triaging accounts that do not actually require action.

You can now configure the Inactive Employees agent to exclude service accounts entirely, so only real, human employees are surfaced.

#### How to Exclude Service Accounts

1. Open the **Inactive Employees** agent from the **Employee Lifecycle** section of your Harmony AI Agents workspace.
2. Navigate to the agent's **Configuration** settings.
3. Locate the **Excluded Account Types** option and enable **Service Accounts**.
4. Save your changes.

Once enabled, the agent will skip any account identified as a service account when evaluating inactivity, and those accounts will no longer appear in results or trigger any downstream actions.

#### Why This Matters

Excluding service accounts keeps your inactive employee results clean and actionable. Your team can focus on the people who may need follow-up - such as employees on extended leave, recently departed staff, or users whose accounts were never properly closed - without being distracted by accounts that are working as intended.

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### Agent Actions and Workflows

When the Inactive Employees agent identifies a qualifying user, it can perform the following actions based on your configuration:

* **Send a notification** - Alert an HR manager, IT administrator, or the employee's former manager.
* **Trigger an offboarding workflow** - Automatically start a lifecycle automation to revoke access, reassign assets, or update directory records.
* **Flag for manual review** - Add the user to a review queue so a team member can decide the appropriate next step.

You can combine these actions and set conditions to handle different scenarios differently - for example, sending a notification for accounts inactive for 30 days and triggering a full offboarding workflow for accounts inactive for 90 days.

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### Configuration Reference

| Setting                     | Description                                                                                            |
| --------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Inactivity Threshold**    | The number of days without activity before a user is considered inactive.                              |
| **Excluded Account Types**  | Account categories to ignore during inactivity checks. Enable **Service Accounts** to filter them out. |
| **Notification Recipients** | The people or groups who receive alerts when an inactive employee is detected.                         |
| **Triggered Workflow**      | The lifecycle automation to run when the inactivity threshold is met.                                  |
| **Review Queue**            | The queue where flagged accounts are sent for manual review.                                           |

***

### Best Practices

* **Set a realistic inactivity threshold** - A threshold that is too short may generate false positives for employees on planned leave. Consider aligning the threshold with your organization's leave policies.
* **Always exclude service accounts** - Unless you have a specific reason to monitor service account inactivity through this agent, enabling the exclusion reduces noise and improves the quality of your results.
* **Pair with an offboarding workflow** - The agent is most effective when connected to an automated offboarding workflow, so detected accounts can be acted on immediately without manual intervention.
* **Review results regularly** - Even with automation in place, periodically reviewing the agent's output helps you catch edge cases and refine your configuration over time.


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