External user accounts are the accounts your customers, members or end-users sign in with — distinct from internal staff accounts. ActiveManage keeps the two populations cleanly separated so that customer features (self-service registration, simplified profile pages, public-facing branding) don't leak into the staff experience.
How External Accounts Differ
- Different sign-in page: External users hit a public-friendly login URL (e.g.
/login) while staff use/staff-login. The two pages can have entirely different branding. - Different security groups: External users default to a customer-oriented group with no admin permissions.
- Self-service registration: External users can typically sign themselves up; staff are created by administrators.
- Different password policies: External password rules can be more lenient (e.g. 8 characters minimum) than internal (e.g. 14 characters + complexity).
Where External Accounts Are Stored
Both internal and external accounts live in the .users table. A flag distinguishes them, and you can also use the scope column to segment customer accounts by tenant or organisation.
Example Configurations
- Marketplace: Two roles inside external — Buyer and Seller. Buyers register freely; Sellers go through an application flow.
- Membership site: External accounts are tied to subscription packages. Login is gated by an active subscription check.
- Healthcare portal: Patients are external; clinicians are internal. Different identity providers (email/password for patients, Azure AD for clinicians).
- B2B SaaS: Customer organisations have their own scoped external user lists. One client's users cannot see another's.
Note: Promoting an external user to internal staff is a deliberate manual step. The platform refuses to merge accounts automatically because permissions could be elevated unintentionally.