Users pending suspension

6 min read Updated 4 November 2026

When a user is no longer found in your MIS import, they are flagged for suspension rather than suspended straight away. The dashboard shows these users in a Users pending suspension panel so you can review them — it's a scheduled administrative event, not an error.

The panel only appears on the dashboard while at least one user is pending; with nobody flagged it isn't shown. It is collapsed by default, showing the count and when the first is due; click the header to expand it. Once open you can search by name or username (in MAT overview, also by school) and page through a long list. In MAT overview the panel spans every school you administer, with the school shown per row. Selecting a person's name opens their edit page in a new tab.

When they're suspended

A flagged user is suspended automatically after a 24-hour grace period, at the next scheduled run (weekdays at 15:00). The list shows, per user:

when it will happen — both as a relative time ("in about 18 hours") and an approximate time ("around Tue 2 Jul, 15:00").

The time is shown as around / at the next scheduled run because suspension happens on a schedule, not at an exact minute.

The list shows exactly the users the scheduled job will suspend (flagged, and not already protected or suspended). Just before suspending each one that is linked to an MIS record, the run checks your MIS once more. Anyone it finds there after all has their flag cleared instead.

Realsmart only suspends when your MIS gives a clear answer. If your MIS can't be reached at 15:00, or answers with an error, nobody is suspended that day: the users stay on the list and the run tries again on the next weekday, so the date shown moves on. The automatic run also depends on your school's MIS connection (Wonde). At a school with no Wonde connection nobody is suspended automatically, so people stay on the list until you suspend them with Suspend now or clear the flag.

For what happens to the account after that — in Google, Microsoft and Active Directory, and when it's finally purged — see What happens to a leaver's account?.

Suspend a user immediately

Any admin can do this. To override the wait:

In the left sidebar, select Dashboard (in MAT overview, the MAT Dashboard).
Find Users pending suspension and select its header to expand it.
Find the user (use the search box if the list is long) and select Suspend now.
Confirm the dialog: "Suspend {username} now? This cuts their access immediately and pushes the suspension to connected platforms."

This suspends the user immediately — the same outcome as the scheduled run, just now: their status becomes Suspended, they're removed from groups, and the suspension is pushed to connected platforms (Google / Entra) on the priority queue. The user then drops off the pending list.

Track the platform outcome in the Logs area. The action is recorded against the user, attributed to you.

Suspend several — or everyone — at once

Expand the panel and use the checkboxes:

Tick individual users, or use Select all on this page. When more match than fit on one page, a banner offers Select all N matching — this selects every pending user across all pages (respecting any search you've typed).
Suspend selected (n) suspends just the ones you ticked. When you've selected everyone matching, the button becomes Suspend all now. It opens a dialog titled Suspend all N users now? that asks you to type SUSPEND to confirm before the Suspend N now button works — because it cuts access for the whole list at once. In MAT overview the confirmation tells you how many schools it spans; if a search is active, it confirms you're suspending only the users that match your search, not every pending user.

Suspension is immediate and pushed to connected platforms on the priority queue, exactly like Suspend now. The message reads "N users suspended — processing on the priority queue. Track results in Logs." If some can't be suspended (already suspended, protected, or changed since the page loaded) they're skipped and named in the result, for example "2 skipped (a.smith, b.jones — already suspended or protected)" — nothing fails silently. If none could be suspended you'll see "Nothing was suspended — the selected users are no longer pending (already suspended, protected, or outside your schools)." Suspended users can be made active again later from Users.

Any admin can use Suspend now, Suspend selected and Suspend all now, including admins with reduced access. A partial selection asks you to confirm ("Suspend N selected users now? This cuts their access immediately and pushes the suspensions to connected platforms."); Suspend all now needs the typed word.

Take someone off the list

If someone was flagged in error, you can clear the flag without suspending them: on the Users page tick them, then choose Status → Remove pending suspension. Their Status doesn't change. If they're still missing from your MIS the next import flags them again, so fix the cause as well — see Why does a user keep getting suspended?. Turning Smartsync off for them also takes them off the list and stops them being flagged again.

Troubleshooting: the list and its dates

The panel isn't on my dashboard. It only shows while someone is pending suspension. Check Users → Filters → User status → Pending suspension to be sure.
Someone is still on the list after the date shown. The run only suspends when your MIS gives a clear answer, so an MIS outage (or a school with no Wonde connection) leaves people pending. Check the Logs page for MIS errors, or suspend them yourself with Suspend now.
"This user can't be suspended." — they're already suspended, deleted or protected, or changed since the page loaded. Refresh the list.
"Select at least one user to suspend." — you used a bulk button with nothing ticked.

Troubleshooting: a user was suspended and I don't know why

Someone who is still at the school keeps being marked or suspended? The usual causes are a missing or shared UPN or staff code, or reactivating them while they're still missing from your MIS. See Why does a user keep getting suspended?.
Check Recent activity and Logs first, not the Admin audit trail. A suspension — whether triggered by Suspend now, a bulk suspend from this panel, or the scheduled job — is recorded in the Recent activity feed and the Logs area, attributed to the admin who did it (or told as a two-step story — "marked for suspension, then suspended by the end-of-term process" — when it happened automatically). The Admin audit trail is scoped to settings changes, not individual user actions like this, so it won't show the suspension itself.
Check whether they dropped out of the MIS import. This is the automatic path described above: a user no longer listed in your MIS is flagged pending, then suspended after the grace period at the next scheduled run. Recent activity shows this as the "marked for suspension, then suspended" story with both dates.
Check bulk-action history. If several users were suspended together, look in Logs/Recent activity for a bulk suspension entry — it names the acting admin and how many users were included.
Check the Admin audit trail for a setting change that could explain it indirectly — for example, if MIS sync was turned off and back on, or the provisioning window/final provision date changed, that can produce a wave of leavers. The audit trail records exactly who changed which setting and when.

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