Documentation

Installing

Install from the Atlassian Marketplace listing, or from Settings → Apps → Find new apps inside Jira. You need Jira site admin permission.

At install, Atlassian shows the permissions requested. Instance Ledger asks for read:jira-user, read:jira-work and storage:app. All are read-only. The app cannot modify your instance.

Once installed, find it under Settings → Apps → Instance Ledger in the left sidebar. It is visible only to administrators.

Your first scan

The app schedules a weekly scan automatically, but the first one will not have run when you open the page. Click Run scan now to trigger it immediately.

Scan duration depends on how many issues have been updated inside your activity window. A few seconds on a small site; several minutes on a large one. You can close the page while it runs.

Settings

Cost per user per month

Defaults to $8.60, roughly Jira Cloud Standard. Change it to whatever you actually pay — check your Atlassian invoice, divide by seat count, and enter that. Every currency figure in the app derives from this number, so an inaccurate value here makes the whole report wrong.

Dormancy threshold

How many days without activity before a user is considered dormant. Default 90. Raise it if your organisation has genuine seasonal or project-cycle users who go quiet for months.

Activity window

How far back each scan looks. Default 180 days. A longer window gives more precise dormancy figures but makes scans slower and more expensive. The window must always be longer than your dormancy threshold, or every user beyond the window looks dormant regardless.

Window changes take effect from the next scan onwards, not retroactively.

Reading the report

Annual cost of dormant seats is dormant user count × cost per user × 12. It is what you would stop paying if every dormant seat were reclaimed at your next renewal. Treat it as an upper bound for a conversation, not a committed saving — some of those people will turn out to need their access.

Deactivated but licensed lists accounts already deactivated in Atlassian that still hold a seat. This is usually the safest place to start, because nobody objects to reclaiming a seat from an account that is already switched off.

Days since shows time since last recorded activity. A user with no activity anywhere in the window shows as "180+ days" rather than a precise figure, because the app genuinely cannot see further back than the window allows.

How activity is measured

A user counts as active on a given date if, on that date, they created an issue, commented on one, or appear as the author of a changelog entry — which covers transitions, field edits and assignment changes.

This means someone who only reads boards, views dashboards or browses Confluence will appear dormant in Jira. For a licence review that is arguably the correct signal: a seat that only ever reads is still a seat you are paying for. But it is a judgement call, and you should know the app is making it.

Accounts of type app (Marketplace apps, integrations, bots) and customer (Jira Service Management portal users) are excluded from dormancy reporting entirely. They do not consume product licences and must never be deactivated on the strength of this report.

Known limits

• Data security policies. If your organisation uses Atlassian data security policies that restrict app access to certain projects, the app cannot see activity in those projects. Users active only there may appear dormant. The scan summary flags when this may apply.
• Email visibility. Email addresses hidden by a user's own Atlassian profile privacy settings are not visible to the app and display as a dash.
• Window bound. Dormancy longer than the activity window is reported as "window+", never as a precise number.

Troubleshooting

The page says no scan has run

Click Run scan now. The weekly schedule fires at a time Atlassian chooses, so a fresh install will not have data until you trigger it or wait out the first cycle.

Everyone appears dormant

Almost always the activity window is shorter than the dormancy threshold. Set the window to at least twice the threshold.

The cost figure looks wrong

Check the cost per user setting against your actual Atlassian invoice. The default is a generic Standard-tier estimate and will not match Premium, Enterprise or discounted agreements.

A user I know is active shows as dormant

They may be working only in projects restricted by a data security policy, or working only in Confluence, or genuinely only reading rather than editing. Check their Jira issue history directly to confirm before acting.