Understanding demo and deactivated connected accounts

What it is

Two settings on a connected account change how your platform account tracks it, not how the account is built. If you're new to connected accounts, start with 📄 Understanding connected accounts.

• A demo account is a connected account with Demo Account turned on. It's meant for trials, sales demos, and proofs of concept. The flag labels the account and counts it toward your demo limit. It doesn't change what the account can do.

• A deactivated connected account can't onboard anyone in live mode. Its data stays where it is, and you can reactivate it at any time.

If you remember nothing else: demo is a label with a limit, deactivation pauses live onboarding, and neither one deletes data.

Why it matters

As your platform account grows, the connected accounts list fills with more than paying customers: trials, sales environments, and customers who have left. Demo and deactivation keep those apart from your active customers, and they stop an expired or churned account from sending candidates through onboarding.

This matters most when:

• Your sales or solutions team sets up accounts for prospects.

• A trial ends, or a customer churns or stops paying, and onboarding there needs to stop.

• You reach the demo limit and need to know what frees up a slot.

How it works

Demo accounts

You set Demo Account on the connected account form, either when you create the account with New Connected Account or later from Edit account. Your integration can set it through the API with is_demo on POST /api/v1/connected_organizations or PATCH /api/v1/connected_organizations/{uid}.

A demo account runs the same product as every other account. It receives distributed forms, policies, and automations the same way, and it has its own live and test sides like any connected account. Marking an account as demo doesn't switch anything into test mode, so links sent from its live side are live links. See 📄 Understanding test mode and live mode for how the two sides differ.

The demo limit

By default, your platform account can have 10 demo accounts active at once. A demo account counts while it exists and isn't deactivated. If you need more room, talk to your Onboarded team about raising your limit.

When you're at the limit, these actions stop with a Demo limit reached message that shows your count, such as (10 of 10):

• Creating a new account with Demo Account turned on.

• Turning on Demo Account for an existing account.

• Reactivating a deactivated demo account.

Through the API, the same cases return a 409. Creating live accounts and turning Demo Account off are never blocked. To free up a slot, deactivate or delete a demo account you're done with, or turn off Demo Account on one that became a paying customer.

Deactivating a connected account

From your platform account, open the connected account and click Deactivate. You pick a reason (Churn, Non-payment, Trial expired, or Internal) and confirm. Deactivation is only available in the dashboard. There's no API endpoint for it.

Once an account is deactivated, its live side:

• Can't create onboarding or registration links, whether from the dashboard, the API, or an integration. API requests for an onboarding URL return a 403.

• Stops honoring links it already sent. A candidate who opens one, even partway through onboarding, sees Onboarding link is no longer active, please reach out to your employer.

• Keeps all of its data. You and the account's users can still open it, look up records, and download documents.

The account's test side keeps working, so you can still walk a returning prospect or customer through it.

Users inside the account see a banner that reads This organization is deactivated. Its Contact support link goes to Onboarded support, not to your team, so tell the customer who to contact before you deactivate.

Reactivating

Click Reactivate on the account's page. The account can create links again, and links created before deactivation work again as long as they haven't expired in the meantime. If the account is still a demo account, reactivating it counts against your demo limit.

When your platform account is deactivated

Onboarded can deactivate a platform account. When that happens, every connected account under it stops live onboarding too and shows Platform Deactivated. When Onboarded reactivates the platform account, its connected accounts come back, except any you deactivated individually. Those stay deactivated until you reactivate them yourself.

Status labels

The Status column in the connected accounts list, and the account's own page, show one label at a time:

• Deactivated: you deactivated this account. Its page shows who deactivated it, the reason, and when.

• Platform Deactivated: your platform account is deactivated.

• Demo: an active demo account.

Live accounts that are active show no label in the list. A deactivated demo account shows Deactivated, not Demo, and it doesn't count toward your limit.

Example

Take the ATS from 📄 Understanding platform accounts. Its sales team runs each prospect's trial in a connected account with Demo Account turned on, and it keeps one standing account for sales demos.

Driftwood Staffing finishes its trial and signs. The ATS turns off Demo Account on Driftwood's account. Nothing about the setup changes. The same forms, policies, and automations keep running, the account drops its label in the list, and a demo slot opens up.

Elmhurst Logistics' trial ends without a contract. The ATS deactivates the account with Trial expired. The links Elmhurst sent during the trial stop working, its data stays, and it no longer counts toward the limit. Two months later, Elmhurst comes back. The ATS clicks Reactivate, Onboarded confirms there's a demo slot open, and Elmhurst's account is ready with the setup it had before.

Read next

• 📄 Understanding connected accounts

• 📄 Understanding platform accounts

• 📄 Understanding test mode and live mode