Access the clients and services you need faster and more efficiently
The concept is pretty simple. Most of the time when performing searches, one is looking for current and active clients moreso than inactive ones. Therefore if we can de-prioritise inactive clients in the displayed results, we can speed that process up making it quicker, easier and more efficient.
When this feature request first got created, it generated a lot of discussion internally. What exactly is an inactive client, and is it always valid to hide them. But over recent months, we've made a number of changes to the way client statuses are handled, most recently with our work on GDPR, and so we felt that now we could deliver something that both makes sense and delivers significant value to the majority of our users. Something as simple as client search is something we all do many times a day, so even a little time saving can soon add up.
What is an inactive client?
We define an inactive client as any client whose status within the client profile is not set to "Active". WHMCS can automatically manage the client status attribute for you based on the products, services, addons and domains that a client has and the length of time since their last login. You can customise your preferences for this behaviour in Setup > Automation Settings under the setting labelled "Client Status Update". By default, any client user that has one or more active services will be considered Active.
How does it work?
At the time of writing, hiding of inactive clients has been implemented to the following areas of the product: - Clients List
- Products/Services Lists
- Addons List
- Domains List
- Intelligent Search
- Selected client dropdown lists
Figure 1: Hide Inactive Clients Toggle Enabled
Figure 1: Hide Inactive Clients Toggle Disabled
Intelligent Search
Along with a new look in WHMCS 7.7, Intelligent Search will now hide inactive clients from search results by default. To include inactive clients in your search, simply slide the toggle switch located at the bottom of the search results window. 
Client Dropdown Lists
Where we provide client dropdown menus with the ability to search for clients, such as in the Add New Order page, there too you will also now see active clients prioritised in search results and grouped together at the top of the dropdown list, with inactive clients grouped together at the bottom of the results. 
Something as simple as client search is something we all do many times a day, so even a little time saving can soon add up.
We hope you'll find this feature a useful and convenient way to reduce the time spent browsing and searching for clients in your typical everyday workflows, and if you have any comments or suggestions, we invite you to post them in the comments below.
WHMCS 7.7 is available in beta now, learn more and get involved at https://preview.whmcs.com/
