By default, Cognota automatically signs users out after 8 hours of inactivity. This is a security best practice that protects your organization's data. If you're being logged out more frequently than that, it's likely because your organization has a shorter custom timeout configured — and your admin or our support team can help adjust it.
How session timeouts work
To help protect your account and data, Cognota automatically ends a session after a period of inactivity. "Activity" means any action that communicates with our servers — for example, navigating between pages, submitting a form, or clicking a button. Simply having a Cognota tab open, or moving your cursor without interacting with the page, does not count as activity and won't keep your session alive.
When your session times out, you'll be redirected to the sign-in page and asked to log in again to continue.
Default timeout: 8 hours of inactivity, for all organizations unless a custom duration has been configured.
"I used to stay logged in all day — what changed?"
If it feels like you're signing in more than you used to, there are a couple of likely explanations:
Your organization's timeout may be set shorter than the 8-hour default. Some organizations request a shorter inactivity window (for example, 15–20 minutes) to meet their own internal security or compliance requirements. If that's the case, this is expected behaviour on our end.
A recent update improved how timeouts are enforced. In the past, some users could remain signed in past the timeout window due to a redirect issue. That's since been fixed, so a session that reaches its timeout will now correctly redirect you to sign in again — this can make timeouts feel more noticeable even though the underlying timeout duration hasn't changed.
Can this be changed?
Yes. If your organization would prefer a longer (or shorter) inactivity window than the 8-hour default, we can configure a custom timeout for your account. This is a per-organization setting, so:
Check with your Cognota admin to confirm what your organization's timeout is currently set to.
Align internally on the desired duration. Most teams will need to loop in IT or security to agree on what timeout length fits their organization's policies before requesting a change.
Have your admin reach out to our support team with the desired duration.
We'll configure the change and confirm once it's live.
Still having trouble?
If you're being signed out unexpectedly and none of the above explains it — for example, sign-outs within minutes on the 8-hour default, or repeated sign-outs even while actively working — contact our support team at support@cognota.com and we can look into this for you.