Active

Active is a Boolean field. This means that it stores a true/false value, and displays on the form as a check-box. This field is often controlled by a business rule. A business rule is a server-side script that runs in response to certain events on a record. In this case, the event that triggers the State field is usually what determines whether the Active field should be set to true or false. The Active field is a good general indicator as to whether a state is... well, active!

The Active field is also sometimes used to determine whether a user should have access to modify a ticket or not. For example, for reporting accuracy, many companies do not want Incident records modified after they've been closed. Instead, a service desk agent or user should submit a new incident record. For this reason, many companies create an ACL (Access Control List, or Security Rule) on certain task tables to prevent modification by anyone except admins or managers once a task is deactivated (after it's closed).