How can I allow users from external sites to my Confluence? Do they count for my licence?

[Johanna]

Hey there,

we want to allow some freelancers to join one of our Confluence (Cloud) spaces. They already have Confluence (Cloud) accounts for a different company. Is it somehow possible to make the space avialable (and editable) to them with the same account/mailadress? And do they count for our company licence then?

Or is there a way to let them have access and not let them take on of our licences since we already reached a tier and optimally would not want to upgrade for people who don't need access all year round. (Make that space visible for "the whole world" aka anonymous users is not really an option cause of the content)

Hoping for helpful answers, cause Google could not give me any :-)

[Sharon Helms · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately not an immediate solution, but a point of interest: the capability you describe is on the roadmap for next year -- in Confluence Premium. 

Here's the Confluence Premium Roadmap, where they note:

"External collaboration 

Add people outside your organization to particular spaces."

You might want to also check out this Community post, where the Atlassian team is inviting feedback: New Confluence Cloud Premium Roadmap announcement

-- Sharon

[Johanna]

Oh, thanks @Sharon Helms for the hint. How do the Premium features work? I somehow remember reading that the will be available first to the premium costumers. But will they only be available to them or will the come to the "regular" crowd as well?

[Darryl St_ Pierre · Accepted solution]

Hi @Johanna ,

Short answer: If they need to access, regardless of editing, they will consume licenses on your system.

The only instance where someone external (unlicensed) can access (view-only) a Confluence space is when you're using Jira Service Desk, which allows you to have a Knowledgebase that is accessible without a license.

Probably not the answer you were looking for, but the only answer applicable.

Darryl

[Johanna]

Thanks, knowing that the feature is not available helped. But since we do need the licences for other people and don't wanna upgrade, the short term solution is going back to Word and e-mail...

[Darryl St_ Pierre]

@Johanna , subsequent to my answer (and much to my surprise), there is an app that may suit your needs. External Share for Confluence. 

It's unlikely that the functionality mentioned on the roadmap for Premium will trickle down anytime soon. Premium is bringing feature sets for "power users" (my term, not exactly theirs). It's more likely that a feature on Server would be ported to Cloud, or vice-versa, than a Premium feature porting to Standard.

Darryl