Sharing Space with External User

[Kevin Parenteau]

I am using Confluence Cloud Standard.  I am a 1 person business and attempting to leverage Confluence to store my documentation for my customers.  I would like to create a Space for each customer with a page tree specific to the customer's network and setup and essentially create a "living" runbook for their environment.  The pages will contain IP Addresses, credentials, account info, etc.

My goal is to keep all of this information up to date not only for myself, but also to share back with my customer (for their space only) and allow them to have access to the data within their space.

My questions are...:

1. Can I do this without requiring a license (securely)
2. If it requires a license, do they need to use an email within my domain, or can the user use their own email account?
3. Is there a way to share the Space via link (anonymously), not require a license, and also require a password to access the space so that the data within the space is still considered secured?

I am enjoying Confluence so far, but this will become very costly if I need to issue a license for each customer I am sharing with.  Thoughts?

[Dam · Accepted solution]

Hi Kevin, 

1/ You can share a page using the new feature in Confluence Cloud called Public sharing: https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/share-content-externally-with-public-links/ The feature is evolving and it will be available soon... 

You can also do that with Anonymous sharing but I guess its not an option for you as all your customers will see all spaces... https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/set-up-public-access/

The better way to do that is with the Guest permission but only available for Premium plan: https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/invite-guests-for-external-collaboration/

So the best way to do that is to pay for customer user account. 

2/ Yes you can send an invitation from your Confluence cloud to your customer using their email address with their own domain: https://support.atlassian.com/user-management/docs/invite-a-user/ 
If you send an invitation, no need to take care of the domain as you explicitly invite them to your cloud site. Just make sure to properly assign the good permissions to these accounts. 

3/ I think I answered it previously... Keep in mind one thing: if user login is needed = license

Another thing: I agree it can cost money, maybe you should ask for some support from your customer, include the price of your confluence setup into your consulting projects...  

Cheers,
Dam.

[Kevin Parenteau]

Dam - Thanks for your reply!  You stated:

"The better way to do that is with the Guest permission but only available for Premium plan: https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/invite-guests-for-external-"

The link is broken FYI, but I am curious about the Guest Permission piece you speak of.  You're saying with the Premium plan, I can invite external users/domain emails to view a space, but it will still require an additional premium license per user invited?

I am only looking to give READ ONLY access to the space for 1, maybe 2 users of my clients.  Collaboration is not required at all.

Thanks!
Kevin

[Dam]

Oh sorry I just edited my previous comment, here is the proper link: https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/invite-guests-for-external-collaboration/

As you will read in the page: "Guests are only available on the Premium plan and count as licensed users. The license is actually the same — what makes a guest a guest is the systemic guest permission. It’s essentially a role." 

Every time you invite a user to access your Atlassian Cloud site, it will cost a license.

Cheers,
Dam.

[Kevin Parenteau]

Thank you for that!  Appreciate the help!