Grant reading access to knowledge base to JIRA Service Desk customers

[Matteo Palazzo]

I would grant reading access to knowledge base to my JIRA Service Desk customers. They should be able to login in Confluence and see only a specific space defined as knowledge base. Is it possible grant reading access without counting them as Confluence users? We would not create anonymous access space.

[teilor_soares · Accepted solution]

Hi Matteo.

Christian is correct, the text you copied from the Customer User Addendum, means only your customers will access the data in your JIRA instance, but this data is only the tickets they create in the Service Desk project.

If you want to give non anonymous access to your customers, they will need to have a user in Confluence, and each user will count to calculate the price of the Confluence license, of course.  From our official documentation, in the KB Providing self-help resources for your customers with a knowledge base, you can read:

Integrating JIRA Service Desk with Confluence

• You can connect JIRA Service Desk with Confluence 5.3 or later.

•  If you use an installed version of JIRA and Confluence, they must be linked via an application link using OAuth.

• You must have permission to view a space in Confluence in order to select it as your knowledge base. If you don't have this permission, check with your Confluence administrator.
• In order to use the topic search from the Customer Portal, customers must be Confluence users with permission to view the space the or Confluence space must allow anonymous access.

• • If the Confluence space is set up to allow anonymous viewing, any user can search the service desk when they're putting in requests (in other words, they don't have to be Confluence users). 

  • However, if the space viewing is restricted to certain users, customers must have the same username in Confluence in order to search the space from the service desk.

-Teilor

[Matteo Palazzo]

Thank you for your answers Teilor, Christian.

[Michael Repucci]

Is there any plan in the works to allow Service Desk customers to have access to a Confluence knowledge base without opening it for anonymous access? Anonymous access presents a big security risk for our company, as the URLs could be easily browsed to view documentation that we only want our customers to see.

[teilor_soares]

We have a improvement request regarding this in https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSD-916 where I would recommend you to cast a vote and add yourself as a watcher to be aware of any updates, but there is no plans to implement something like this in the near future :(

[FX Nicolas]

Same here: I want the JSD KB accessible for *my customers*. I want only my JSD customers to see the KB from the Portal, and certainly do not want: 1. All my competitors to see by KB, anonymous access looks like an information leak! Imagine that I post an urgent note to customers to tell them about an issue in my product.... all competitors can see that! 2. To count hundred of JSD "portal-only customers" as full Confluence Users. Do you trace somewhere a story to support a KB in JSD that is not an anonymous space in Confluence?

[Ruth Cheesley]

I also require this - we often have clients who need read-access to meeting notes, update reports etc all done in Confluence, who have access to the customer portal. At the moment we can't make the spaces public, and we can't give them read access, so we're having to export as PDF and email which is ridiculous

[Christian Czaia [Decadis AG]]

JIRA Service desk and Confluence are completely different products. If you don't want to open up a space to the public I'm afraid people have to have a license in order to access a Confluence space.

Cheers

[Matteo Palazzo]

Thank you Christian,

Maybe I misunderstood the license. In the Customer User Addendum - point 2, and point 3 examples - I see:

it means only that your customers may access your instance of the Software or Hosted Services in order to support their use of your own products and services that are unrelated to the Software or Hosted Services

That's why I think I could give reading access to Confluence to my JIRA Service Desk customers, without counting them as Confluence users. Am i wrong?

Sorry for my english.

[Christian Czaia [Decadis AG]]

As far as I see it (and I'm not working for Atlassian) this is just an example of authorizing external customers using your instance. As soon as a user has an account to log in (and the "Use" global permission) the user will be counted towards your license: https://www.atlassian.com/licensing/confluence#serverlicenses-8 https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Global+Permissions+Overview Either that or you open up a space to anonymous users. Correct me if I'm wrong Atlassian. Cheers