Summary:

Enable bulk management of guest access in Confluence Cloud by allowing admins to provision and manage guest users using groups.

Description:

Currently, Confluence Cloud requires guest users to be assigned to spaces individually or in small batches via the admin UI. There is no way to use groups to provision or manage guest access, nor is there a public REST API for automating these actions. This limitation creates significant administrative overhead for organizations collaborating with many external users.

Problem Statement:

• Assigning or removing guest users from spaces is time-consuming and error-prone when dealing with large numbers of guests.
• The current UI only allows selection of up to 25 or 100 guests per page, requiring repetitive manual actions.
• Scripts or APIs are not available to automate guest management, which is critical for organizations that frequently onboard/offboard external collaborators.
• Lack of group-based management increases the risk of misconfiguration and delays collaboration.
• Other user types in Confluence can be managed via groups, but guests cannot, creating inconsistency and confusion for admins.

Proposed Solution:

• Allow admins to create and manage guest groups, similar to standard user groups.
• Enable bulk assignment of guest users to spaces by adding/removing guest groups to/from space permissions.
• Expose REST API endpoints to:
  • Create, update, and delete guest groups.
  • Add or remove guest users from guest groups.
  • Assign or remove guest groups to/from spaces.
• Support CSV upload/download for guest group management.
• Ensure group-based permissions for guests are clearly visible and auditable in the UI.

Use Cases:

• Onboarding dozens or hundreds of external partners to a single space for a project by adding them to a guest group.
• Offboarding all guests from a space at project completion by removing the guest group from the space.
• Automating guest assignments as part of an external user provisioning workflow using groups.
• Auditing guest access across all spaces by reviewing guest group memberships and permissions.

Business Impact:

• Saves significant admin time and reduces manual errors.
• Enables secure, scalable collaboration with external users.
• Improves compliance and auditability of guest access.
• Supports automation and integration with identity management systems.
• Aligns guest management with existing group-based access models for standard users.

Current Workarounds:

• Manual assignment via UI (limited to 25/100 per page).
• Setting a default space for new guests (does not help with existing guests or group management).
• No API or scripting support for group-based guest management.