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Suggestion
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Resolution: Fixed
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0
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26
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NOTE: This suggestion is for JIRA Service Desk Server. Using JIRA Service Desk Cloud? See the corresponding suggestion.
Hi everyone,
Thank you for your interest in this issue.
In JSD 4.12 we shipped a new way of integrating JSM Server with Confluence Cloud. You can read all about how to set up a knowledge base with Confluence Cloud in our documentation.
Please note that we're currently looking into a related configuration issue where Knowledge Base articles can't be opened in the customer portal if Confluence Cloud is not configured with anonymous access, which you can track at JSDS-7175.
Kind regards,
Charlie
Jira Service Management, Server & Data Center
Hi all,
Thanks for your responses.
We understand that this is a significant change for some of you. As part of making authentication and single sign-on easier across Atlassian products we have consolidated product access through Atlassian account (https://confluence.atlassian.com/cloud/atlassian-account-for-users-873871199.html). This means that access to our products outside the customer portal requires an Atlassian account.
Customers can still search for KB articles, view articles, bookmark articles and so on using the customer portal. This does not require an Atlassian account as it's done through the customer portal.
If you need your customers to directly access Confluence to browse through KB articles, you can either:
- Make your space anonymous-accessible. This will mean that anyone will be able to browse your KB articles without needing to log in. If you are experiencing issues as described in CONF-30161 then please make sure you have linked your space to a JIRA Service Desk project via Project Settings → Knowledge Base as this fixes the problem.
- If you do not want to make your space anonymous accessible, ie. you want customers to explicitly log in before they can see Confluence, then you must convert your customer user accounts to Atlassian accounts. You can convert them yourself using the instructions on https://confluence.atlassian.com/cloud/select-the-right-account-for-your-jira-service-desk-customers-873871210.html or you can file a support ticket and our support can bulk migrate your customer accounts to Atlassian accounts. Having an Atlassian account does not consume a license.
JIRA Service Desk Team
Hi all,
This is expected behavior. Updating our accounts meant we had to shuffle things around a bit.
Your agents have a single account for all your Cloud products. But, your customers are special. They may not recognize Atlassian and we don't want to confuse them.
To keep your organization's branding on your help desk articles, we recommend sharing knowledge base links to your customers via the customer portal. Your customers can search for and read help articles in the portal, without needing to learn Confluence, and they don't leave your help desk experience.
Your agents can link customers to this view, and avoid linking them to Confluence. To provide a portal view of articles to your customers in an issue comment:
- View the customer issue.
- Under Related knowledge base articles, select the article to share or select Search knowledge base.
- Preview the article and select Share as comment.
If you want your customers to browse all of your Confluence space, we recommend migrating them to Atlassian account. If you migrate them, they can log into your Confluence space, browse the page tree, and read articles. But, they will need to learn what Atlassian is and use our log in and account management screens. We don't recommend this for teams who serve external customers. Learn how to migrate customers to Atlassian account.
Another potential workaround is to open your Confluence space for anonymous view access, this will allow any user to view your Confluence knowledge base space without logging in. Learn how to enable anonymous access to a Confluence space.
- JIRA Service Desk Team
Summary
Portal users cannot access knowledge base on a cloud instance that authenticates via https://id.atlassian.com.
Environment
Steps to Reproduce
- On an instance with SSO enabled (id.atlassian.com), create a service desk project linked with a Confluence knowledge base.
- Enable unlicensed access : Project Settings > Knowledge base > All active users and customers can access the knowledge base without a Confluence license.
- Create a portal only user via the Customers page in the Service Desk project.
- Let the portal only user log in the portal.
- Access the direct link to the knowledge base article (ie https://<instance>.atlassian.net/wiki/display/SK/KP_Page).
Expected Results
Portal only user should be able to open the page.
Actual Results
Portal only user will be requested to authentic via SSO (id.atlassian.com). Login will either fail or reply with a permission error :
Your account doesn't have access Looks like you don't have access to this site. If you think you should have access, contact your administrator. If you would like to use a different email address on this site you can switch accounts.
Notes
Workaround
Share the knowledge articles as comments in the service desk ticket.
On the Service Desk agent interface :
- Access the ticket : https://<instancename>.atlassian.net/browse/<TicketID>.
- Click on an article under Related knowledge base articles or click on Search for Knowledge Base to search for an article.
- Click "Share as a Comment"
On the Service Desk portal user interface :
- The link will be displayed in the comment.
- Click on the link and a view of the article will be shown within Service Desk.
- is incorporated by
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- Gathering Interest
- relates to
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- Gathering Interest
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- Gathering Interest
| Form Name | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[JSDSERVER-4901] Portal users cannot access the knowledge base
It doesn't make sense that Service Desk is able to Search and show a summary view of KB's when Confluence and Jira are sharing a user base, but customers are still required to login AGAIN in order to see them? I don't see why this would be necessary if they are already authenticated and the KB's are already linked in Service Desk.
Markus - just wanted to check in on this to see if you have any new insights. Still trying to find a way to all our Customers to access an Confluence hosted Knowledgebase WITHOUT making the space accessible to anonymous users.
Thanks
Chris Roberts
Rachid, Chris ...
I did not deal with this for a couple of weeks but will start with this topic again next week.
I can tell though that I remember from a call with the Atlassian support that this actually should be possible. Exactly as you mentioned, with JSD project and the single linked Confluence Space.
We also want to use Refined Wiki for Service Desk and Confluence and I remember there was a setting to link several spaces, but I need to go into this matter again.
Markus - Were you ever able to get to a clear conclusion "that it should be possible to directly access the Confluence KB space as a Jira Service Desk Customer (no license) IF this space is linked to the JSD project on which the Jira Service Desk Customer has access."?
Thanks
Chris R
@Chris Roberts
Here is the kicker though - the article I am viewing from the JSD Portal has 'Related Article' links at the bottom of the article. If I click on one of those 'Related Articles' - I am immediately redirected to the URL for the 'External Knowledge Base' Space in my Confluence instance. I can now navigate to whatever articles I wish to find within the Space. This is exactly what I would like to get to directly. (see attached).
I am working on a support case with Atlassian as I am also quite confused how everything is setup here.
It may seem not related to this case, but I think it is. Because of this bug permissions can be messed up https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFSERVER-54266
Besides, I learned that it should be possible to directly access the Confluence KB space as a Jira Service Desk Customer (no license) IF this space is linked to the JSD project on which the Jira Service Desk Customer has access. I will get the confirmation of that hopefully soon from Atlassian and keep you posted.
This means yes, it should be possible to access a Confluence KB space
- as a customer of Jira Service Desk
- without using a Jira Service Desk or Confluence license
- that requires the customer to login (as the Confluence KB space is not publicly/anonymously available)
- read-only access
- that can be navigated / clicked through (as known from Confluence, not the search-field from the JSD help center)
I asked Atlassian support and got the following answer. I read that officially it is obviously not possible to navigate (read-only) through the protected (not public) Confluence KB without using a license. This can only be done if the Confluence KB is entirely public.
However, I am confused because of two things:
- As stated in other comments as well obviously it does work, just not entirely without bugs (e.g., for me the search does not work, labels do not entirely work as expected)
- It says it should work if the "KB space would have to have the 'Anonymous access' granted": Well, activating anonymous access on space level only does obviously not help. The entire Confluence instance must be anonymously available (which means it must be public for everyone)
<<<
I understand you'd like your customers to access Confluence KB and navigate through the existing pages.
Please notice that this is not possible in the current version of Confluence - the 'Unlicensed access' permission only allows users to see the KB articles through JIRA SD portal. This is better illustrated in the following document (step 'D'):
If you prefer to give them access through Confluence, the KB space would have to have the 'Anonymous access' granted.
We do have an existing feature request which I would recommend you to vote for, as the more customers vote for it, more attention it will call to the Development Team. Also, don't forget to subscribe to the issue, so you can get notified when anything new comes up.
- (CONFSERVER-30161) Allow unlicensed, authenticated users to have anonymous read only access
>>>
It is clear that as usual Atlassian is not listening at all to streams of feedback that have so few votes.
For those of you who were aware of and commented on this clear oversight in product functionality - have you identified and pursued other product avenues beyond Confluence? Anyone willing to share?
It is unfortunate that there is no clear public forum where expressing our displeasure might actually solicit a response of some kind. Can't even 'Rate' the main Confluence app itself in the Atlassian Marketplace like you can with all other add-ons. If there was a clear way to highlight deficiencies like this one to all those considering Confluence as a Knowledgebase solution, Atlassian would likely find the time to respond in some meaningful way. If I had been aware of this shortcoming (with no intention to address) before making the decision to purchase the Confluence solution, you can bet I would have stopped there and found a solution that could address this most basic 'Knowledge Base' requirement. Having gotten this far in to the use of the product before realizing this unbelievable oversight, the thought of scrapping the time and money spent to change to another solution is disconcerting.
I suppose highlighting shortcomings like this one to the competitive products to Confluence and JIRA Service Desk is an avenue to consider.
Curious as to whether there are any other thoughts out there among those watching this item as to how we actually get this to register on the rather large Atlassian radar?
I have managed to get to an interesting spot at the moment on this topic. Shows just how messed up things are here.
A couple of background points:
- The Applink I have created between JIRA Server and Confluence Server instances is using OAuth (with impersonation) security settings.
- My Confluence instance is configured to use the JIRA User Directory so that I have a common set of Users in both applications
- I have disabled Anonymous Access through both Confluence General Permissions and at the individual Space level (image attached)
- I have allowed 'can use' permissions for Unlicensed access to the Confluence Server instance at the Global Permissions level (image attached)
- I have created an 'External Knowledge Base' Space within our Confluence instance that I am trying to expose to Customers. This Space is linked to the JSD project through the Knowledgebase selection.
I used the first workaround listed in JSDSERVER-4233 to take a newly created 'Customer' user in my JSD Server project and 'Assigned' a JIRA Service Desk license followed by immediately 'Revoking' that same same license.
I tried to login directly to our Confluence Instance as that 'Customer' user. It accepts my login, but I am immediately shown a 'Not Permitted' screen when attempting this.
I then go to the JSD Service Desk Portal and login with those Customer credentials and I am taken to the 'Help Center' screen with the search box for the linked KB.
At this point, I can search for and actually find articles from by 'External Knowledgebase' Space in Confluence. (see attached).
When I click on the Article, I am initially shown the strange extraction of my KB article from the JSD Portal side. (see attached).
Here is the kicker though - the article I am viewing from the JSD Portal has 'Related Article' links at the bottom of the article. If I click on one of those 'Related Articles' - I am immediately redirected to the URL for the 'External Knowledge Base' Space in my Confluence instance. I can now navigate to whatever articles I wish to find within the Space. This is exactly what I would like to get to directly. (see attached).
This is obviously not a practical solution to the problem, but I guess I have managed to find a loop hole that Atlassian did not close when they took this functionality away. It also shows that the fundamental functionality we are asking them to bring back is still actually there in some convoluted form.
Hi everyone,
Thank you for your interest in this issue.
In JSD 4.12 we shipped a new way of integrating JSM Server with Confluence Cloud. You can read all about how to set up a knowledge base with Confluence Cloud in our documentation.
Please note that we're currently looking into a related configuration issue where Knowledge Base articles can't be opened in the customer portal if Confluence Cloud is not configured with anonymous access, which you can track at JSDS-7175.
Kind regards,
Charlie
Jira Service Management, Server & Data Center