Access to individual page(s) in a space

[Volker Jakob]

We're using confluence spaces for collaborating and/or communicating with clients. There are constellations when a client should access only certain pages within a space.

I'm not able to figure out how to handle this. I'm aware of the permission system and that it all starts with permission to access the space and further down the page restriction.

This means in more detail (for grant someone access to only one or several pages):

1. Client get access to the space
2. All pages need a page restriction for allowed users
3. The pages that the client is allowed to access, won't get a page restriction

It feels cumbersome to handle it that way although I'm not sure if I miss something.

How to deal with such a scenario? Any thoughts are welcome.

Thank you!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Hi Volker,

It's a bit more clever than that, as view restrictions cascade, but the way it works may not suit the way you want to structure your pages within a space.

I find it easier to explain this with a worked example.  Imagine you have

• Page A
  • A1
    • A1.1
    • A1.2
  • A2
• Page B
  • B1
  • B2

Now lets say you put the following restrictions in place for Alice and Bob:

• Page B is restricted to be visible only to Bob
• Page A1 is restricted to be visible only to Alice

With that setup, 

• Alice can see every page named with an A, but no pages with B.
• Bob can see all B pages, and Pages A and A2, but no pages with A1

You only need to restrict two pages to protect the six partially hidden pages.

What you need to do is place your pages into two trees - one tree visible to your clients, and the other not.

[Volker Jakob]

Hi @Nic Brough -Adaptavist- , at a first glance this could be a viable solution for our scenario. Thanks for the detailed explanation!

[chris.grom]

Hi @Volker Jakob 

About how many clients are there, and would there be an overlap in permissions between several different groups?

For instance:

• A and B can access pages that C cannot
• A and C can access pages that B cannot
• C and B can access pages that A cannot

[Trudy Claspill]

You could segregate the client-accessible information to a separate space.

If you have information that needs to be segregated more per client, you might consider creating a space per client.

If you need to have both client specific information and information shared across clients then you could use the inherited page restrictions concept that @Nic Brough -Adaptavist- described with a single client space.

If the same information needs to be visible in a space accessible only to your internal personnel, you could grant the internal personnel access to the client space(s) and then use something like the Page Include macro to display information from the client space(s) in the internal personnel space. If you had set up page restrictions in the client space(s) you also need to make sure the internal personnel are include so they can view everything.

[Volker Jakob]

Hi @Trudy Claspill , the latter is our scenario and I would definitely go this way if the amount of information fills a whole space. I didn't thought about the page include macro. Thanks for pointing this out.

[Sunny Sun]

Hello @Volker Jakob

you can handle permission in bulk and also use the admin key to access private pages but those are Confluence Premium features which Atlassian does offer free trials for.

[Bryan Trummer - ReleaseTEAM]

Hi @Volker Jakob - Without possibly using a plug-in the steps you have listed out is what I have done/seen done in the past. It is cumbersome but it does give you level of control you are wanting using the application functions.

[Volker Jakob]

Hi @Bryan Trummer - ReleaseTEAM , good to know, that I don't have a misunderstanding regarding the permission structure. I already started to research for potentional plug-ins but as @Nic Brough -Adaptavist- mentioned, the key for my scenario could be a different page structure and use the built-in permission cascade.