Confluence Space and Jira Service Desk Customers

[Marlene Martins]

Hello,

I have a Jira Service Desk project that uses a confluence space as a knwoledge base.

How should I configure Jira Service Desk and/or Confluence to:

a) when my customers start typing they see suggestion from knowledge base and

b) confluence space are not access without a login (I need to keep it private, so anonymous users with a link can't access it). 

[Victor Mutambuki · Accepted solution]

Marlene,

By default, "Knowledge base articles can be automatically presented to customers as they fill in a request form. This automatic search can be restricted by label." This is already covered.

For part b,  select the option "Only licensed users who have access to the space". This should take care of this issue.

This link from atlassian on this subject should be helpful.

Thanks
Victor

[Marlene Martins]

Victor,

Thank you for your help, but "Knowledge base articles can be automatically presented to customers as they fill in a request form" do not work as expected. 

These are my settings:

Space Permission settings - I have to deny all to for anonymous, to keep my space private. If I allow "All > View" a person without login and with a link can see my space and navigate. Before, I allowed "All > View" and it worked as expected. 

Jira Service Desk project settings - I don't want to use confluence licenses with my jira service desk customers. 

About part b), where can I find the viewing setting "Everyone with access to your service desk"?  I thought it should appear on project settings > knowledge base > viewing (print above). 

 

Thank you. 

[Victor Mutambuki]

Marlene,

You can use labels to restrict what is searchable in the forms. I see you've already done that for your second Request Type.

As for viewing, you've select that all active users and customers can access. This option isn't private. The second option is. Anonymous access in confluence shouldn't be a factor in my view. I stand corrected.

Victor

[Marlene Martins]

Victor,

When I use my second request type, my knowledge base doesn't  too (I have pages with these labels). 

For viewing, although I select  that all active users and customers can access, my space remain private (because, anonymous users cann't view). 

To simplify - my problem is: when my space is private (a major requirement)  knowledge base doesn't work in Jira Service Desk request. It only work if I select anonymous users to view all (then my space will be public). 

The other problem is that jira service desk customers will need a licence of confluence to log in.

[Robin Andersson]

Hi,

Is it someone who knows how to disable JIRA Service Desk from automatically creating a knowledge base (confluence space) when creating any new Service Desk project?

Can't seem to find it mentioned anywhere.

Thanks,

Robin

[Randy Roosekrans]

+1 to allow users with access to the project portal to be able to search the associated KB without having to set the entire Confluence space for the KB to public. 

[Arthur Mack]

@Randy Roosekrans

It is possible.

Just follow this:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/servicedeskcloud/set-up-a-knowledge-base-957150219.html?_ga=2.64008299.571049973.1548274496-1016183283.1524517062

[Krisztina Horvath]

Hi Marlene,

I have the same issue. Did you manage to solve it?

I do not want my space to be visible to anyone, but I do want my customers to be able to find KB articles from the customer portal.

I disabled anonymous acces in the Confluence space permissions and enabled "All active users and customers can access the knowledge base without a Confluence license." in Service Desk. Since I enabled this in service desk, I have this message in Confluence:

"Any active user can view pages in this space, including users who don't have a Confluence license. This was enabled through Jira Service Desk so people can view knowledge articles when raising a help request."

In my understanding this should be a success, but unfortunately it does not work, a customer is not able to find any article for any keyword in the knowledge base.

Thank you,

Krisztina

[Marlene Martins]

Hello Krisztina Horvath,

If you want your customers to be able to find KB articles you have to enable anonymous access, there is no other way to use KB articles within your portal. 

To deny access for others we use a VPN - only customers with this VPN can see this space. 

[Krisztina Horvath]

Hi Marlene,

Thank you for getting back to me. It seems like a bug to me. We will consider having the Knowledge base in a different way, then.

Have a nice day!

[Marlene Martins]

Hi Krisztina,

I agree with you.

Our company as many clients with different KB, and we couldn't share it with them all. 

[Sonya Goldstein]

@Marlene Martins and @Krisztina Horvath- are you saying that you have found a way to configure Service Desk and the knowledge base in such a way that only authenticated service desk customers (they log into the service desk portal) can access and view the articles in that associated Knowledge space?  I dont want the public viewing our proprietary articles but i do want our customers (6000+) to be able to seamlessly click on suggested articles without having to be licensed for confluence or be prompted for a second login when they click on the self help article.

This has been a serious issue for us since we had to set our Knowledge base link setting to b)only licensed users can access and set the Knowledge space to anonymous,  This limits the quality of information that we can publish since we have to avoid exposing proprietary information to general public and competitors.

[Krisztina Horvath]

Hi @Sonya Goldstein,
Unfortunately we did not find the way to make it work that way. In my experience KB articles are searchable only if we give anonymous access (what we do not want).

[Arthur Mack]

@Sonya Goldstein 

I am not sure what the problem is but it IS possible to setup a knowledge base that is searchable by customers logged into the JSD without having to give anonymous access to that space. 

https://confluence.atlassian.com/servicedeskcloud/set-up-a-knowledge-base-957150219.html?_ga=2.163984507.571049973.1548274496-1016183283.1524517062

[Sonya Goldstein]

And the customers are not the prompted with another login (for confluence) when they click on an article?  Our customers do not know (nor do they care) that the suggested articles are coming from another software application so would not use the articles if they were prompted to log in again every time they selected a potentially helpful article to resolve their issues quickly. 

[Arthur Mack]

@Sonya Goldstein

No not at all. They can see all the listed topics and search or click on the topics and are NOT prompted to login. They have NO confluence or JIRA account and are simply a JSD customer.

I have some JSD's set to anyone can read articles as the portal does NOT require a login and the KB space is set for anon login. I have some other JSD's where users have to create an account to login to the JSD and these do NOT have anon access set and the KB articles can be searched and read  with no further logon

Viewing

SettingDescription

Anyone can read articles	Anyone view knowledge base articles via the help center or a link your team shares. People can also discover your articles via search engines. This setting only displays if your project has a login-free portal. This option is best if your team writes articles to share with customers.
Everyone with access to your service desk	Anyone can view knowledge base articles via the help center or a link your team shares. This option is best if your team writes articles to share with customers.

[Krisztina Horvath]

Hi @Sonya Goldstein and @Arthur Mack

I would like to clarify here that I was talking about Jira Server and not Cloud. The link sent by you was for Cloud. And this makes a huge difference.

Unfortunately, the Server (or self-hosted) version is pretty limited compared to the Cloud version and no-one seemed to find a nice solution to the issue.

Even the look of the knowledge base is pretty bad and customization options are very limited compared to the Cloud.

We decided to just leave Atlassian in this one and find another company offering the service in a nicer way.

[Sonya Goldstein]

@Krisztina Horvath and @Arthur Mack- I too am talking about server.  We just recently upgraded to Service Desk 3.15 /Jira 7.12 and it would appear that there may be new options?  Here is the link that our SysOps teamng shared.  We are going to revisit this because it is a pivotal business decision for us regarding how we continue to utilize Knowledge base for customers.  

What was the other company offering that provided that service if Atlassian is just not able to accomodate?  I may need to explore that option quickly!  You can email me that directly to sgoldstein@drfirst.com if you dont want to post that on Atlassian Community site.

[Sonya Goldstein]

https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/guide-to-link-knowledge-base-to-jira-service-desk-for-unlicensed-user-816677228.html

[Trevor R]

For anyone reading this, the link@Sonya Goldstein posted is the proper documentation for this for Jira Server. The key is that Jira and Confluence have to share the same user base for this to work. When a customer is added in Jira, that same customer has to be able to be found in Confluence. 

Then the articles will appear in the search, and when they click on them they will have to sign in to Confluence (using their Jira portal customer account that is synced with Confluence) in order look at the Confluence page.

[Sonya Goldstein]

@Trevor R- our technical team is going to be revisiting this in a few weeks to re-assess based on the instructions.  One of the big issues here is that we have 6000+ customers and growing since we are externally facing and there would need to be a way (it looks like this scenario is addressed) to automate this synching at time when Service Desk account is created.  It is not viable to maintain manually.  Even more significantly,  prompting an external customer to "log in" again when they click on a self help article will not fly.  This will confuse and likely dissuade a customer from using.  They will simply pick up the phone and use up rep time that could be saved by self service information.  Customer perception and expectation is that a Knowledge base is part of the customer portal (vs another software application linked in).  If anyone has information on how to address this, I am interested.  There appeared to also be information pertaining to this scenario in that link as well.  

[Trevor R]

@Sonya Goldstein I agree that it is not very intuitive for customers, and they will likely not follow through will trying to log in unless instructed by out agents.

We're currently looking at the feasibility for using Crowd in order to have SSO across Confluence and Jira in the hope of alleviating this problem, or any other plugin that would solve the problem.

[Victor Mutambuki]

marlene,

Your knowledge base doesn't work because ANONYOMOUS in your space is restricted. Give them VIEW space permission and they should be able to see knowledge base.

Victor 

[Marlene Martins]

When I give them permission to view, my space become public (that's my problem). 

[Victor Mutambuki]

Marlene,

Then set who can view to ONLY USERS WITH CONFLUENCE LICENSE.

Victor