Summary

Different from anonymous access (anyone on the internet), unlicensed access can be granted internally in Confluence as long as the user has site access, using methods like the following:

• Give access to unlicensed users from Jira Service Management (from the integration between Jira Service Management and Confluence)
• Invite guests for external collaboration

By following one of these practices, even though anonymous access is not granted at a global permission level, additional spaces can have anonymous access enabled, allowing it to be visible by users with site access without a Confluence license (I.E. site access without product access).

This means that in addition to the space open for the guest or unlicensed/Jira Service Management account, users can interact with these other spaces (respecting the permissions applied to anonymous users) and the information will not be exposed to the public/internet.

Environment

Although the process should be simple, there are some pre-requisites to granting unlicensed access:

• For unlicensed users from Jira Service Management
  • The Use Confluence permission must be enabled at the JSM access tab of the Global Permissions from Confluence. This way, these accounts can access the instance and then, the spaces.
  • The user must be granted site access, but have the product access disabled, like the screenshot below:
    
  • These users will already have access to spaces integrated with Jira Service management.
• For Guests
  • Guests will already have access to a single space dedicated to them upon inviting the user. The guest account will respect the permissions assigned to guests in that space.
  • For spaces open for anonymous access, guest permissions will correspond to the ones assigned to anonymous.

Solution

To allow guests and users without product access to view different spaces in Confluence, a combination of space permission changes and configuration is necessary for the accounts.

Space permissions

Starting with the permissions for spaces that should be open for unlicensed users, as a space administrator, the following steps must be done for each of them:

1. Go to the space in question and select the Space settings option from the sidebar.
2. There, select the Space permissions option in the sidebar (or General, under the Space permissions tab).
3. Tap the Edit permissions button.
4. Under the Anonymous access session, check the permissions that the unlicensed users should have (I.E. View and Comment).
5. Tap Save all.

When anonymous access is granted, the following banner will be displayed since the global permission for anonymous is disabled:

Unlicensed user from JSM

Once the spaces have the permissions configured, all unlicensed users from Jira Service Management should be able to access it via the space directory (the Spaces part on the navigation bar) as long as the JSM access tab of the global permission is enabled:

1. As an administrator, tap the gear icon at the top-right while in Confluence.
2. There, select the Global permissions option from the sidebar.
3. Under the JSM access, tap Edit and check the Use Confluence option.
4. Tap Save.

Even though the users are not necessarily accessing a Jira Service Management project (or portal), as long as they have site access (and no product access to Confluence, as displayed in the screenshot from the pre-requisites part), the spaces should also be visible when navigating to Confluence.

Guests

For guests, they are already granted access to a space after completing the process to invite them. After enabling the anonymous permission for the other spaces, these will be also visible to guest accounts, and no additional actions are required.