Guide to link Knowledge Base to Jira Service Management for unlicensed user
Platform notice: Server and Data Center only. This article only applies to Atlassian products on the server and data center platforms.
Purpose
Jira Service Management has introduced a new feature starting version 3.1 where there is no need for users to have a license in Confluence to be able to access the Confluence Knowledge Base through Service Management.
This feature is detailed in Linking A KnowledgeBase. This article aims to further explain with details on that documentation to assist users in understanding this feature.
Things to Know:
This feature was originally built for the Cloud environment which has a shared user base directory (i.e. using the same user directory or has the same sets of users). If you are running server versions of Jira Service Management & Confluence, you will need to make sure that users (including Service Management Customers) exist in both Jira and Confluence by using of one of the following approaches:
- Have the same user base in both Jira & Confluence e.g. both Jira and Confluence integrated with the same external directory. Briefly speaking, each Service Management customer has a user account in both Jira and Confluence but not consuming any licenses.
- You can also accomplish this by using Jira as a user directory for Confluence or by having Jira Service Management and Confluence use Crowd to share a user base.
- Use the connector directory instead of delegated authentication for LDAP or AD. Otherwise, the customers will have to log in to Confluence at least once to have the account created before they can search and view a KB from the Portal. Using connector will allow all users to be created and synced in the application.
- Manually create a user in Confluence for every customer in JSD that will need access to the Knowledge Base. You can create a "customer" account in Confluence by not assigning it to a group. This will not count against your Confluence license.
Solution
How to Set Up the Linking
AppLinks Configuration
Setup the AppLinks using OAuth with impersonation on both Jira and Confluence Side
Configuration on Jira Side
Go to Service Project Administration > Knowledge Base, link to the dedicated space and allow all active users to access the space without a Confluence license.
Configuration in Confluence
Ensure that in the Global Permission page the Unlicensed Access is enabled.
This Unlicensed Access option will only be visible once KB connection is created in JSD first.
Ensure that in the Space Permissions page the Any active user can view this space panel is visible.
Making sure the customer exists on both applications
- In Jira, the user can be created manually without granting any access to the user, or sign up the user via Service Management sign up option.
If both Applications are integrated with the same external directory, create the user in the directory first and sync it to the applications.
In Confluence, search for the same user and ensure that the user is not added to any groups which consume a Confluence license.
- In Jira, the user can be created manually without granting any access to the user, or sign up the user via Service Management sign up option.
Accessing the KB through JSD
Log in to the help center as a customer and search for the KB. Clicking on the result will redirect user to the KB page with a login box.
Clicking on the Log in to Confluence button will bring the user to the Confluence login page. Proceed to log in with the Jira username and password
select Remember me
Upon successful login, customer will be able to see the article loaded in the Confluence page itself or back on the Service Management page where the login was required, refreshing the page will also load the article in the frame.
If you are unable to search for the article using a customer account, and can only search article using admin/agent account, you might be hitting into this JSD-4233 - Getting issue details... STATUS bug. Do put a comment on this bug ticket if you experience this issue.
