Application Links FAQ

This page is designed to address some of the questions that we typically receive about setting up and using application links. If you have other questions that you'd like to see the answer to, please comment on this page and we'll do our best to post an answer.

I've set up an application link, but my users are still prompted to log in.

This scenario occurs when the authentication of the application links between the two applications don't allow the two applications to fully trust each other. You can fix this by:

1. In the application that's prompting users to authenticate, change the Outgoing configuration setting for the application link to allow 2-Legged OAuth authentication.
2. In the application that users are trying to connect to, change the Incoming configuration setting for the application link to allow 2-Legged OAuth authentication.

See Configuring Authentication for an Application Link for more information.

I'm not an admin on both of the applications I'm trying to link. What will happen?

In a system where an admin of two applications creates a link between the two, the Application Links plugin will create both incoming and outgoing links between the applications and will also configure authentication on both links. This figure illustrates how the application links will be configured in this scenario:

Complete application links

On the other hand, if the user is an admin on only one system, he/she can still create an application link. However, in this case, the Application Links plugin will create an outgoing link only, and the link won't have any authentication configured:

Incomplete application links

With this type of link, the application where the link originates can access publicly-accessible data from the other application. For example, this type of link could allow a Confluence application to include a link to a JIRA issue, but the JIRA issue information wouldn't appear in Confluence until a user provided authentication for JIRA.

If you set up an application link and aren't an admin on both applications, you can complete the link by signing into the other application with admin permissions (or having an administrator on that application sign in) and then create a link to your application. In addition, if you want to enable the full functionality of application links, you must change the configuration of the application link to allow 2-Legged OAuth authentication. See Configuring Authentication for an Application Link for more information.

I'm trying to link a server application to a cloud application but my cloud site doesn't recognize my application.

Double-check the whitelist settings for your installed application and then add the domain name of the cloud as a rule that accepts incoming requests.

For information on adding applications to a whitelist, see Configuring the Whitelist (for JIRA) or Configuring the Allowlist (for Confluence).