How to grant access to a specific page(s) without granting access to anything else
Asked by Stefan G?tz:

Hi.

We are working with an external collaborator and what him to see and work on some specific pages we created in some general spaces (e.g. sales, marketing, etc.).

I want to expose only a specific page, not the whole space which already contains a lot of pages.

What we did is:

1. register the user
2. create and added to the group "externals"
3. removed him from the group "confluence user"
4. assign under page restrictions access to this specific person

This does not work. But if I leave him in the group "confluence user" he can see everything which is already created.

Is there a way to hide everything from a specific group or users and only grant permissions to a specific page?

Thank you.

S.


Answers:
author: AnnWorley
body: Please try these steps:

1. Create the user account
2. Add it to the group "externals"
3. Remove user from the group "confluence-users" (or whichever group you use to grant Use Confluence **global permission**)
4. Grant Use Confluence **global permission** to "externals" group
5. Grant appropriate **space permissions** to "externals" group
6. Add to **page restrictions** if desired

For reference, please review:

* [Permissions and restrictions](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/permissions-and-restrictions-139557.html)
* [Space Permissions Overview](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/space-permissions-overview-139521.html)
* [Global Permissions Overview](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/global-permissions-overview-138709.html)

I hope the steps work as expected, please let me know any obstacles you run into.

comments: author: Hanif Rajabali
body: Has there been any update to this? I'm in this predicament myself. I don't want to grant full space permissions and then selectively disable access to pages - that will be a maintenance nightmare!

This seems like such an intuitive feature or have I not understood?


author: Capkan.Deniz
body: Hi,

fully agree with [@Hanif Rajabali](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/5041938)

Any updates on this / how can we explicetly grant access to pages only?

Best regards,

Deniz


author: Jonathan Belanger
body: Another +1 here. The feature to enable access to only a handful of pages to a user or user group is either impossible or is not discoverable.

Any support here would be appreciated.

EDIT: "External sharing" doesn't quite fit the bill because we want to be able to include comments. I understand why comments are by default not part of an external share, but I should be able to control that setting. That would suffice for our needs.


author: Michael Klaja
body: +1

I do have identical requirement. Granting permissions to a specific page without granting top level access edit the entire space shouldn't be rocket science...


author: Vinzenz Bruckert
body: Adding myself to +1's here. Been digging for hours now, but can't seem to figure out how to do this unless I start restricting all pages one by one so that specific users cannot see all other pages. Way too complicated.


author: sk1030mag
body: Only 128 votes so far...


author: Stefan G?tz
body: Hi Ann,

Thank you for the answer.

I followed the steps. I checked and do have the "external" group added to the Use Confluence global permission.

I'm not sure if I understand point 5 so.

You say: Grant appropriate space permissions to "externals" group.

But this is exactly what I want to avoid. I want to let users, belonging to the group externals (which have global confluence permissions), to see just **some** pages of a space not the whole space. And I also do not want to have to restrict all other pages for all other external users. I guess I miss something.

I hope I explained well and you can clarify or help further.

Best

S.

comments: author: Pavel Potcheptsov
body: This is not possible with current permissions model in Confluence.

You have to grant to specific user "View pages" in space permissions and restrict all pages in this space by including those who need access except specific user. And leave page for that user unrestricted.


author: Nick
body: So from what I've gathered, as of today there is still no way to elevate or override the top-down permission of a single page. So if I want the user to contribute to a certain document I have to grant them editing access to the entire space, correct?

If that's the case can someone from Atlassian help me understand the sense to this architectural approach? What really is the point of page level management, by the time you get to it you've already restricted your user's abilities. The expectation is that I grant users access to the entire space and then I must manage every page individually to limit the access I want throughout?


author: Marcelo
body: Also needing this specific permission. Want to give access to anonymous user but only to one page, not the entire space.


author: Andrea Jacobson
body: I want to be able to do this same thing.


author: Simon Huprich
body: Me Too!


author: jeroentja
body: We also! Please fix this.


author: brock
body: We also need this.

As a suggestion, maybe Atlassian should just remove "restrictions" altogether - since as it is currently implemented, it is nearly pointless. Maybe that would get us closer to a solution some day?


author: Henry Chad Apale
body: Agreed, please implement specific page access instead of granting to a whole space and then applying restrictions to all the pages. This can be cumbersome if the Space already has multiple pages


author: Scott
body: I agree. It is painfully cumbersome to restrict access.


author: Marco De Santis
body: If you want the chance of something happening on this topic, you need to make sure a bug or feature suggestion ticket for the according Confluence product exists.

<https://jira.atlassian.com/secure/Dashboard.jspa?selectPageId=10440>

Ideally add a comment to this thread indicating the respective ticket ID.


author: jeroentja
body: Hi Marco, is there already a request? It's quite overwhelming al the options at the link you posted.

Honestly, I think this is a design flaw and should be reported as a bug.


author: Marco De Santis
body: Hi [@jeroentja](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4749188) . I have not checked. I just stumbled upon this thread and wanted to share my experience. Reporting a bug or requesting a new feature in the community section is usually not going to be picked-up by Atlassian (there might be exceptions, of course).


author: Scott
body: I didn't find a similar issue so I created one <https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSDSERVER-11299> Please vote!


author: Alex Rada
body: also looking for this feature for ages.


author: Deepan
body: We too..


author: Kari
body: We too... and I agree with jeroentja it seem to be BUG


author: Myles
body: Add me to the list as well.The lack of this functionality is painful.

Thanks


author: Richard Appleton
body: Hi all, just requiring this functionality now myself, is this still not possible at this time?

Thanks a lot.


author: Gerhard Lehmann
body: and we need this feature too. Please add this to your agenda!


author: Martin K?hler
body: Yes this is a nightmare - pls fix it


author: Gabor Mayer
body: +1


author: Helgi Hvannastein
body: +1


author: Marten Vill
body: Me too! We have several external partners and we want to share very specific single pages with them from our general internal documentation. For example some specific API service details, some business requirements etc. We do not want to move these pages so some other spaces or other chemistry only because of this - it would ruin the structure and create a mess.


author: Josef Micka
body: I was just looking for this myself.

Seems it's impossible to add user access to single page in space, that he has no access.

ACL is something that every modern documentation system has.

Correct ACL implementation must have both, allow list, and deny list on every single item. Confluence only has toplevel (or spacelevels) allow list, which you can't override.


author: Chelsea Grindstaff
body: Please add this feature. Adding a user to an entire space, then having to hide them from every single page except for one is not feasible.


author: l_seplecan
body: +1. Handy this feature. I had a case where I needed to grant access to a single page from a space to a user and it's like "scratching your head". Maybe Atlassian should take into consideration the mentioned feedback and provide an option to do it.


author: Oscar Kazmeier
body: +1. From BMW. There are a few thousand users that need this feature. So add another +4k (to be conservative).

Thanks guys, love the tool otherwise.

Oscar


author: Ville-Pekka Sepp?
body: Please add this feature. Seems such an obvious shortcoming!

Ville


author: James Malgieri
body: Hi Everyone,

I can tell you that as far back as 5 years ago we had this problem. Atlassian told us Confluence was created for collaboration between individuals, teams, projects, etc. It is no bug that you are experiencing. Confluence was consciously created this way.

I suppose you could create a new space specifically for sharing pages and copy the page(s) you want to share to that location. It's crazy that you'd have to do this but better than the alternative solution of having to modify restrictions and inherited restrictions on the space's pages.


author: Chris Johnson
body: One more log on the fire. Please add this capability.


author: Ian Skerrett
body: Please add this feature.


author: Sebastian
body: I was able to work this around using this add-on. I had to spend quite some time to set permissions for parent pages, but at least it solved my issue partially: [Permission Inheritance Add-on](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1221313/edit-permission-inheritance?hosting=cloud&tab=overview)


author: Ulf Hermann
body: I am in the same situation. We need this feature too. Please add this to your agenda!


Tags: atl-gruland