Customers need to login to Confluence before access the Knowledge Base from the Service Desk Portal
Asked by gwido:

Hi!

I'm using JIRA Service Desk 3.6.4 and Confluence 6.3.3. Customers need to login to Confluence before they can see knowledge base articles from the Service Desk Portal. Instead, the search bar is working fine, showing the results found.

I configured the link between both applications using the OAuth impersonation.

Confluence uses the User Directory from JIRA.

I would expect that customers login only in the Service Desk Portal. Anyone knows if this is the expected behavior?


Answers:
author: Shannon S
body: Hi Gwido,

Thank you for this I've looked into it, and it appears to be related to the shared user management, per this comment:
> There are workarounds available - namely using Crowd as your shared user base with cookie-based SSO ( <https://www.atlassian.com/software/crowd>)  
> You may be able to use alternative SSO approaches, but these have not been tested.

from [JSDSERVER-3643](https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSDSERVER-3643).

Regarding the issue, it's being tracked as an improvement in [JSDSERVER-3751](https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSDSERVER-3751), as users with these settings will only be able to search in the Knowledge Base and not open it directly without logging into Confluence.

My recommendation is to review the JSDSERVER-3643 ticket for workarounds and watch and vote on JSDSERVER-3751 which hopes to resolve that issue.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Kind Regards,  
Shannon


author: Centro de Soporte
body: I know this is an old article. But my problem is that I do not understand why a user needs to see the confluence portal at all, why do they need to see the sidebar etc when we just want them to see the KB portal?

comments: author: Shannon S
body: Hi Freddy,

The Service Desk customers don't need to see the Confluence portal itself, because they can access the articles via Service Desk portal.

Could you let me know if that answers your question and if not, please clarify what you need?

Regards,

Shannon


author: Centro de Soporte
body: Shannon, I kept sending and sending emails to reply to your email and it kept bouncing. I did it so many times that my trial ended. I really want to get my product but I need to clarify this, here is what I was sending you through email:

(I suppose the links no longer work)

Shannon,  
It does answer my question, but, how do I add my knowledge base to the Service Desk Portal? How can I add links to this portal? widgets? or some other stuff?   
You see, I want my clients to come to the portal, create a support ticket for something they need or just browse the knowledge base to find what they want. The thing is, I only see the search as the possible path to get to the knowledge base.   
For example, please, go ahead and try my widget here: [http://panamaservers.net](http://panamaservers.net/) (it is just a blank page with the widget there)  
If you type in the widget the word "linux" and select any article it will show you the article, cool, but if you scroll down it will show you related articles of that article and once you click any of those it will take you inside the confluence area, which is horrid, I need it to show the article like in this link -\> <https://panamaservers.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/kb/view/98399> which is the service desk that you mention.  
Also, is it possible to add widgets, or maybe some areas with some articles already there when I load the Service Desk, maybe the latest things added to the knowledge base.  
Thanks,  
Hope this all makes sense, if you check the widget you'll know what I mean.  
Freddy Rivero.


author: Centro de Soporte
body: I jut tried the links and they do work, please check it out, thanks!


author: Shannon S
body: Freddy,

I'm not sure what email you're referring to. If you need to reply on a Community thread you have to come here and do it, since the email that sends you the notifications is a Do Not Reply email, meaning it doesn't forward messages anywhere.

As for your question, I'm not personally familiar with customization at this level. I know it's not possible using Jira Service Desk itself, but our community might have a solution for you to use as a workaround, or to edit the source code directly.

You should open a new question here on Community asking about it, and then we will be able to assist you further. Using an existing question is not the best method since your question isn't likely to be seen by the rest of our community.

Thank you for your understanding!

Regards,

Shannon


author: Shannon S
body: Hi Gwido,

In your Knowledge Base setting, what do you have listed in the section under **Viewing Access** from the [Serving Customers with a Knowledge Base](https://confluence.atlassian.com/servicedeskserver036/serving-customers-with-a-knowledge-base-921471856.html) article?

This is the section which determines if a user needs to have Confluence access or not when accessing a specific knowledge base space.

Kind Regards,  
Shannon

comments: author: gwido
body: Hi Shannon,

Customers can see the contents of the knowledge base but only after login to Confluence. So they need to login twice, first from the Customers Portal and then from Confluence.

I configured the Viewing access for all active users and customers.

Thanks


author: Shannon S
body: Thanks Gwido.

Can you have a look at part **C) Configuration in Confluence, step 2** , on [Guide to link Knowledgebase to JIRA Service Desk for Unlicensed Users](https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/guide-to-link-knowledge-base-to-jira-service-desk-for-unlicensed-user-816677228.html) and also ensure that this is set properly?

Thank you!

Kind Regards,  
Shannon


author: gwido
body: Yes, I have 'Use Confluence' enabled but 'View User Profiles' disabled for Unlicensed Access. Do I need to enable both options?

Thanks!


author: Shannon S
body: No, I don't think that's necessary. The **Can Use**part is the important step.

How about step 3? Can you show us how your Space Permissions look?

1. *Ensure that in the Space Permissions page* the***Any active user can view this space*** panel*is visible.*

Kind Regards,  
Shannon


author: gwido
body: Yes, I think I have it enabled:

![confluence_ks_permissions.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/5639i3180EAFB7B6C9FDD/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "confluence_ks_permissions.png")


author: Shannon S
body: That looks right.

So they search the article in Service Desk, click the link, and it opens, but they have to login again? Or are you having them go directly to Confluence?

Kind Regards,  
Shannon


author: gwido
body: In the Costumer Portal when I click the link it shows the following page:

![kb_login_from_costumers_panel.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/5640i9883D22F59168E91/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "kb_login_from_costumers_panel.png")


author: Rachid Amajoud
body: @Guido, did you added the group "customers" manual? And do you create new users in that group?

Because when i create a user, a license will be used!

thx!


Tags: jira-service-desk