Grant read-only to all managed accounts without license
Asked by Guy:

Today on confluence-cloud, for a person to be able to read the content of a given space, either (A) space is full public access (authentication is not required) or (B) needs to be authenticated and have a Confluence license attached to this user, and set ACL properly on this space for this user.

In a large corporation with all employees who need to consume non-confidential but internal information, I cannot make my content public (A not work) and I can not pay for thousands of users (B not work).

Is it possible (enhancement request?) to have a read-only access per-space for all managed accounts, even they do not have the confluence product access?

Thxs


Answers:
author: Robert Hean
body: Guy, I can think of some creative ways to do this outside Confluence (e.g. if you're on Google Workspace), but I can't think of a way within Confluence other than providing them a license... the two options for sharing would be

1. Public access - which you've ruled out

[2. Guest access - which isn't intended for internal users](https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/invite-guests-for-external-collaboration/)

Hopefully someone has a better answer than I!


author: Kieren _SmolSoftware_
body: Great suggestions @\[deleted\] .

A note for Guest Access: If you did use it, you can only grant a user access to a single space, and it's a manual space assignment per user (last I checked... i.e. you can't grant it to a group of guest users) so it could be a lot of manual effort on your admins. Atlassian were also working on ways to better enforce the 'Only *External*' Guest Users aspect, but I'm not sure where they're up to on it.

Three more ideas:

3. If you're already using JSM, then you can use the knowledge base link to give JSM Customers (i.e. your regular staff) access to Confluence pages. I'm not sure if it's scaleable to the number of users or pages you want them to access, but it could be an option. You can read more here <https://www.atlassian.com/itsm/knowledge-management/what-is-a-knowledge-base>

4. There are some apps that could help you, like [Script Runner Connect](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1224414/scriptrunner-connect-atlassian-integration-to-anything?hosting=cloud&tab=overview), that could allow you to export confluence pages to other products your staff use.

5. Step a. You could setup your email domain as an Approved Domain for Confluence in admin.atlassian.com, this would allow staff to get access to confluence when they need it. They'd only be paying users when they join Confluence.  
5. Step b. The next step is deactivating any inactive confluence users after X days to ensure you keep your costs down. There's a few apps on the marketplace that could do that for you, [smolsoftware.com](http://smolsoftware.com) is building one that's going into a free closed beta in January 2024 if you'd like to be a part of it.

-Kieren  
Co-Founder @ Smol Software \| Ex-Atlassian

comments: author: Robert Hean
body: ah, appreciate calling out add ons! I've historically been "trapped" in vanilla Confluence so my experience with them is limited.

Assuming they've got JSM, and scale isn't an issue, #3 sounds like the easiest solve?


author: Kieren _SmolSoftware_
body: If it's just single pages, then JSM would be best. Even if it's 100 pages (which might take a little bit to setup), it would be a great option.

But if [@Guy](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3663249) needs the users to access dynamic/random pages that could be created by anyone in a space, then Guest is probably what he's after.

If Atlassian do crack down on Guest usage (enforcing it to only be granted to users from 'external' domains in your Org), then Option 5 or Option 1 are probably best.


author: Kieren _SmolSoftware_
body: FYI [@Guy](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3663249) , the [Admin Automation](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/1234013) app is publicly available now. It doesn't have the 'remove inactive users' feature yet, but it's coming soon.

-Kieren  
Co-Founder @ Smol Software \| Ex-Atlassian


author: Guy
body: I do not see how this application relates to this Confluence limitation... Hope to see the suggestion implemented one day!! Thxs.


author: Guy
body: Thanks Kieren and Robert for the good alternative ideas!

Export is good idea but requires more work. Also HTML output is less dynamic and nice as the real site. Probably I will start here.

Guest is a good idea, I never used it. While it is single space limited, it can be applied in many situations I think. A bit tedious though.

Meanwhile I will request enhancement request via support.

comments: author: Kieren _SmolSoftware_
body: Let us know what you end up doing! ?


author: Guy
body: Enhancement request: <https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-77255>


Tags: account

cloud

confluence-cloud