Cannot find option to restrict access to Home page
Asked by Vessie Dracheva:

Hi all,

Does anyone know how I can restrict access to the Home Page?

There is no option to manage users on this page and it doesn't appear at all in Site Builder ('Refined Administration') where I manage access to categories.

Thanks in advance!

Vessie


Answers:
author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: You should not be trying to restrict the home page - people need a landing place, unless you want to give them an ugly "go away" message by default. However, it does matter what you mean by "home page", as Confluence has two things you might mean.

Every space has a "home page", the default landing page for that space. They are normal pages within a space, so restrictions on those can be done when editing it, although if you're going to restrict the view of a home page, you should really be considering not allowing access at the space permission level, not restrictions.

But what I think you really mean by "home page" is the Confluence dashboard. This is a system page that does not have users associated with it (same as the search page, admin pages, space list and so on). System pages are always accessible if you have the global permission to use the system area they are in. For the dashboard, that global permission is "can use Confluence" and you can't restrict it.

comments: author: Vessie Dracheva
body: Hi Nic,

Thanks for your quick reply!

I do mean the Home page as the landing page - on this we have a bunch of quick links for internal users, which we don't want visible to external users (contractors) who should only have access to specific categories and their own spaces.

Is there a way for them to land on the first category they can view instead of the Home page?

Thanks!


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: Off the shelf, no, I can't think of a way to do this.

The best thing I could do is a bit of explanatory display. I'm imagining you might have something like a simple list or table that says something like

* For info on X, see space X, ++page X:Getting Started++
* For info on Y, see space Y, ++<https://ourconfluence.com/something/there>++
* For info on Z, see space Z, ++page Z:Getting Started++

You could be slightly tidier and tell people whether they might not be able to see them:

* For info on X, see ++space X++, note: internal people only
* For info on Y, see ++space Y++
* For info on Z, see ++space Z++

However, if you're willing to try out an app or two, or invest in a bit of time in writing your own (you might be able to do this in a user macro, no apps needed, but I've not tried it so I'm not sure), you might be able to create something on the main page that hides bits according to who the current user is.

I know, for example, Themebuilder includes show/hide macros, so you could do

* {show to internal people only} For info on X, see ++space X {/}++
* For info on Y, see ++space Y++
* For info on Z, see ++space Z++

so when an internal visitor lands on it, they'd see all three lines, but an external user would only see two.

I've named TB there because I know it (and yes, work for the vendor), but know there are other apps that provide show/hide functions like that, I just can't think of them off the top of my head.


author: Vessie Dracheva
body: Thank you, Nic, I'll look into this.


Tags: access

confluence-server

home-page

permission

restriction

server