Basic Users: How to enable and what can they actually see?
Asked by Mario Cappellano:

We've recently transitioned from the free trial of Compass to the paid version. We only licensed a subset of our users for Compass, as the [documentation](https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/compass/getting-started/understand-user-roles-in-Compass/) showed that free users would still have some sort of read only access, which should suit our use case at the moment.

Unfortunately we've not been able to figure out *how* exactly to set someone up as a Basic User, documentation in this area is very light on. The only way I can give someone access at the moment is by removing a license from someone else and applying it to them.

So the question I have is essentially:

- How do I set a user up as a free, Basic User, in Compass?

Cheers,  
Mario


Answers:
author: Katie Silver
body: Hi [@Mario Cappellano](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4486250) ,

Can you confirm which of the two billing experiences your site is on? Centralized or original, based on this page: <https://support.atlassian.com/subscriptions-and-billing/docs/understand-the-improved-atlassian-billing-experience/>

If you are on the original billing experience, you will need to move to the centralized experience before being able to utilize Basic Users. You can reach out to technical support through support.atlassian.com for more information about this. (We are looking into making basic users available for the original billing experience, but I don't have a timeline for you.)

If you are on the centralized billing experience already, you should be able to configure Basic vs Full user access in admin.atlassian.com. For your given site, click "Directory" in the top nav and then click the user you'd like to manage. From there you will see a drop down next to the product "Compass" where you can configure the user's role. See the below screenshot:

![Untitled.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/318987iD3B91AAA450BE458/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Untitled.png")

You can also configure basic access via groups by scrolling to the bottom of the group screen, clicking "Add product" under "group product access" and then selecting the role you'd like that group to have automatically. Some additional screenshots:

![Screenshot 2024-04-17 at 10.41.49?AM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/318988iC0FABD8CC234002F/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screenshot 2024-04-17 at 10.41.49?AM.png")![Screenshot 2024-04-17 at 10.42.02?AM.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/318989i06568547E8823D20/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screenshot 2024-04-17 at 10.42.02?AM.png")

comments: author: Mario Cappellano
body: Thank [@Katie Silver](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/641274) - I've checked that out and it seems that we're on the centralised billing process. I haven't been able to implement the above just yet though as it looks like we need to verify our domain before we can manage users in there. Just reviewing what that entails and what we might lose/impact when we do so. Thanks for the info, would be good to see that on a documentation page somewhere though! ?


author: Katie Silver
body: I agree! Glad it was helpful.


author: Srinivaas
body: Can this be setup by Site Admin or Org Admins only? Selected Free tier but unable to add the more than 3 users who wanted to try and test this. Can you guide us.


author: Katie Silver
body: [@Srinivaas](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/5021588) for your specific situation, please file a support ticket at support.atlassian.com and they can try to assist.


author: Srinivaas
body: They are asking me to change the Tier to standard . How to add Basic Users as a Admin ? Please provide the steps


author: Mario Cappellano
body: Hi [@Katie Silver](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/641274) , it took a while but i was finally able to get Org Admin permissions myself. Once that happened, it was very quick and easy to see to confirm which billing plan we use myself, and sadly, we're still on the original one.

Speaking with Atlassian support, there is no time frame or guidance they can give me around when we might be upgraded to the centralised billing platform.

I don't suppose you have any further info on the plan to enable Basic Users for the original plan? It's a bit frustrating that Atlassian advertise a feature like free/basic users for Compass (which was a very strong selling point when we first looked into the tool) but that they don't call out that not all customers will have access to it.


author: Katie Silver
body: [@Mario Cappellano](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4486250) we are currently working on ways to get basic user access to customers like yourself on the centralized billing experience. I'll ask the PM on that team to give an update here.


author: Rob Saunders
body: [@Mario Cappellano](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4486250) as Katie mentioned above, a small subset of customers are still on the original user management experience today and unable to use Basic Users in Compass, ++but will get this capability in the next 6 months++ - [Cloud Admins We're Saving You Time on User Management](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Enterprise-articles/Cloud-admins-we-re-saving-you-time-on-user-management/ba-p/2588292)

The delay has been to ensure complex, multi site organisations are migrated across without impact, but feel free to reach out to support to discuss your own scenario, and there may be steps you can take to unblock this experience sooner