Customize User Invite Redirect

[Rachel Chang]

Is there a way to specify the landing page for when a new user is first invited?

Currently, after the user creates a new account, they're redirected to a service portal, which displays a link to the Space Directory. I'm looking to have users directed to the space itself rather than having to click through a bunch of links. 

[Shannon S]

Hello Rachel,

Welcome to the Atlassian Community! It's nice to meet you.

When you mention your users are being redirected to a Service Portal, are you referring to Jira Service Desk? The information I will give you is to work for standalone Confluence. If you need to redirect within Jira Service Desk, please let me know.

By default, all users are directed to the Confluence Dashboard. It's possible to set a custom homepage for your site:

• Configuring the site homepage

Note that this would change the site homepage for all users.

We have a feature request to be able to set a different site homepage based on which groups a user is a member of. If this is something you'd like to see, please vote on it below!

• CONFCLOUD-41102 Ability to set homepage based on groups

There can be a few simple workarounds for this. I was able to come up with an example for you.

Both workarounds would require that you put your new users into a specific group. Manually create a group that you will put new users in. You can call this new-users, for example. You will need to manually remove the users from this group when the time comes that they are no longer new users. There may be a workaround to automate this, but none within Confluence Cloud itself that I am aware of.

For this you might want to set new-users as a default group. See Update product access settings for information on that. Just don't forget to remove the group from the users after about a week or so, or however long you wish.

• Install 3rd party add-on Announcer for Confluence. This allows you to target specific groups to display announcements. This won't automatically redirect your new users, but you can use it to display the exact links you want your new users to click on.
• OR you can install paid 3rd party add-on called Redirection for Confluence.

For the last workaround, you can get your homepage in Confluence to redirect only users within the new-users group. Follow my steps along below for details on how to do that:

1. Create the desired homepage in Confluence for new users.
   1. Save the page. 
   2. Ensure to edit the Page Restrictions so that only the group new-users can view the page, and give yourself and any other relevant admins view and edit permissions.
   3. Copy the URL of the page.
   4. Edit the page again, and in this page somewhere, add the Excerpt Macro. Select Hide Excerpted Content. This will prevent the macro from displaying on the current page.
   5. Inside the Excerpt Macro, embed the new Redirection macro. Have it redirect to the desired page URL, which you copied above.
   6. I've also included in my Excerpt Macro a warning that the page will redirect in 5 seconds.
   7. Save the page again.
2. For the rest of this to work, you will need to make sure that the homepage for the site is not the Confluence Cloud default dashboard. To do this, see Configuring the site homepage. 
   1. Choose a homepage that will display for all users, including new users prior to the redirect.
   2. Edit the page to include the Excerpt Include Macro. In the macro parameters, include from the page you created for new users to be redirected to. I prefer to Remove the surrounding panel. 
   3. Save the page.

NOTE: This workaround works because users in Confluence who do not have access to an included page will not see the Excerpt Include Macro. The only users who will see it are ones that have been given access to that page i.e., the new users.

Any users who do not have access to that page will not be redirected.

Lastly, if someone were to view this page as an anonymous user, there will be an error message about not being able to include that page. Be aware of this when setting your space permissions.

I hope that helps! Do let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Regards,

Shannon

[Rachel Chang]

Thanks for such a thorough answer. Unfortunately, the problem lies in users being redirected to Service Desk, despite not having Service Desk access turned on, instead of Confluence. 
I'm aware of CONFCLOUD-55961 but the workaround is not user friendly and the redirect feature is deprecated for the time being. 

[Shannon S]

Rachel,

Thank you for confirming that. The issue CONFCLOUD-55961 applies only to users who already have a Confluence license. I am assuming that your Jira Service Desk users will not have a Confluence license? 

Cloud shouldn't direct any user without a Confluence license to the Confluence Wiki site primarily, and thus it's intended behavior is indeed to send your users to the product for which they are licensed.

At any rate, if you want to log this as a separate feature request, you can do so from jira.atlassian.com.

As far as your current setup goes, if you set up a Jira Service Desk portal, you can link this portal to a specific space in Confluence where your Knowledge Base for that project will live. Have a look below for more details.

• Serving Customers with a Knowledge Base

Can you tell me, have you already done that? I ask because once you link the space, then your users can navigate the support articles from that space directly in the Support Portal. If you have already done this, and it doesn't meet your needs, could you let me know a bit more about why?

If you want to set it up now and have not yet, please review the article below:

• Set up a knowledge base

Let me know if you have any questions about that.

Regards,

Shannon

[Rachel Chang]

Our users are Confluence only and do not have Jira Service Desk access. 

[Shannon S]

Rachel,

Thank you for confirming that. Apologies for the misunderstanding.

In that case it is indeed the case that you found, CONFCLOUD-55961. You will need to make sure to give your Confluence users the URL at your-instance.atlassian.net/wiki instead of the base URL.

Another alternative is to put an Announcement telling your Confluence users to go to the /wiki URL, but this might be confusing to your non-Confluence users, so keep that in mind.

I'm sorry that I couldn't provide you a better workaround for this issue. Do let me know if you have any additional questions about this.

Regards,

Shannon