Dashboard vs Customer Portal

[Adam Ploesch]

I have a local server setup with an evaluation copy of Jira SD. Love it so far... just one problem.

As far as I understand it, to bring in a customer I have to add them as a user first (or invite them) then add them as a customer to the "project". 

Well when that customer first logs on they see a dashboard. From there there's no request buttons or any way to access the service desk easily. Am I doing something wrong? Did I mess up a permission or something? Is there a way to have customers always show up to the portal and not bring the dashboard into the situation at all?

[Jack Brickey · Accepted solution]

@Adam Ploesch, welcome aboard. You add a customer to a project and then the should have access to a JSD portal. From that portal they can open and view requests. Now, you must set the project up and define the request types before they can open issues. Have you gone thru the Getting started guide in Atlassian documentation?

[Adam Ploesch]

Thank you, Jack.

It looks as though I fixed it. I was adding a user AND a customer, then was confused why the 'customer' had so many more permissions. It looks like (if I understand it right) that I just add a 'customer' only, which gives them only access to the service desk.