Setup JSM portal access without JIRA login and for approved domain name only

[Avani Makwana]

I want to provide JSM portal access to specific domain users (e.g. abc.com) and these users should not be given JIRA login / user access purchase.

I tried the following:

1. Set up Open project

2. 'Don't allow customers to create their own accounts' option selected

3. Added domain (e.g. abc.com) in 'User access settings' > 'Approved Domains'

But this is not solving the issue and users are being created in JIRA or asked if managed access option set, which I don't want to do. 

I checked this article https://support.atlassian.com/jira-service-management-cloud/docs/set-up-and-manage-portal-access/ and others but couldn't find the combination I'm looking for.

Appreciate your help in advance. 

[Cristian0791 · Accepted solution]

Hi Avani,

To achieve your goal of providing JSM (Jira Service Management) portal access to users from a specific domain (e.g., abc.com) without granting them full Jira access or consuming a license, you’ll need to adjust the configuration carefully. Unfortunately, Jira’s settings might not directly support this exact setup as simply as you'd like, but here's a solution that can work:

Steps to Configure JSM Portal Access for Specific Domain Users

1. Set Up the Project as a Customer-Only Project:

   • Ensure your project is a Service Management project.
   • Go to Project settings > Customer permissions.
   • Set the project to "Customers who have an account on this Jira site" or "Anyone can send a request without logging in" depending on your needs. The first option restricts access to customers with an account, while the second allows anonymous access.

2. Disable User Self-Sign Up:

   • As you have already done, make sure the option 'Don't allow customers to create their own accounts' is selected under Project settings > Customer permissions. This prevents unwanted users from creating accounts.

3. Use Approved Domains for Email-Based Sign Up:

   • Under Jira settings > User management > Product access:
     • Go to Approved Domains and ensure you have added abc.com as an approved domain.
   • This setting allows users with an abc.com email address to automatically be recognized and given access to the portal.

4. Create Portal-Only Customers:

   • Instead of allowing users to create accounts or signing up through traditional methods, you can create customer accounts manually that are limited to portal-only access:
     • Go to Project settings > People.
     • Select Add customers and input the emails from the abc.com domain.
     • These users will be created as portal-only customers, meaning they can only access the JSM portal and will not consume a Jira license.

5. Verify Account Types:

   • To ensure that users from abc.com are added as portal-only customers and not Jira users:
     • Go to Jira settings > User management.
     • Check the list of users and ensure that users from the abc.com domain are listed under Portal-only customers and not as full Jira users.

[Avani Makwana]

Thanks Cristian! I tried the steps and almost there in achieving what I wanted to do.

Summarizing my customer accessing setting: Channel access 'Restricted' + 'Don't allow customers to create their own accounts' + Added 'Approved Domain' + Added portal-only customer emails.

With this solution, I further seek your inputs for these 2 scenarios:

1. If the channel access (in customer permissions) is 'Restricted', every time the user I added tries to access JSM portal, her JSM customer ID is created, which I think is fine and should not be adding cost to my Jira instance as its not Jira user access. Can you confirm? 

2. If the channel access 'Open' with above settings, can I still allow access for any users of approved domain? Will this require for me to add emails for adding 'portal-only customers'? How will it behave differently than the case above?

I am looking for a solution where I don't have to add portal-only customers manually but all abc.com users should have portal access without me manually adding them. 

[Cristian0791]

Hi Avani,

1. Yes - Customer are not counted as license (you can have as many as you want)

2. When you set the channel access to "Open," anyone can submit requests to your service desk, including users who are not part of your organization or an approved domain.