Why do portals and help centers co-exist?

The definitions are very similar.

One notable difference is a help center is customizable while a portal is not. I can't figure out why they both exist. What am I missing?

According to Atlassian support articles:

What is a help center?

A help center is one of the request channels in Jira Service Management--a centralised hub where your customers can go to get information and raise requests.

What is a portal?

In Jira Service Management, a portal is the customer-facing website of every service project. It helps teams set up relevant help resources for their customers and collect and manage customer requests.

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1 vote

Hi @Marcie Talbot

Essentially a help center is like a splash page or directory for the portals and then each individual portal = a different JSM project.

Help Center
1. Portals
  1. Request Types

An example where the Help Center's existence makes sense is with enterprise service management, where HR, IT, Finance all have their own portal/project and the Help Center provides the 1st level in the directory for users to navigate. This is just a simple example like you said you can have a number of help centers where you can have a Developers Help Center, or Sales Team Help Center, where only relevant projects/portals are listed for the audience.

Hopefully that helps!

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Hmmm...I think I need to rephrase and try to clarify this.

There is a DEFAULT help center where the non-customizable portals live. (atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portals)

In addition to that, I can create many different customizable help centers (which is GREAT)...BUT I cannot add these help centers to my DEFAULT help center (which is NOT great), I can only add the non-customizable portals.

Unless I'm missing something, it seems to me this help center feature is half-baked.

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Hi @Marcie Talbot , the default help center can be customized
2025-07-02 12_19_54-Service Desk - Jira Service Management.png 2025-07-02 12_27_50-Jira Service Management.png

If you're looking to hide portals from your default help center you can do it here
2025-07-02 12_29_54-Service Desk - Jira Service Management.png

2025-07-02 12_31_17-servicetitan.atlassian.net_servicedesk_customer_settings_portal-reorder.png

If you're looking to create a directory of your help centers then maybe you can create that in Confluence and direct your customers there

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Yeah, thanks I know all of that.

I just want to add my help centers to my default help center. It's that simple but there is no easy way to do that.

I mean I could easily create links TO my help centers, but that's not what I want. I want a widget that adds help centers just like you add (and hide) portals.

Thank you anyway. I appreciate your time and you helped me clarify what I'm looking for so that's helpful!

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0 votes

I found the answer using AI:

Jira Service Management Cloud currently does not support adding "customized help centers" into your default help center as if they were additional portals. Each help center is a separate entity, and you can only display or hide the portals (service projects) linked to that specific help center.

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0 votes

Hi @Marcie Talbot

There is ootb only one help center and each JSM project has a portal, if you have multiple JSM project, they will all appear on the Help Center as tiles.

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There is one default help center but you can create many customizable help centers.

I guess my question is why not make the portal customizable? I still don't see the logic. It's probably something that's just not registering with my brain.

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Hi @Marcie Talbot

A help center can contain multiple portals, extra help centers is only a premium/enterprise function, free and standard plans don't haave this functon.