How do I Setup Default Page Restrictions for Internal and External KB System?

Question

I think the answer is Comala Workflows, but I wanted to clarify.  I am trying to create a primarily internal Knowledge Base site, but have some pages external facing.  Here is what I'm looking to create:

* I want the Space to be public (Everyone)
* When I create new Pages, I want to restrict that to only Confluence members (Viewing and editing restricted)
* If I chose to make a specific Page public, I have no problem manually selecting that on a per page basis

The problem I am running into is that if I set the Space to not allow the public, the Pages inherit that permission and cannot override this setting.  So now every time I create a new page I have to change it from public access to Confluence users only access.

jt.mudge · Answer

Having two spaces is a horrible solution. The reason to have Confluence is so all of our info can be in one place, not two.

We have a handful of pages we want to share with clients, but not the rest. We should be able to have permissions on those pages to share. Right now the only way is to go through each page and restrict it manually, then give access to the groups we want. Way too much friction and prone to lots of mistakes.

We use the cloud solution so Comala is not an option.

Very disappointed.

Michael O'Pry · Answer

@Stephen Sifers thank you very much for your detailed reply as this helps immensely.

Stephen Sifers · Answer

Hello Michael,

The use case of wanting to use a single space to secure some documents and publically share others is a common use case. The best approach to this, while maybe not the most efficient, is to create one space for internal documents, and another space for publically facing documents. The reason behind this comes down to administrative control and access. If you share a single space for both, you risk accidentally sharing out internal documents publically. Additionally, with a shared space you also risk accidentally hiding your public docs if permissions are adjusted or changed.

Managed two different spaces will be a bit of work at first, but this will allow you to ensure no information is accidentally leaked or hidden. Further information on making a Confluence space available may be found at Make a Space Public.

Additionally, while the Comala Workflows add-on would work, it would only work for Confluence Server or Data Center. That add-on is not available for cloud products.

I hope this proves helpful and provides some guidance for moving forward.

Regards,
Stephen Sifers