Read-only Manual for Customers

Question

My company currently uses Confluence for all internal documentation.

We would like to create a read-only manual based on Confluence that would serve as a resource for our customers using/subscribed to our software.
We would like to host the manual in Confluence, but using a completely separate account from our company's internal confluence library of pages, spaces etc. We want to keep our internal confluence pages as secure as possible.

We would like any of our customers to be able to click a link embedded in our software which would allow them to access the read-only, confluence-based manual. They should not be able to edit pages, create pages, comment on pages, delete pages, etc.

We don't want our customers to have to create individual logins to view the manual, however we need to make sure the manual is not publicly accessible. They will only access the manual from within our software.  We won't publish the link, but also don't want the link to be "found" in a google-type search. Ideally, we'd like to have one, universal login that our software auto populates behind the scenes when a user clicks the link to access the confluence-based manual.

We would need additional licenses/logins to manage, edit, add, remove content from this stand-alone Confluence account.

Can someone help me understand if the scenario outline above is possible?

Brant Schroeder · Accepted Answer

@Lauren Bertsch

You can use Public Space or Public Links.  You will have to choose one as a Confluence instance will not support both.

* Public Space
* Public Links

Lauren Bertsch · Accepted Answer

Thank you for the reply. Since we have multiple pages within the space that contains our manual, the public space option would be more appropriate.

However, is it possible to have a stand-alone Confluence account, with a read-only space where one of the licenses ONLY allows access to view the read-only space? We do not want to make the space publicly accessible. And we would like this one license to not be able to make comments, create new pages, etc. We would like to use a single license to provide a secure, universal login (a single username and password) to populate on the backend of our software for any customer who needs to view the manual (we would program this feature) from within our software. The Confluence account and the spaces and pages within would have additional logins/licenses for our team members within the company that would have privileges to edit the content.

Robert Keiper (K15t) · Accepted Answer

Hi @Lauren Bertsch 
you might also want to take a look at my companies app Scroll Viewport.

It enables you to present Confluence content as a separate help center site but also to embed this content as in app help (Learn more) and to authenticate the content by using authentication tokens(Learn more).

Feel free to book a demo with us or let me know here, in case you have more specific questions about Scroll Viewport.

Cheers, Robert

Conrado Maggi · Accepted Answer

Hello @Lauren Bertsch

If you want to avoid making your confluence public but accessible to anonymous users you can use a tool like the one we created:

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1227534/deskbase-on-brand-websites-for-confluence?hosting=cloud&tab=overview

Which let you publish your docs on a public site and block google from indexing the site. You can even embed this into your software or hosted into your own domain.