Restricting knowledge base articles to just agents

Question

Hi. I've seen similar old queries but nothing with a definitive answer. We're setting up JSM for our ITSD. We don't have confluence licenses (they're not required for single space KB function/article creation, as that's included for JSM agents), & we won't be using Confluence for wider internal org wiki (we use SharePoint). However I would still like to be able to allow agents to create articles just for them in the JSM KB.

This article https://support.atlassian.com/jira-service-management-cloud/docs/restrict-access-to-knowledge-base-articles/ describes how to do this, but seems to be referring only to paying Confluence users. As whilst I see the settings describes, & can add extra 'spaces', I can't access these spaces or assign articles to them. So is this feature basically not going to work unless I have Confluence licenses? Or is there something I'm missing? Seems like pretty common ITSD KB function that agents would need... so why need a license to another product for it?

Any help appreciated, thanks. J

Joao Vasconcelos · Answer

Hello @Jamie Bell, I know this issue been lingering for a long time, but you may refer to https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/restricting-knowledge-base-articles-to-a-group-of-customers-1224782654.html, with this you may restrict content to a specific group of Atlassian Account users, regardless if they have Agent or Customer license.

Jamie Bell_81fbl5 · Answer

Thanks Fabian. You don't need Confluence licenses for Agents to create articles, that ability (via a single linked space) is included with JSM licenses. Else as a ITSM tool it wouldn't work. But you'd need Confluence licenses to presumably do anything more with your articles, re permissions etc, it seems. Which is a shame, as some basic 'agent or customer' setting for KB article view is pretty standard in other ITSM tools, eg ServiceDesk Plus, I believe.

Fabian Lim · Answer

Hi @Jamie Bell

Unfortunately, you will be required to purchase confluence licenses to create/update articles.  One option that we use is to have only a X number of agents create the articles (using a license) and then have the rest of the agents use the portal to look for the information.

Without Confluence it would be hard to build a proper IT Service Desk solution since there is no integration to Sharepoint to search for articles.

I hope this helps.