Running Multiple Provision Integrations within same IDP

Question

Hello community,

I am in the process of spinning up JSM for my company. We also use Jira for project board use for IT and DevOPs teams.

We use Okta as our IDP, and I have already set up one instance of the Okta/Atlassian integration. Using group assignment, any person we add to a particular group will be given access to Jira. No problems so far.

However, now I would like to use this integration in a different way; I want to set it up so that I can use a similar integration to add all of our employees as customers in JSM. The purpose is to take care of user provisioning for them instead of having each user have to login and register a JSM customer account. The problem I am having is that I don't see a simple way to do this from the integration already in place, nor can I get a cloned version of the integration to function.

I see checkmark boxes on the integration settings in Okta that allow me to add JSM to the integration, but then I assume if I use this, it will give all users a Jira account as well, which I don't want (I want to make sure the users for this group only go to JSM as non-billable customers).

So then I tried simply duplicating the integration, copying the settings from the first integration, and only checking JSM as the product to provide. This part fails when I attempt to test the API credentials. I am assuming that I would need to set up a separate IDP (even though it is still just Okta) in Atlassian Admin settings to get a new API key for this purpose.

But alas, I cannot do this either, as Jira Admin is telling me that I need to have Atlassian Enterprise in order to use multiple IDPs, even though its still the same IDP! I see the option to regenerate API keys, but then that would most likely break the current Okta/Jira integration that is already set up.

So, I guess I am spinning my wheels here.

Is there a way to setup multiple Okta/Jira product integrations so that I can assign different products to different users via my IDP without Enterprise? Perhaps if I regenerate the API key, I can use it for each Atlassian integration within Okta?

Or perhaps there is a way to load all users into Jira/JSM initially, but to not give them actual Jira access on the Atlassian side (a billable account), only JSM?

I have poured through all the documentation I can find and none of it really helps with this particular issue. I do not want to set this up as a portal-only customers type SSO project as I want users to be able to be pre-provisioned. (Otherwise I would just make the JSM instance public and let all users create accounts). I do not want to upgrade my instance as its not actually a separate IDP I am trying to use. Lastly, I don't necessarily mind putting the whole company in Jira if I can ensure that they won't actually be billed unless put into a project board.

I am sure that I am missing a simple fix here, but I don't think I can suss it out by myself any longer. Any advice on how to go about this would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Kieren _SmolSoftware_ · Answer

That sounds like a good solution. Two things to note: 1. If you're granting the JSM Customer role to a sync'd Okta group, then make sure there's no Jira/JSM settings you need to configure that would normally use the JSM Default Groups. I think for JSM Customers you'll be fine, but it's something worth checking if you have some custom Jira security settings configured. 2. If you're controlling all your customer access via Okta, then I'd suggest removing 'Require Admin Approval'. Otherwise, your Okta access and JSM Customer access will get out of sync. In either case, double check that your JSM customer access settings and your Org User Access Settings are aligned to what you're wanting. - JSM customer access settings - https://.atlassian.net/jira/settings/products/servicedesk/customer-access - Org User Access Settings (https://admin.atlassian.com/o//user-access-settings Good luck!

Kyle Pontis · Answer

Hi Kieren,

Ideally I would like to be able to add the entire company as JSM "customers", so that they can submit IT support tickets and the like. What I don't want is to add the entire company to Jira Software and end up having to pay for several hundred billable accounts on accident.

What I decided to do for now is to hide the integration in Okta, and then to use two separate "bookmark apps" instead.

So, this allows me to "shadow provision" users with the main integration, but then decide which apps they can see on their dashboard via the bookmarks. Then, I used push groups to set things up so that all users get added to JSM Customers group which assigns them customer roles in JSM. As for Jira, I just selected the option to "require admin approval" when a user attempts to access Jira Software.

This seems to be working for now, but I am curious if you think that there may be a better or more efficient/secure way to go about this?

Kieren _SmolSoftware_ · Answer

Hi @Kyle Pontis

Do you need to have the customers created as 'Customer Accounts' in JSM?

Or are you happy to have the customers created as 'Atlassian Accounts' and granted customer roles within JSM?

If you're ok to have the customers created as Atlassian Accounts, then just sync the users from your IdP into a single group, maybe called 'JSM-Customers'.
You can then assign the JSM customer role to the JSM-Customers group, and all those users will get access to JSM as a customer. There's more info one how to do this here https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Service-Management-articles/A-dedicated-product-access-role-for-internal-customers-in-Jira/ba-p/2279244

Or, if you want to use the default Atlassian group for the JSM Customer role, jira-servicemanagement-customers-sitename, you can use a 3rd party app like Admin Automations to sync users from one of your IdP groups, into the default group.