"No Access" to knowledgebase for anonymous or service desk customers

Randy Barger

I'm running the free version of Jira Service Manager. I've created a JSM instance using the "customer service management" template. I've linked the project to a Confluence space, and have created several KB articles. I've configured project and customer permissions to be as open as possible, as I want KB articles to be found without requiring logon.

I thought I had it working for anonymous access, but I must have inadvertently changed something, as articles can't be found. Even if I log in with a "service desk customer" account, articles can't be found. When selecting a category, or attempting to access the direct URL for a KB articles, I get the following:

The only thing I remember doing before it stopped working was deleting the pre-built how-to and troubleshooting "templates" (they were showing up in search and I didn't want them to):

So I created a brand new service management project and linked to a brand new confluence space. But those articles don't show up either.

I've not changed any of the project permission scheme settings/permissions.

Andy Heinzer

Hi @Randy Barger 

I understand you are using free plans and trying to setup the knowledgebase integration between Confluence and Jira Service Management (JSM).  On the Free plans, there are existing limitations that might prevent this feature from working.  First off, please know that free plans do not provide anonymous access for either product.  Also making changes to permissions is also not possible in free plans. 

I expect that when you first signed up, the cloud products were not on the free plans yet, but rather you were using a 30 day trial of our standard plan.  Those trials of standard or premium plans would provide users with anonymous access, and it would let you change permissions both within the confluence space and within the customer portal of JSM. 

If you do not provide payment info after that 30 days on those trials, either the site can be deactivated, OR you may have switched the site to use the free plans, which are expected to impose these limitations.

There are more details about the limitations in JSM over in  https://confluence.atlassian.com/servicedeskcloud/limitations-in-jira-cloud-free-plans-1097175877.html

And also some good info about how Confluence changes when switched to a free plan in https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/manage-permissions-in-the-free-edition-of-confluence-cloud/

So while I don't expect anonymous access to work on free plans, users that login to the JSM customer portal should still be able to see some documents that way, provided that the permissions were configured before switching to the free plan. 

You shouldn't remove yourself from Confluence product access.  You'll need that in order to create and manage documents there.  Ideally you don't want to add unlicensed users (JSM customer role users) to Confluence, and you shouldn't have to.  Those users are only expected to have access to the customer portal as their means to interact both with JSM and Confluence.  Try having the users login to the customer portal, it should have a URL such as [yoursite].atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/

and see if they can view the knowledgebase articles that way.  That way should still work.  If you want to enable anonymous viewing of those documents, then you'll need to upgrade Confluence to a standard plan.

Andy