Confluence: Help Needed with Space Permissions and Search Functionality

[Wen Krogg]

I'm having trouble configuring a space to function as intended. Here's what I'm aiming for:

What I want:

• Users should be able to:
  • View all documents in the space
  • Use the search function to find any document by title or content
  • Download documents
  • View version history
  • Receive notifications when a document is added or changed, with detailed updates on changes

What I don’t want:

• Users should not be able to:
  • Edit documents
  • Add comments or inline comments

My current setup:

• All users are added as watchers of the space
• Space Settings -> Users: Only the "View" permission is enabled
• Page Restrictions: All users can view, but only I have editing rights (no other users are added to manage access or editing permissions)

Issues I'm facing:

1. Search problem: Users are not able to find documents using either "Search by Title" or the regular search bar.
2. Comments issue: Users are still able to add inline comments, which I want to disable.
3. Notifications: Some users receive correct notifications, while others don’t.

Questions:

• How can I stop users from adding comments?
• What might be preventing users from being able to search for documents?

Thanks in advance for your help!
Wen

[Robert DaSilva]

Hi @Wen Krogg 

Let me see if I can help.

1. Search should return all pages a user is able to see. I would make sure that you have Space Permissions set up correctly such that all users are listed. I would also double check your Page Restriction settings to ensure that same group is listed as View. What might have happened is you may have restricted the page down to only you being able to see and edit.
2. It appears there is an open bug with Atlassian where the in-line comments are not disabled alongside the Comments permission. I would recommend voicing your support for this suggestion / bug report on the ticket itself, as that's how Atlassian prioritizes fixes. https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-73763
3. Could you elaborate more on what you mean by some users not receiving the correct notifications? Users have some level of control of their notifications, so maybe some users have modified their settings. Users are able to modify their Notification Settings by clicking their profile in the top right, and then Personal Settings. Under the Email section here, users have a lot of control over what types of notifications they receive, and when.

Cheers,

Robert

[Robert DaSilva]

To elaborate on the "ensure all users are listed in the Permissions" area, this is usually best done by using the "Group" that contains all users in the instance, usually the group which grants user access. If you're not an Organization Administrator, I would reach out to them and ask what the name of that group is.

[Wen Krogg]

@Robert DaSilva Thank you for your reply! It was very helpful and gives us more avenues to explore.

1. I have asked the site admin to look into the permissions settings for the "group" the users belong to.
2. I will also add my support to the bug/issue thread you provided.
3. I prefer that users don’t have to make adjustments, as many of them aren’t computer savvy. I wonder if this is also a group permissions issue, as both the tester and I received the proper notifications without adjusting any settings during testing. However, we have full access to all groups on Atlassian, while the users added to this space are only part of the Confluence group.

Hopefully, this will help solve our issues. Again, thank you for your response!

Best,
Wen

[Robert DaSilva]

@Wen Krogg A lot of notification settings in the Atlassian ecosystem are heavily focused on user choice. There are some that you can force through, but a lot are under the control of the user.

What notification were you expecting your users to receive? The issue very well could be group or permissions based, but it could also have been a deliberate choice from the user to stop getting specific notifications.

[Wen Krogg]

@Robert DaSilva It should look like the attached notification and when clicked it takes them to the changes/history page. 

[Robert DaSilva]

Hi @Wen Krogg 

That looks like the Daily Digest email. That email will trigger for users who have been making changes to pages or spaces and for any users who are watching spaces or pages individually.

If you need that email sent to all of your users, those users need to go into Confluence themselves and "Watch" a page, or make an edit or comment.

Here is more information about the Daily Digest email: 

• https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-articles/Introducing-the-Confluence-Daily-Digest/ba-p/2042487
• https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-articles/Daily-Digest-email-will-replace-quot-Confluence-changes-in-the/ba-p/2460886

However, you should be able to bulk-adding users to the Watchers list via the Atlassian API. More information on that can be found here in the API documentation: https://docs.atlassian.com/atlassian-confluence/REST/6.6.0/#user/watch-addSpaceWatch

I would, however, caution against bulk adding users and forcing them to receive these types of notifications. This can constitute spam and may cause user behaviour to start ignoring these types of notifications if they don't find them overly useful.

[Wen Krogg]

Hi @Robert DaSilva 

Thank you for linking the Daily Digest email information pages, I will look at those as soon as I can. 

As for the adding watchers - I made all users in the space watchers when I created the space by adding them through 'Manage Watchers.' It is my assumption that this will automatically notify users of any changes to the content within the space. The purpose of this space is specifically to communicate document changes as quickly as possible to everyone in the space."

 

On the page restrictions, it is my assumption that the space watchers fall under the group found in the page restrictions labeled 'anyone in this space can view' when the 'Anyone in this space can view, some can edit' option is selected. 



Are my assumptions correct?