Does Atlassian Access or Atlassian Guard bill for Confluence Guest Users?

[Vikrant Yadav]

Hi Guys,

Need your help in understanding Atlassian Access biling. 

In our Org ( abc.com) we have 2000 Confluence users license and Atlassian Access for 3000 users , now we have request to onboard more 4000 abc.com internal users as Confluence guest and give access to a single space. 

Does these new 4000 users need Atlassian access license then only they can access a space  as Guest users ?

Note : All 4000 are internal users , domain is verifed ( abc.com) and all are unique users. 

[Kristian Klima · Accepted solution]

Hi @Vikrant Yadav 

Each Atlassian application is billed separately.

That applies to Atlassian Guard (the artist formerly known as Access).

You would not have to pay for your guests to access Confluence but you'd have to increase you Atlassian Guard seat count.

More on who can be a Confluence Guest... https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/invite-guests-for-external-collaboration/

Note: If you have Confluence Enterprise, you have interesting options to play with  when it comes to your Org users accessing multiple Confluence sites in your Atlassian organization....

[Trudy Claspill]

Adding to this...

Do note that the Confluence Guest access is intended to be used only for people outside of your organization, as per the Atlassian documentation.

If you intend to onboard 4k users from a domain that you have claimed, that could be considered non-compliance with the above policy.

[Vikrant Yadav]

@Trudy Claspill  Thanks for sharing Atlassian policy!

Currently, we have approx 1K Guest users which are of our domain means internal users. Now we are planning add to 3k more these are not regular confluence users, they just want to view Onboarding documents . As per the Atlassian document, it seems that it's against Atlassian policy. 

So the only solution, is to buy new Confluence licence only for just giving View permission to users ?

[Trudy Claspill]

There are a few alternatives you could consider.

Anonymous access:

https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/make-a-space-public/

Public links:

https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/share-content-externally-with-public-links/

Third party apps that allow you to share content without granting access directly to Confluence.

[Vikrant Yadav]

Hi @Trudy Claspill  But using these features, anyone on the internet can access the page.

[Kristian Klima]

@Vikrant Yadav 

Yes, if you make a space available to anonymous access via Space settings, everyone on the internet will be able to see the content.

But there is a solution - you'll need an app for that but it will get your out of non-compliance :) 

Scroll Viewport app by K15t can built a documentation portal from your Confluence content (one or multiple spaces).

Crucially, Viewport can build a site(s) also from private spaces (no public/anonymous access necessary).

What you can do then is to enable SSO on the Viewport site. This means that you will control who can access your Confluence content on your Viewport site with your SSO. 

In other words, for your use-case, people who are in your SSO will be able to view the content without having Confluence seats.

The added benefit is that your Viewport site will have your own doman.

Summary: whoever now only needs View access, will be able to see any content that you decide to put in your Viewport site via SSO without needing a Confluence or Guard seat.

Disclaimer: I'm using Scroll Viewport in this exact scenario (albeit at a much lower user count). This is our public documentation site built with Viewport. We also have an internal version behind our SSO.

BTW, Atlassian also use Viewport for their documentation portal - 

https://confluence.atlassian.com/alldoc/atlassian-documentation-32243719.html

[Trudy Claspill]

@Vikrant Yadav 

Anonymous access would definitely give anybody on the internet access, if they found your site.

Public links allow anybody who has the link to access the page.

Third party apps would potentially enable you to provided secured access.

To be clear, I am only pointing out Atlassian's stated policy for Guest Users for Confluence. As you have stated, you are already using it in that manner for 1000 users. You are using it in that manner at your own risk.

Regarding how many Guest Users you could have, the documentation states up to 5 guests per paid user. If you are paying for 2000 Confluence licenses, then you could have up to 10,000 Guest Users.

With regard to Atlassian Access/Guard, according to an answer on this post Confluence Guest Users are billable in Atlassian Guard, so to add another 4000 Confluence Guests you would need to increase your Atlassian Guard license by the same amount.

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Questions/Are-Confluence-guest-user-billable-in-Atlassian-Access/qaq-p/2195741

[Vikrant Yadav]

Thanks a lot @Trudy Claspill  and @Kristian Klima  For clearing my doubts. 

I think Public Links works for us.