How to add confluence user without adding Jira user?

[Alex Tinsley]

We just upgraded our JIRA license to 250 users but kept Confluence at 100. 

How can I create a new user or modify an existing user so they can only have access to JIRA and not Confluence?

and while I'm on the same subject:

How can I create a new user or modify an existing user so they they only have access to Confluence and not Jira?

[Ingo-Stefan Schilling · Accepted solution]

That's quite simple, just add/remove it from the corresponding groups you use in Confluence...

It becomes however a bit more complex if you have same groups in both JIRA and Confluence and want some users not being in Confluence - but you guessed it, again it's simple as above scenario: Just create a new group, let's call it Jira-Project-Group and either leave the other with the Confluence group name or create another group, e.g. Confluence-... and move users here and there...

Yep, it's work and unpleasant - but I am sure you considered that when you made the different user number decision and did put the additional group work into the business calculation.

The following is of-topic

For the future, even it sounds as if it is a lot of additional work - I would recommend to not use general user groups, as confluence-users / jira-software-users / ... but consequently start and go on with groups reflecting permissions, e.g. a project in Conlfuence / JIRA doesn't necessarily need all users to look into -so  why not directly create a group just for this purpose. This is btw. one of the best practice things you learn to do if certifying for ISO 27k familiy  and 'survive' the (re-)certification process without much work to-do in this field of security & Co.

[Alex Tinsley]

Got it, makes logical sense, in practice I'm still having problems. 

For example I have a Group called "Operations" that group has Permissions to see and use a certain Space in the Wiki. 

I have a employee that I have setup that is not part of the "Users" Group and is ONLY a member of the "Operations" Group.  When they login to Confluence Wiki, the system lets them login, yet on screen it tells them they have No Access. I am assuming it means they have not been granted access to any Spaces. 

To fix this without adding them to the Users Group, do I need to add that "Group" Operations to the Global Permissions for Confluence as well? 

Is there any documentation that details the differences between Groups and Space Permissions between Confluence and JIRA User Administration? 

[Ingo-Stefan Schilling]

I am sorry to answer that question "a bit late"; but better late than never.

The reason for your described behavior is simply that the entry space (page) is usually setup for all users belonging to the group: confluence-users and hence, your user doesn't see it and confluence just 'fails'.

Before you are now going to change that behavior, just use the above explanation consequently.

1) all users belong to the confluence-users group

2) only the main space is available to them

3) all other spaces do not allow access to confluence-users group but other groups, e.g. remove the confluence-users group from all spaces except those they are allowed to look into.

and that's the whole story.

*In terms of logical solution and practical issue:*

I still must admit that the above solution is taking administrative and operational time, especially if your are setting up an environment or you are dealing with an extremely dynamic environment.

At least from my practical experience, it turned out to work perfectly. Meanwhile we fine-tuned the concept by having groups like project-name-po, project-name-dev and so on to handle mainly jira rights & roles but do use those also for confluence, bitbucket & non-Atlassian products. This did reduce the above work a bit. For single users which are for whatever reason belonging to a group but are not allowed to see a space or usually a special page, we just deny the right to see it and that works as well. However, we have had so far only a handful situations in which we did that.