How to create knowledge base for customers

Question

Hi. I need to create a knowledge base for our customers, I found some information but it is either very old or doesn`t cover all points I need. So here some questions I hope you can help me with. I am using Confluence cloud btw.

1) Is there any relevant step-by-step guide how to create a KB for 2022? I only found one video on yb and it`s outdated.

2) How to make this KB available only for our customers and not all confluence users?

3) How to make that our clients could see only this KB and couldn`t access our other inner documentation. If I got it right, creating a KB is creating a new space. But if I create it, wouldn't our clients get access to our other projects and spaces with inner documentation? I need customers to be able to use only KB space so they can find answers to FAQ and etc, I don`t want them to be able to see our inner documentation or edit it.

Thank you all in advance.

Oxana Ermolaeva · Answer

Hi, @Alex Koxaras -Relational-  thank you for your reply. So if I got it right from the articles you sent, my customers will be able to read articles only using Jira help desk typing in a search bar? I mean I want to make a KB for our external customers, but I want them to be able only to read articles, which our technical writer will write, when they have questions, but not to edit them in Confluence.

As for the question about access to confluence spaces, I meant that if clients click an article to read, won`t be they able to switch to another space or see our internal projects, documentation? They will only see articles related to a search word from a Knowledge base space right? I need a KB so clients could find answers to their FAQs, I don`t want them to see our company plans, docs and so on.

Besides, I can`t make it public, we want make this KB available only for our users. Is it possible? Do they need to register at Confluence? Here comes again a question how they can look at KB and how to give access only to specific clients and only to KB. It is still not clear to me.

Maybe you could also help me with one more issue. Tell me please if I can make from one account 2 knowledge bases. One for external use (for our company clients only, so they could only read articles we post) and also one knowledge base for internal use (for team members), so that I could use internal KB for on-boarding, for example. In this case, I need team members to have access to our other spaces and projects.

Alex Koxaras -Relational- · Answer

Hi @Oxana Ermolaeva

Please read the following articles to get a better understanding about KB in confluence

* https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/guides/expand-confluence/confluence-and-jira-service-management
* https://www.atlassian.com/itsm/knowledge-management/what-is-a-knowledge-base
* https://www.atlassian.com/itsm/knowledge-management

Creating a new space doesn't grant access to your customers. You site must be open to public to grant access to anyone (including your customers). So when you create a KB space, you don't give access to customers to your other spaces.

And why you want to hide the KB from your users? Who is going to write all the articles?