Restrict a group from viewing KB that is linked to JSD

[Alex Gavrysh]

Hello.

We have a KB (shared Confluence space) for ProjectA. Also, we have a set of licensed users from ProjectB that should have access to Confluence. The problem is that users from ProjectB can see ProjectA KB Confluence space.

How can we restrict ProjectB users from accessing ProjectA space?

Here was the similar question 4 years ago: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-Cloud-questions/How-to-restrict-a-group-or-a-user-from-viewing-our-KB-that-is/qaq-p/1253663

[Judd Garratt · Accepted solution]

Hi Alex,

I remember designing the original JSD knowledge base feature when I was still at Atlassian. We needed a way for portal-only users to view KB articles through the JSD portal without a Confluence license. To solve this, we created a new permission for Confluence spaces - ‘any active user can view’. This functions a bit like ‘anonymous access’ but requires the user to be logged in.

You can see on the space permissions screen when this is active for a KB space.

Any user who can login to your Atlassian site (i.e. isn’t suspended) can view spaces that have this permission turned on, including portal-only users.

Confluence doesn’t allow users to be blocked from a specific space (although this would be a useful feature), so there are only two ways around the problem you have currently and both come with compromises.

1. If the ProjectB users in your example only need access to one space, you can use the new Confluence guests feature (which is in beta) to limit them to one space in Confluence. This will block them from all other spaces, including KB spaces with the ‘any active user can view’ permission turned on (they then won’t be able to view these spaces through the JSD portal either). This is probably your best bet.

2. If the users for ProjectA have Confluence access, you can change the KB space permissions to ‘only Confluence users’ in the knowledge base settings page for the JSD project and then use normal Confluence space permissions to restrict which spaces each group of users can view. I’m guessing this is not the scenario you're in, but worth mentioning.

Good luck! I know permissions can be a headache.

[Alex Gavrysh]

@Judd Garratt , thank you very much!!! Point 1 works like a charm! You saved me tons of time!

[Judd Garratt]

My pleasure! Glad to help :)