Using Confluece as an External Facing Customer Portal

[Karen_Mustain]

Hi

We currently use an instance of Confluence as an internal knowledge base. We are wanting to implement another instance of Confluence as an external facing customer portal.

I'm interested to know if anyone else is using Confluence as an external facing application. Also, would you be willing to share any insights/information regarding your implementation, strategies and best practices.

Thanks Karen Mustain

[Kevin Molloy · Accepted solution]

Hi Karen

We have two instances of Confluence running; one for internal use and one customer facing. We have been running this for a number of years and it works very well. The advantage is that we can give the customer information on our products and services in a simple format.

We encourage customers to add information, particularly on older generation products where we no longer have manuals, etc. Sometimes our users know more than our support staff so we encourage them to share tips and tricks.

Each customer has their own space, open to anybody within their organisation who gives us their email address. A good way of finding more contacts.

We can tailor their space to give them personal information, such as their system or support agreements, customer installations, site information, visit reports, preventative maintenance schedules and reports, etc.

There is also a common space that gives more general information.

Regards, Kevin

[Rushina]

Thank you, Karen, for asking a question that I was just searching for answers to.

Hi Kevin,

We are moving from PDFs to more interactive solutions for our documents. If I use the above solution, I don't need to create separate HTML for my knowledge base?

Linking the confluence page to the KB on our website will work?

Please clarify. Thank you in anticipation,

[Robert Heynen]

Is there someway to implement a solution that does not require a customer creating a log in account?

[Brandon Murphy]

We are dealing with this issue as well @Robert Heynen. We don't find it reasonable to pay for an entire license for a read-only login.

[Jan Sondergaard]

@Brandon MurphyIt is possible to have a Confluence space with Anonymous access. No sign in required.

Anonymous Access

If your Confluence site is public, you can grant permissions to people who are not logged in. Anonymous users can be granted almost any permission, but we recommend you limit this to viewing and commenting. 

However, I found that the user experience is far from ideal, so either I am missing something, or Confluence is still not ready for public spaces in my mind. See my comments below.

[Jeremy Largman]

Hi Karen,

Yes! We did this ourselves at Atlassian. I'm curious to watch other answers to this question, to see what others have done as well.

For what Atlassian has done with confluence.atlassian.com, start with Developing a Knowledge Base on Confluence Wiki and/or Developing Technical Documentation on Confluence Wiki.

[Karen_Mustain]

Thanks so much this was very helpful.

[Jan Sondergaard]

Jeremy,

Would like to see more information on how we can replicate the user experience seen on confluence.atlassian.com.

Followed the steps outlined here

https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/use-confluence-as-a-knowledge-base-218275154.html

I easily got a customer facing (public) FAQ style confluence space published. However.

1. We need one that does not include the menu (Dashboard, Get app, Give Atlassian feedback, Log In) and other items that will confuse our users.

2. The space (when viewed on iOS device) include an invitation to download the Confluence Cloud app. We do not want to get users confused with that. confluence.atlassian.com does not do that.

3. The Live Search element (when view on iOS device) says "Tap to see livesearch content, which will prompt the user to go to the App Store, instead of simply letting the user search. confluence.atlassian.com does not do that.

4. How to set up CNAME for the space so customers could go to faq.mycompany.com instead of https://mycompany.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/myspace/overview

[Jeffrey Bistrong]

Is it possible to have a customer facing portal restricted to  user who have an email with specific domains 

[Ersin Gulacti]

Jan,

You can use Hide Elements Plugin by Scandio which is free. Quote from marketplace

you can now hide different Confluence pages components. Disable and enable comments, likes, any buttons and other elements as you please. 

[Ersin Gulacti]

Jeffrey,

It is possible to use Jira Service Desk and Confluence together. Have a look at https://confluence.atlassian.com/confeval/confluence-evaluator-resources/confluence-mixing-public-facing-without-login-articles-and-internal-content

[Karen_Mustain]

No. Our IT group decided to implement a Sharepoint solution. We still use Confluence for our intranet.

[ori ben-yehuda]

hi Karen, did you implement Confluence for customers ? can you share your implementation, strategies and best practices. ? thanks Ori benyehuda.o@gmail.com

[Irene Yuen]

Hi Karen,

We are using Confluence as a customer-facing documentation site. I have some info on what we did at the Confluence User Community pages: How we use ePublisher and Confluence for user documentation. Some of it is a bit outdated but it should give you an idea of what we do.

[Karen_Mustain]

Thanks so much this was very helpful.