document share - read only users/anonymous password access

[Matthew Walsh]

We only have a handful of users that would be editing Confluence docs but 50+ external users that could benefit from seeing these docs in a read only capacity. I'd like to run the cloud version but I don't want to open it up publicly with anonymous access for these users (and the rest of the world).

Is there any way to lock down the anonymous access with a password? Any other work around?

[Rodney Hughes · Accepted solution]

Anonymous with a password is a contradiction - passwords are only relevant to a User account.

By definition, Anonymous is deliberately for providing access to the Space for anyone anywhere in the world.

Of course you can set the Anonymous permissions such that they can't edit any pages or upload/comment etc

and of course within the Space you can set Page View Restriction at a Parent which only allows the nominated Users or user Groups you want to see that Page(s) i.e. Anonymous would not be included in the View list so it remains private.

[Matthew Walsh]

Thanks for the response, yeh I thought as much. My NFP org just can't justify additional licences just for read only user access. I'll have to enable anon access and wrap the site in with my own login auth page.

It would be handy if Atlassian added an additional read-only user type (that couldn't be changed) which they could sell much cheaper than the normal user rate.

[Rodney Hughes]

Seriously?  Licences aren't per user as such unless it throws you into a higher count tranche, but still it is scalable and overall not a super-expensive compared to other knowledge/collaboration systems.

Note that some Not For Profits may qualify for FREE Community Confluence licence (i.e. unlimited) under certain provisions https://www.atlassian.com/software/views/community-license-request

The "half pregnant" solution is to have a single generic User account to give to all these 3rd parties.
Downside is you have no idea who is actually accessing the information.
But you need to manage those more stringently to change the password whenever anyone leaves that 3rd party organisation.

I still believe that any, and more so NFPs, organisation needs to demonstrate some loyalty and privilege of being affiliated with the organisation, and hence get more buy in to the organisation success. 
That can be demonstrated by having the extra Users on a personal basis - that reinforces the loyalty and privilege in those individuals minds that they are not going to post the access details on Facebook and you can still manage each individual without disruption to all the other individuals.