Users in Confluence OnDemand and HipChat

[Keith Manning]

I RTFM and just can't get it!

We have users defined in Confluence and want to try using HipChat with the same users. Do we really have to manually type in all the names again one at a time into HipChat? And if we do and make a typo how will the HipChat/Conflluence OnDemand connector know they are the same user?

Everything in Confluence seems so clever; but this seems so dumb. I'm hoping you can tell me that I am the dumb one and not HipChat or the connector.

[Dave · Accepted solution]

Hey guys,

To clear this up a bit, Atlassian Answers is a community forum, and is not related to our support team. If you need support, you need to raise a support ticket in our JIRA system at https://support.atlassian.com, or for HipChat you can do so at http://help.hipchat.com or by emailing support@hipchat.com.

To answer some of your questions, HipChat and Confluence do not share user details and user management is completely separate between the two. A Google search of "HipChat SSO" yields the top couple results pointing directly to this information at http://help.hipchat.com/knowledgebase/articles/58393-does-hipchat-support-sso-directory-integration-

The only integration with Confluence is notifying a room of new posts, or showing a users status, and this is clearly outlined in the Marketplace listing for the connector - https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/com.atlassian.labs.hipchat.confluence-hipchat. Please also note that at this time, the HipChat connectors are not supported products.

Hopefully that clears things up a bit! Answers is a great resource, but if you do need support I would absolutely suggest using the appropriate channel.

Cheers,

-dave

[Keith Manning]

David

Couple of points:

1. I say "separate user management sounds stupid to me". You reply that user management is separate with no explanation of why that is not stupid. If these products really do work together either they should share user management or it should be in the plan or it should at least be a SOD. OTOH, if you have some reason why their being unintegrated is a good thing, you should share that with us and tell us that true integration will never be done.

2. Telling us off for using "inappropriate channels" is very 1990s. Try Binging "user satisfaction management" and you will find lots of webinars on how good support these days means monitoring Facebook and Twitter - and, of course, your own user forums.

3. I didn't raise a support ticket because I didn't have an "issue" with the product, I just wanted to understand why it seemed to be doing something in a lame way (and assumed this was my lack of understanding). I could find no explanation in your documentation. The knowledgebase article you point to talks about external directory integration. I don't have to use LDAP or third-party tools to integrate my user definitions between Jira and Confluence. I much prefer this true integration to adding layers and complexity.

I am still looking for the reason why HipChat is not (or will not be) fully integrated with Confluence. But life is too short. We thought HipChat would be good for us because we love Confluence and just assumed Atlassian would fully integrate it and make it equally magical. But from everything you say that was a bad assumption. So, we will turn our attentions back to Yammer which we are confident will give us full user-management integration (not third-party SSO) with our Office 365 directory.

[GarretA]

Hey Keith - I'm one of the HipChat devs. We were a separate product that was acquired by Atlassian last year and haven't yet built a way to share accounts between the products. It's a larger challenge than it may seem, and we're working on it, but obviously aren't done yet. I'd suggest voting on the following suggestion so that you'll be notified when we do have a solution: http://help.hipchat.com/forums/138883-suggestions/suggestions/2908263-single-sign-on-via-google-apps-crowd-active-dire In the meantime it sounds like your existing SSO-enabled solution will fit your needs better. Thanks!

[Keith Manning]

@Garret. Thanks. Good to know that you are working on it. I was hoping that I had missed something and it was already there. But failing that I just wanted to know that it could happen somewhere in the future. Unfortunately my question was initially ignored then answered unsympathetically.

The world becomes a better and more logical place when real users talk to real developers. Thanks again.

[William Abrams]

FWIW, I think expecting folks to Google "HipChat SSO" to find the answer is counterintuitive. I didn't have to do that to connect up JIRA and Confluence in my OnDemand Instance.

Bottom line: people expect Atlassian products to just work together when they use OnDemand and you should write a single clear page that explains how its different with HipChat and what the administrative overhead is, how the user experience is different, billing, etc.

[Kevin Morris]

I know this is dredging up an old topic, but I've been reading a lot of Atlassian Answers pages, etc. and I've found that there seems to be a disconnect between the overall Atlassian business strategy and the customer service strategy. My thoughts are that if you're going for transparent pricing and upfront costs, as well as sharing your JIRA site, then why have customer service reps obfuscate answers with misleading information - the Dev had a better answer than the customer service rep, and the customer service rep was patronizing when the user wanted a no BS. Just IMO I think there are different visions that are being used by different managers here and I think a unified vision (to being more upfront) makes more sense, increases brand reputation. Not trying to make anyone here look bad, just my observations from an org academic.

[hhung]

I know this is an old thread, but if there's anyone on this thread that's still actively interested in this topic of a combine user management system between JIRA/Confluence + HipChat, I'd love to have a chat with you to get more details about how you expect this to work.

You can email me at: helen (at) atlassian (dot) com

Cheers, Helen

[Keith Manning]

Over two weeks and no reply. This is not the level of support for which Jira/Confluence are known. perhaps HipChat is not really and Atlassian product. In any case, we are not going to continue to consider HipChat if:

• There are glaring integration/SSO issues like this
• The developers/product managers can't even be bothered to respond to a reasonable question
• The community is so weak that this post goes unanswered for over two weeks

Yammer here we come!

[anandchida]

Any update on Confluence/JIRA and HipChat integration? It's surprising that a product from two companies don't work well even after 2 years of acquisition?

[Lee Such]

We're wondering the same thing and are using Jira and Confluence.