A New Unified Authentication Page for JSM Help Center

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Introducing Jira Service Management’s new Unified Authentication Experience in your help center - a single page for new and existing customers, to get help or send requests faster.

Why we created a Unified Authentication Experience?

Typically customers turn to JSM when they have an urgent need for help or an ad-hoc request. In these moments the last thing people have on their minds is their log in credentials for your JSM Help Center. The authentication process can be time-consuming and frustrating - but what if a new feature combined log in and sign up into one page? Let's take a closer look.

Introducing the new Unified Authentication Experience

Combining the log in and sign up process into one page reduces the number of decisions customers make. Instead of having to navigate to two different pages and hoping you’ve entered the correct details, customers can enter their details once and be done. This streamlined process will reduce friction and speed up the log in and sign up experience.

A unified page provides a direct, dynamic, and contextual path for people to either sign up or log in - it understands how a customer’s account was originally created and its current status. We’ve put smarts in the background to recognize which path is most appropriate for each customer and personalized the authentication experience for them.

What have we created?

How does this affect my Help Center?

Existing customers will have a familiar log in experience and their credentials remain the same. The Unified Authentication Experience will prompt a customer for their email address to identify which authentication method is relevant for them. From there, users will be guided to complete authentication with their existing details.

New customers will be directed to the sign up flow to create an account. The Unified Authentication Experience will identify new customers based on their email addresses and then provision the appropriate account for them (based on your site’s settings).

For customers who might have bookmarked the old log in and sign up links, we’ve set up redirection rules to ensure customers end up on the new Unified Authentication Experience.

We’ve streamlined the authentication process by providing an intuitive user experience that saves time and reduces user friction. There’s also the added bonus of reducing the number of reset passwords required to raise a request on JSM - which we’re sure your customers and agents will love.

When will this be released?

We aim to have the new Unified Authentication Experience available from June 2023. Release tracks will follow this so that administrators have full control over when their customers can enjoy the new experience.

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If you have any questions or would like to provide feedback, please leave a comment below 👇

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Nice addition @Ash Young !

Sure helps to avoid screen changes/extra clicks (which everyone hates :))

[Ross D Webster-Salter]

Great, will this page also include SAML based sign up process like main id.atlassian log-in? We have a lot of issues in pointing members of our organization to a link on the customer portal but it not recognizing that they belong to our org and requires them to create a password etc. if they have never used an Atlassian product before. 

[Ash Young]

@Ross D Webster-Salter the new page will identify when SAML is configured and present new users with the option to authenticate.

if you have any secondary/alternative authentication methods enabled - these will also be presented. It would be wise to check your site authentication settings to restrict the options secondary/alternative methods if you wish all users to use SAML.

[Lori]

What if you want to restrict what customer users can access service management and enter a request?  Can an anonymous user access this page and create a user account that is not authorized?

[Ash Young]

Hi @Lori 

If you have administrator privileges you are able to disable anonymous access to your Help Center. You are also able to restrict account creation to ensure no unauthorised accounts are created.

You can find more information here on how to configure your Help Center.

[LarryBrock]

Hi @Ash Young - I see you've tagged this article with the "jira-service-management" tag.  Does this indicate this is available on both cloud and DC platforms?

[Ash Young]

Hi @LarryBrock 

The new Unified Authentication Experience is for Cloud only at this moment.

[Viktor Malmberg]

Hey @Ash Young , as you wrote the article i hope its alright to tag you to ask a few questions.

I’m not 100% understanding “customers who might have bookmarked the old log in and sign up link” and would appreciate if you could help me out here

1. Is the old login url “https://<my-user>.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/user/login”?
2. What will be the new URL?
3. If someone has the old log in bookmarked with query parameters ( &absolute or &destination ) will those be passed along through the redirect?
   
   

Thanks

[Ian Bekker]

Hey @Ash Young

We are creating customers with the API and then sending them our own emails to "sign up". However when they enter their email in the new unified process, it then asks them for a password rather than offers them to sign up. This is because the API creates customers with a temporary password so the unified process thinks they know their password, which they don't. So the only workaround is for users to hit reset password. This is ugly. At least the previous process allowed for a screen dedicated for sign up.

By the way, this went live before June 2023, as you claim.

Rgds,

Ian

[Ash Young]

Hi @Ian Bekker

As you're aware we're currently working on SSO for Portal-only Accounts. I'd be interested to hear if you'd still be creating customer accounts via API after we release the feature mentioned here

Apologies if our release schedule resulted in UX issues for your users. We're still aiming to release to 100% this month (June), our gradual rollout timeline means that some sites will receive the feature earlier than others.

I see you're already enrolled in our EAP for SSO - so please reach out if you'd like to discuss your use case in more detail. I'd love to make sure JSM is working well for you.

Thanks,

Ash

[Ash Young]

Hi @Viktor Malmberg

All users will land on the following link:

https://<site>.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/user/login

After entering an email address - a user will be prompted to sign up if our JSM site detects they are a new user. They will be presented with the following link 

https://<site>.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/user/signup

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Any previous links will be redirected to:

https://<site>.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/user/login

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Thanks,

Ash