Is service desk can function as user manual?

[Eithan Zand]

Hi,

I would like to know if the  knowledge base in the service desk can function as user manual for end-clients?

Or it's more suitable for sporadic articles?

[Rob Horan]

Wouldn't it make more sense to expose that one Confluence space to end-users?

[Eithan Zand]

If you want to keep the Confluence space closed from the world (access only for registered users), you need to buy licence for each end-user.

[Rob Horan]

That's one extreme option, but i was thinking about this:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/confkb/how-to-give-non-confluence-users-access-to-a-space-779166002.html

[Eithan Zand]

Thanks.

I'll look into it.

[Alex Palermo]

If you are not going to expose the information to an external audience (anonymous users), but only to controlled users.  Tes, it is also possible to release without using licenses.  

Try to go to your service desk project and release as a portal customer (customers). 

This configuration is don within the service desk project.  If I hare difficulty , I can place the image. 

[Łukasz Modzelewski _Lumo_]

As Marketplace vendor, we are using Service Desk with connected Confluence knowledge base to allow our customers to first search for solutions in knowledge base, before creating ticket.

The best way to see the power of this combination, is if you visit our marketplace listing and in the bottom right corner click "Any Questions?" button (Service Desk widget) and search for some topic e.g. "Global settings": https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/37456/the-scheduler?hosting=datacenter&tab=overview

It will display related pages KB on Confluence, if you click on topic it will display article from documentation, if it doesn't give related answers, users can go back and create ticket in our SD project right away.

When you get your documentation in Confluence, you can export it all (or selected pages) to .pdf and send it customers :)

[Eithan Zand]

Thanks for the detailed answer.

We are also using the KB to allow our customers to first search for solutions in knowledge base, before creating ticket. But, this is also the only place where the client can reach the information about the product.

I wonder if it's the correct thing to do, and not allow the clients access to the Confluence itself where the data is organized in trees (chapters etc.).

[Łukasz Modzelewski _Lumo_]

Sorry, I've missed your reply.

In our settings, spaces with app documentation are open to public. In space permission settings, just grant View permission to Anonymous Access

https://psc-software.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/SCHED/pages/1773037/The+Scheduler+for+Jira+Server

SD widget has one downside: it changes links with service desk as base, so it's not possible to open links in new tab.

[Eithan Zand]

Another sub-discussion, how do you manage versions in the service desk?

Meaning, it you write new article for the new version, but you have clients working on both new and old versions?

It's possible to let the clients see only the relevant articles?

[Łukasz Modzelewski _Lumo_]

You can experiment with some labels for version of product, but restricting pages would be hard (if not impossible) if you don't have clients in Confluence groups.

As for training there are some great tutorials available until the end of May, this would give you an overview how to put it all together: https://training.atlassian.com/using-confluence-for-documentation-and-knowledge-bases

Full list: https://training.atlassian.com/free-training-catalog