In this page

How does the access control work with the app?

The app is represented by an artificial user called "Better Content Archiving for Confluence" on your Confluence site. We call it the "app user". The app user is automatically provisioned by Confluence when you install the app.

Access control works the same way for the app user as for any human user. See the Confluence Cloud documentation for general access control information, and for details of space permissions and content restrictions.

Required access control settings

In accordance with the previous, the app can work with a content (a page, for example) only if all these are satisfied:

  1. The app user has the required space permissions on the space that contains the content.
  2. Either there are no restrictions applied to the content, or there are and the app user is configured with the required content restrictions.

Required space permissions

In every space, except the excluded ones, the following space permissions must be granted to the app user.

Permission Why is it required?
View space Required so the app can work with the space and the contents in it.
Add blogposts Required so the app can write the content status and other app-specific information to blogposts.
Add pages Required so the app can write the content status and other app-specific information to pages.
Delete blogposts Required so the app can delete blogposts (through automations using the Delete action).
Delete pages Required so the app can delete pages (through automations using the Delete action).
Archive pages Required so the app can archive pages (through automations using the Archive action).

Notes:

  • See the Confluence Cloud documentation for the details of individual space permissions.
  • The Free plan of Confluence Cloud Space does not allow modifying space permissions, but every user has every space permission in every space (a limitation introduced by Atlassian). Therefore, the app will "just work".

Fix space permissions

Fixing the required space permissions for a large number of spaces can be time-consuming. The app provides a convenience feature, the App space permissions screen to make it easy!

Required content restrictions

If there is a content restriction applied to a content, it must be configured so that the app user "can edit" the content.

"Can edit" is required because the app writes the content status and other app-specific information to so-called content properties. At the same time, the app never modifies the title, body and other "core" information. Therefore, it is safe to include the app user in content restrictions.

Fix content restrictions

Steps:

  1. Go to the problematic space → Space settings → Restricted.
  2. For each restricted content, if the app user (called "Better Content Archiving for Confluence") does not have "Edit" type:
    1. Click the page title and open it in a new browser tab.
    2. Click the lock icon at the top.
    3. Select the user "Better Content Archiving for Confluence" by typing the first letters.
    4. Select "Can edit".
    5. Click Add.
    6. Close the browser tab and return to the list.

(Fixing a large number of content restrictions can be tedious. The app may provide a convenience feature for this in the future, but right now this is not possible due to limitations in the Confluence Cloud REST API.)

Symptoms of mis-configured access control settings

How do you know if the required access control settings are not configured correctly? The most typical symptoms are documented in the troubleshooting articles.

Questions?

Ask us any time.