Roles and permissions

Overview

The standard Confluence roles and permissions are used in Comala Document Management to manage workflow roles and also access to documents with an applied workflow. In addition, the app can add, remove, and set Confluence page-level restrictions.

Confluence hierarchy

The roles and permissions for both Confluence and workflows are based on the topology of Confluence itself.

Workflows, roles, and permissions exist at all three levels of the hierarchy.

Page refers to pages and blog posts.

Confluence permissions

For an overview of Confluence permissions, see Atlassian Confluence permissions and restrictions.

The following workflow trigger action macros can be used to change page-level restrictions as a response to a workflow event:

Page:

add-restriction macro — Add content view/edit permissions
Page:

remove-restriction macro — Remove content view/edit permissions
Page:

set-restrictions macro — Reset content view/edit restrictions

Confluence roles

These are the standard roles in Confluence, and how they relate to Comala Document Management.

Role	Notes

Role	Notes
Anonymous	Anyone who is not logged in to Confluence.
User	Must be logged in to Confluence.
Comala add-on user	Comala app user used for workflow
Space administrator	Responsible for Setting space permissions for content access, editing, and deletion Selecting which space workflows are in the space and whether they are active Space-level app configuration, including workflow notifications.
Global administrator	Responsible for: global workflows in the instance, and which workflows are active so they can be added to a space as a space workflow, and are available to add as a page workflow app global configuration, including workflow notifications The global administrator can set which spaces can use page workflows and space workflows type of e-signature credentials required for reviewer authentication. The can also manage the expiry for existing user authentication app token or remove user authentication
System administrator	Responsible for Installation, updating, or changing the Comala Document Management app in your instance

Workflow permissions

These are the permissions from the perspective of Comala Document Management:

Permission	Notes

Permission

Notes

View content

Users who can view the content

This requires all of the following Confluence permissions:

"Can use" – Global permission
"View" – Space permission
"View" – Page (or blog post) permission, or no page-level restrictions

Users who only have this permission are sometimes referred to as "Viewers", "View-only users", or "Read-only users".

Edit content

Users who can edit the content (including Admins)

This requires all of the following Confluence permissions:

The permissions listed for "View" above
"Add" – Space permission
"Edit" – Page (or blog post) permission, or no page-level restrictions

Workflow admin

Users who can administer the workflow at the content level.

This requires any of the following Confluence permissions:

System administrator
Global administrator
Space administrator

You can define additional Workflow Admin users, even if they don't have any of the three permissions listed above, by adding users to the adminusers property of the workflow macro. This grants the listed users the Workflow Admin permission for that particular workflow, and all the content it is applied to.

Workflow roles

Workflow roles relate to interactions with the content and the workflow applied to it:

Role	Notes

Role	Notes
Viewer	Consumer of content Must have View content permission
Author	Responsible for producing (creating, editing) content Must have Edit content permission
Assignee	A user who is assigned as a reviewer to an approval, or assigned to a workflow task Assignment is optional by default, but can be required or prevented in the workflow or app configuration. See: Who can be assigned, or assign users to an approval approval macro task macro
Reviewer	Responsible for reviewing content. See: Approvals Content reviews Must have Edit content permission
Reviewer	Reviewers can optionally be required to authenticate their identity prior to making a review. See: Reviewer authentication
Approver or rejector	A Reviewer who has either approved or rejected content during a content review. These can be used in some of the compatible third-party apps. The values can be accessed using the Workflow supplier or as a value reference.
Approver or rejector	In some elements of the user interface and macros, the term Approver is used to refer to a Reviewer or Assignee.
Producer	Collective term for Authors, Assignees, and Reviewers. Namely, all users who have Edit content permission.
Workflow Admin	Can force workflows into a specific state on a page-by-page basis. See: Administrator state override Can remove `stickylabels` See: workflow macro Must have Workflow Admin permission
Workflow Admin	When applying workflows at the space-level, Confluence administrators and space administrators can use the Initialize feature to bulk transition all documents for a given workflow into a given state.

Page mode

When a space is running in page mode, users with Edit content permission can apply a page workflow and edit the applied workflow using the page tools menu:

Space mode

When a space is running in space mode, a space workflow has been made active in the document management dashboard and applied to all the pages and blog posts in the space by a space administrator. On pages with the space workflow applied, there are no options for editors to add or remove the workflow:

App configuration

Setting	Use	Where	Notes

Setting	Use	Where	Notes
Workflow Activity and Drafts Visibility	Can users who only have View content permission (but not Confluence edit or admin permission) view documents in a draft workflow state when the workflow includes a final state?	Configuration - Global Configuration - space tools	Default setting: View-only users can only view the last approved version created on transition to the workflow final state (if present) Option: Visibility set to let view-only users view content in a workflow draft state See: Same-space publishing Activity Report - Content
Tasks mode	Can users other than the task creator and assignee complete or assign tasks?	Configuration - Global Configuration - space tools	Default setting: Lenient. Any user with view and edit permission can complete a task Option: Strict. If user is assigned, only the assignee can complete the task
Space workflows	Which spaces in the instance can use and apply space workflows?	Configuration - Global	Default setting: Any Space workflows can be restricted to added space keys.
Page workflows	Which spaces in the instance can use and apply page workflows?	Configuration - Global	Default setting: Any Page workflows can be restricted to added space keys.
Workflow Importer Group	Which Confluence administrators and space administrators can import workflows from the Workflows Exchange repository?	Configuration - Global	See: Import - Global Import - space tools
Email any address	Can email addresses that are not associated with a Confluence instance be used in the send-email macro in a workflow trigger custom email notification?	Configuration - Global
Default view	When using same-space publishing, should users with Edit content permission see the draft or the last published (final state) version of content by default?	Configuration - space tools

Testing roles and permissions

Whilst developing and testing workflows, it is useful to view the content from the perspective of another user – such as a Viewer, or a Reviewer – to check that the interface, permissions, notifications, etc., are working as you expect.

A third-party app, Switch User (SU) for Confluence, can be useful in this context. If you are more adventurous, you could probably do something similar using Adaptavist ScriptRunner.

Related pages

Configuration - Global – Global app permissions
Configuration - space tools – Space-level app permissions
Notifications – Limit notifications to users, groups, workflow roles, etc.
Publishing – Prevent view-only users from seeing draft (unpublished) content