Dashboard permissions

Overview

We believe in transparency by default, and what better way of communicating your information than using reporting dashboards (see Share a dashboard with a public link to share your data). However, there are numerous reasons to restrict access to certain information to only a specific part of your organization. With this in mind, Dashboard Hub provides an Advanced Restrictions feature.

Did you know that you can provide access to certain dashboards to customers of your Jira Service Management Customer Portal? Learn how inManage access to the Jira Service Management Customer Portal.

Our permission levels are similar to Confluence page restrictions and we refer to them in the same way:

"Anyone can view and edit"
"Anyone can view, some can edit"
"Only specific people can view or edit"

You can access and change the dashboard restrictions from two places:

Click the open lock icon at the top of any dashboard, or
Open the Dashboard settings page from the More Actions menu.

Remember to save your settings.

Anyone can view and edit

Open lock icon

This setting means that anyone in your Jira or Confluence instance can access, view, and edit the dashboard content:

The accessible content does not include the datasources. Datasources have their own access restrictions; you can read more in Learn about datasources.

Anyone can view and edit the content of this dashboard

If you want everyone to have viewing permission but only specific users, groups and/or projects to edit it, then select Anyone can view, some can edit.

Anyone can view, some can edit

Close lock icon

This setting means that anyone in your Jira or Confluence instance is able to view the dashboard content, but only some users/groups/projects can edit it:

Anyone can view the content
Some users/groups/projects can edit the content

When you select this option, you are restricting who can edit the dashboard. But still anyone in your Jira or Confluence instance will be able to view the dashboard content.

If you cannot search for users/groups, remember that you need the Global permission "Browse users and groups". If a user is unable to find users, it is likely that they are not part of a group with this permission. See more: https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/unable-to-browse-for-users-and-groups-120521888.html

Assign users/groups/projects to edit

Type a user's name, group,, or project into the search bar. You can add as many people, groups and projects as needed.
Since anyone can already view the dashboard, the selected users/groups/projects display a fixed “Can edit”.
Select Add to add them to the list.
Select Save to save the changes.

To remove users/groups/projects, click Remove next to their name.

If you still want to restrict specific people's access to your dashboard, select Only specific people can view or edit.

Only specific people can view or edit

Red lock icon

This setting means that only selected users/groups/projects in your Jira or Confluence instance are able to view and/or edit the dashboard content:

Some users/groups/projects can view the content
Some users/groups/projects can edit the content

This is the most restrictive setting. Your dashboard can be completely private or restricted to a few selected users/groups/projects.

Assign users/groups/projects to view and/or edit

Type a user's name/group/project into the search bar. You can add as many people/groups/projects as needed.
Select the access type: Can view or Can edit
Select Add to add them to the list.
Select Save to save the changes.

To remove users/groups/projects, click Remove next to their name.

Important notes

Groups

If a user is in more than one group and one of those groups has access to view the dashboard, then that user will be able to see it.

Projects

In addition to selecting individual users or groups, you can add Jira projects to the dashboard’s permission settings. Any user with “browse” access to the project will automatically have view/edit permissions for the associated dashboard.

What are Project roles in Jira? Similar in concept to groups, with the main difference being that group membership is global, whereas project role membership is project-specific. See https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/guides/permissions/overview#what-are-project-roles for more information.

Admins

Take into account that in the setting “Anyone can view, some can edit”, admins can still edit the content (similar to the Admin key feature in Confluence’s cloud premium). To avoid this situation, set the setting “Only specific people can view or edit”.

Public links

If a user is accessing a public link, permissions are not checked. It doesn’t matter if that user is logged in (see how public links work Share a dashboard with a public link).

Why are there separate permissions for the Customer Portal?

Different Access Models: Jira users are licensed users with access to Jira projects and dashboards. In contrast, Customer Portal users are external participants with limited access, typically only through the JSM portal. Treating them the same could unintentionally expose sensitive internal data.
Improved Control and Security: By managing permissions separately, you can ensure that Customer Portal users only see dashboards explicitly shared with them, reducing the risk of unauthorized access and ensuring compliance with internal data policies.
Tailored Experience: This separation lets you create dashboards designed specifically for external users, with simplified views and relevant information, without compromising internal reporting needs.
Consistent with Jira’s model: This mirrors how Jira handles permissions (e.g., accessing tickets through the Customer Portal follows a different permission model than accessing the same issues in the Jira interface).

Cloud Migration Resources