Adding and Inviting Users

There are a number of ways to add users to Confluence:

By user signup: If user signup is enabled on your Confluence site, people can add themselves as users of the site. See below.
Via an invitation link: You can invite people to sign up, by sending them an invitation link. You can copy and paste the link, or prompt Confluence to send the link in an email message. See below.
By adding users manually: Administrators with Confluence Administrator or System Administrator permissions can add new users. See below.
Via an external user directory: See Configuring User Directories. Not applicable to Confluence OnDemand.

You may also be interested in information about allowing anonymous users access to your site. Anonymous users do not count against your Confluence license totals. See Setting Up Public Access.

Note: If you are using Confluence OnDemand with multiple applications, please refer to the following guide for information on adding and inviting users: Managing Users and Groups.

Allowing user signup

If you enable user signup, a 'Sign Up' option will appear on the Confluence screens. The option will be on the login screen, and also in the header on public sites. People can choose the option to create their own usernames on Confluence.

You can restrict the signup to people whose email addresses are within a given domain or domains. This is useful if you want to ensure that only people within your organisation can add their own usernames.

You will still be able to add or invite users manually, whether user signup is enabled or not.

You need Confluence Administrator or System Administrator permissions to change the signup options.

To set the user signup options:

Choose Invite Users on the dashboard, then choose User Signup Options.
Or take the longer route: Choose the cog icon at top right of the screen, then choose Confluence Admin. Then choose Users > User Signup Options.
Choose Allow people to sign up to create their account.
Choose one of the following options:
- Restricted by domain(s) – Note: You need to set up a mail server for Confluence before you can configure domain restricted signup. When you choose this option, a text box will appear. Enter one or more domains, separated by commas. People will only be able to sign up if their email address belongs to one of the domains specified here. Confluence will send the person an email message, asking them to click a link to confirm their email address.
  For example: mydomain.com, mydomain.net
- No restrictions – Anyone will be able to sign up to Confluence. Confluence will not send any email message requesting confirmation.
Choose Notify administrators by email when an account is created if you want Confluence to send an email message to all administrators (people with Confluence Administrator or System Administrator permissions) every time someone signs up to Confluence.

On this page:

Related pages:

Managing Confluence Users
Setting Up Public Access
Configuring a Server for Outgoing Mail (Not applicable to Confluence OnDemand.)
Confluence Administrator's Guide

The information on this page does not apply to Atlassian OnDemand sites with multiple apps. If you are using Confluence-only OnDemand, the information does apply.

Enabling and disabling notifications about user signup

By default, Confluence will send an email notification to all Confluence administrators whenever someone signs up to the Confluence site. The administrators (people with Confluence Administrator or System Administrator permissions) will receive this message when someone signs up either by clicking the 'Sign Up' link or by clicking the invitation URL sent by an administrator.

To disable this notification:

Choose Invite Users on the dashboard, then choose User Signup Options.
Or take the longer route: Choose the cog icon at top right of the screen, then choose Confluence Admin. Then choose Users > User Signup Options.
Remove the tick from Notify administrators by email when an account is created.
Choose Save.

Screenshot: User signup options

Inviting people to sign up

You can invite new users to the site by sending them a signup URL, called an 'invitation link'. You can copy the invitation link and paste it onto a page or into an email message, or you can prompt Confluence to send an email message containing the same link.

The option to send invitations is independent of the signup options. You can send invitations if signup is open to all, restricted by domain, or disabled entirely. Even if signup is restricted or disabled, a person who has received an invitation will be able to sign up.

When someone visits the invitation link in a browser, a Confluence signup screen will appear.

To invite people to sign up:

Choose Invite Users on the dashboard.
Or take the longer route: Choose the cog icon at top right of the screen, then choose Confluence Admin. Then choose Users > Invite Users.
Copy the Invitation Link and paste it into an email message, or onto a page on your intranet, for example.
Alternatively, prompt Confluence to send an email message for you:
- Enter one or more email addresses in the field labelled Email To. Separate the addresses with commas. For example: [email protected], [email protected]
- Optional: Change the Message if you want to.
- Choose Send.

Resetting the invitation link

The invitation link includes a security token, like this:

http://confluence.example.com/signup.action?token=d513a04456312c47

This security token is a shared token – individual invitations do not have unique tokens. Anyone who obtains this token will be able to sign up to Confluence.

You can change the token at any time, by choosing Reset. The previous invitation link will become unusable. People will no longer be able to use the previous link to sign up. If they try, they will see an error message that the signup token has expired.

Screenshot: Inviting users

Adding users manually

To add a new user:

Choose Invite Users on the dashboard, then choose Add Users.
Or take the longer route: Choose the cog icon at top right of the screen, then choose Confluence Admin. Then choose Users > Add Users.
Enter the user's details: username, name, password, and email address.
Choose whether Confluence should send an email message informing the person of their new username. The email message will contain a link that the person can use to reset their password.
Choose Create.

Screenshot: Adding users

Notes

Multiple directories.
You may define multiple user directories in Confluence, so that Confluence looks in more than one place for its users and groups. For example, you may use the default Confluence internal directory and also connect to an LDAP directory server. In such cases, you can define the directory order to determine where Confluence looks first when processing users and groups.
Here is a summary of how the directory order affects the processing:
- The order of the directories is the order in which they will be searched for users and groups.
- Changes to users and groups will be made only in the first directory where the application has permission to make changes.
See Managing Multiple Directories.
Email server required for domain restricted signup and for invitations. You need to set up a mail server for Confluence, before you can configure domain restricted signup or send email invitations to users.
Are the user management options not visible? If you have external user management turned on, internal user management is disabled. To configure external user management, go to Browse > Confluence Admin > Security Configuration. See Disabling the Built-In User Management. Not applicable to Confluence OnDemand.
Confluence OnDemand: If you are using Confluence OnDemand with multiple applications, please refer to the following guide for information on adding and inviting users: Managing Users and Groups.

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