A knowledge base is an important resource for the people who need it — but that does not mean that everyone needs access to it. You can choose an authentication method for your knowledge base that fits your use case — private or public.
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This article discusses functionality that is included in the Aha! Knowledge Advanced plan. Please contact us if you would like a live demo or want to try using it in your account.
Configure authentication
Customization admins can configure authentication for a knowledge base from its settings.
Navigate to Settings ⚙️ -> Account -> Knowledge bases. Click the name of your knowledge base to access its Settings.
Navigate to the Access tab.
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Click Add authentication method.
Click Public for a knowledge base that anyone can access with the URL.
Choose Password to require a password to access your knowledge base. Then enter a Display name and the password you want to use.
Choose SSO to require SSO authentication for your knowledge base. Then select an SSO configuration from the dropdown or set up a new one.
To add an additional method, click Add authentication method again and complete the configuration. Drag and drop authentication methods in the order you want them to appear when someone visits your knowledge base. To delete an authentication method, click its More options menu and select delete.
Public knowledge bases
Public knowledge bases are accessible to anyone who has your knowledge base's URL. This option is best for knowledge bases that serve a broad audience and do not share any proprietary information. Public knowledge bases are also indexable by search engines, so readers may be able to find your knowledge base by searching for it online.
You can disable search engine indexing if you do not want search engines to index the contents of your knowledge base.
Private knowledge bases
Private knowledge bases require authentication to access. Only knowledge base visitors with the appropriate credentials will be able to access them. When someone navigates to a private knowledge base's URL, they will see a login page.
They will then need to enter the knowledge base's password or authenticate with your configured SSO identity provider to access it.
Password access
Visitors will need to enter the password your configured for your knowledge base to access it. Password-protected knowledge bases are great for internal knowledge bases for audiences that do not belong to your organization — like business partners, clients, and beta testing groups.
SSO access
When SSO is configured for your knowledge base, visitors will need to authenticate to your configured SSO identity provider to access it.
If you have an Aha! Ideas or Aha! Roadmaps ideas portal, you can share an SSO configuration between your knowledge base and ideas portal.
Your knowledge base supports single sign-on (SSO) through the use of SAML 2.0, OpenID Connect, or JSON web token (JWT). Any option provides a great way to automatically authenticate knowledge base visitors and grant them access.
When you are ready to establish an SSO connection, follow along with either of the following articles as you move through the SSO settings.
Multiple authentication methods
In some cases, you may want to set up multiple authentication methods for your private knowledge base. For example, employees at your organization can access the knowledge base via SSO, but you also want to allow partners who are not employees to access the knowledge base as well. In this situation, you can set up SSO and also add an additional authentication method and set a password.
If you set multiple authentication methods for your knowledge base, visitors can choose the authentication method that they want to use.