How to set up Portal Banners for JSM: create templates, show them in the header, below the header or footer of chosen portals and pages, schedule them and let customers close them.

Overview

Portal Banners shows content you write to the customers of your Jira Service Management help center and portals — announcement banners, maintenance notices, how-tos, diagrams, contacts. You write templates in Jira’s admin area and show them in the header, below the header, in the footer or in a dialog of the portal pages you choose.

Customers need no Jira licence; a public help center shows the content to anonymous visitors too. The app runs on Atlassian Forge, stores templates in your Atlassian site and loads nothing from other websites.

The four parts of a showing have their own pages: where on the page, service desks, pages and template types.

Install and open

Install Portal Banners from the Atlassian Marketplace.
Open Jira settings → Apps → Portal Banners (also Configure or Get started in Manage apps). Only Jira admins and site admins see it.

The page has two tabs: Templates and Where templates are shown. Until you press Got it, one line says how it works: 1 Create a template → 2 Show to customers → 3 See it on the portal.

1. Create a template

Create template opens one form:

Template name — up to 70 characters.
Project folder (optional) — only for finding templates later; it does not decide where they are shown.
Template type — Markdown, Video link, HTML, Website link, Flowchart (Mermaid), Rich text (Atlassian editor) or Several templates. The open list shows one line about each type; see template types.
Size and position — Width (number with % or px), Height (px or auto) and Position (Left, Center, Right).
The type’s input, with Preview.

Save template stores it. While something is missing it says what (“Write the Markdown.”, “Enter a template name first.”).

2. Show it to customers

Show to customers on a template’s row decides where customers see it:

Where on the page — Header, Below the header, Footer and Dialog; several at once. A small sketch of a portal page lights the places you chose.
Service desks — All service desks, or the ones you choose.
Pages — All pages, or Help center, Portal home, Create request, View request, Profile and My requests.
Show from / Show until (optional) — customers see the template only in that window: a maintenance notice that appears and disappears on its own. The time zone is named under the fields.
Customers can close it — customers get a × on the template. Show again chooses never (until the content changes), on every visit, after a number of hours or days, or at most a number of times. It is remembered in each customer’s browser.

One template per place and page: showing replaces what was there, and the dialog warns first (‘Replaces “Welcome” shown here.’). Show to customers is enabled once a place, a service desk and a page are chosen.

3. See it on the portal

The portal asks for the template shown on this service desk and page — the desk’s own first, otherwise the one shown on all service desks — and shows it with its width, height and position. Links open in a new tab. When nothing is shown, the place takes no room; when a template cannot be read or the licence is inactive, customers see nothing, never an error.

A Markdown template can mix a how-to with a diagram, here below the header of the IT Help Desk portal:

And a footer with contacts and links on every page of the help center:

Manage templates

Search templates filters by title; Show chooses all templates, site templates or one project folder.
Under each title: where it is shown (“Shown: Header · all service desks”), “Scheduled: …” when every showing starts later, or “Not shown”.
Preview shows the content as customers see it; Edit changes it (renaming renames it everywhere).
Delete asks first; customers stop seeing it everywhere it is shown.

Where templates are shown

The second tab lists every showing by service desk, place and page:

Stop showing removes one showing; Stop showing everything clears a service desk. Both ask first. The template itself stays.

Permissions and data

Who changes templates: only Jira admins, from the admin page — the app asks Jira on every change.
Who sees them: customers and visitors of the help center and portals, on the service desk and page they are on. The portal can read only the templates that are shown.
What is stored: templates (title, type, content, size and position), the project folders’ names and avatars, and where each template is shown — in the app’s Forge storage inside your Atlassian site. Nothing about customers, requests or users.
Nothing from other sites: video and website templates show a button that opens the link in a new tab; in HTML and Markdown, frames and media from the web become links. Scripts and forms are removed before customers see anything.

See the privacy policy.

Troubleshooting

Customers don’t see a template — check Where templates are shown: the service desk may show its own template at that place, the showing may be scheduled for later or have ended, or the customer closed it.
“Choose at least one page.” next to Show to customers — tick a page or All pages.
All pages is unticked when I choose service desks — Help center, Profile and My requests belong to the whole help center, so they need All service desks.
“Banners & Content needs an active licence.” — a Jira admin renews it in Manage apps.

Still stuck? Contact support.

SLA Reports & Compliance Dashboard for JSM — weekly SLA compliance, breaches and trends.
Speech to Text & Voice Dictation for Jira — customers dictate requests on the portal.

Portal Banners for JSM – Admin Setup Guide