Advanced Security With IP Restrictions

IP restrictions allow you to limit access to your Help Scout account to a predefined list of IP addresses. This feature is a part of Advanced Security, which is included in the Pro plan. Advanced Security is available as an add-on for the Plus plan, for an additional $5 per user per month. 

How IP Restrictions Work

With IP restrictions, enter up to 50 individual IP addresses or IP ranges containing any number of IP addresses. Your Help Scout users must be accessing Help Scout from one of the allowed IP addresses included in that list or included in a range in that list to log in. Users with IP addresses that do not match the addresses on the allowed list will receive an error when attempting to log in.

The IP address is the last public routable address of the user. The address that we check is the origin of the TCP connection to our servers. If the User is using a VPN connection, we will check the public routable IP of the VPN and will not check any IP addresses that are behind that VPN. Similarly, if the User is using a proxy, we will check the public routable address of the proxy.

Users logging in via the iOS and Android apps will need to connect through a VPN prior to logging in through the mobile apps. The VPN IP addresses must exist on the IP allowed list.

Enable the Add-On (Plus Plan)

Any user that has the Manage account permission can activate the add-on by going to Your Plan > Add-ons.

Click Free Trial, review the details of the trial period as shown on the next screen and click Enable Advanced Security to start the trial.  

To turn off the Advanced Security add-on at any time, just head back to Your Plan > Add-ons and click Disable under the add-on. 

Enable IP Restrictions

Note: Only the Account Owner and account Administrators can enable and update IP restrictions.

1

Head over to Manage > Company, then click on  Authentication in the left navigation menu.

2

Click on the IP Restrictions tab, then click the toggle next to Enabled. 

3

Add individual IP addresses or ranges to the allowed list text box. When you're finished, hit the Save button. Triple check these addresses! Users with IP addresses that do not match the addresses on the allowed list will not be able to access Help Scout.