confluence apps

#All #Confluence#Jira#Bitbucket#Case Study#Learning Management#Collaboration#Project management#Task Management#Document management#Reporting#Analytics#Integration#monday#How To#AI#News#Confluence Tutorial

Confluence Page Status Management

January 16, 2024
#How To#Project management#Confluence Tutorial#Reporting#Confluence#Case Study#Collaboration
16 min

Today, Confluence is widely used by many diverse teams for seamless collaboration and documentation management. This highly customizable tool facilitates knowledge sharing, project management, and effective communication. So, let’s dive into the typical workday filled with working with Confluence Cloud and see how Confluence page status management can enhance it.

Product and Content Managers: Challenges, Tips, and Tricks

To start, meet Betty and James, colleagues and Confluence Cloud enthusiasts who love to discuss their work and challenges during the coffee breaks. Despite working in different departments (Content and Product Management), their Confluence work organization challenges are alike. They both strive to find better ways to communicate their work status to their colleagues or indicate when the piece is ready to see the world. Whether it is the latest release or K-Base article, Confluence Page Status opportunities can help in both cases. It turns out that taking coffee breaks with colleagues has its perks and this time, the benefit is the discovery of the Handy Page Status macro from Handy Macros for Confluence app, which can save the day in case of fear of writing blog posts and planning multiple releases.

This article covers tips and tricks on how to set expectations for viewers and collaborators and locate required data in a heartbeat while on the Confluence page. See what James and Betty have learned on their journey and what highlights they had on the way. From how to indicate the Confluence documentation status to putting the Confluence Page Status data in custom reports to filter and search by it – all covered in the reading below!

Learn the Basics: Confluence Page Status

First, what is Handy Page Status, and what value does it bring to the table to the Confluence Page Status? Let’s say ideas are notes, Confluence is a sheet of music that fellow collaborators and viewers can review, and the music symphony is ready for collaboration and feedback. How can we keep everyone on the same music sheet and signal that the symphony was born? The simple solution is to customize and incorporate page status management that best serves your company’s needs.

So, Confluence Page Status is a game-changer for teams and professionals who:

  • Need to incorporate straightforward, accessible, and reusable tools that ensure transparency and clarity of the workflows and their timelines.
  • Deliver dynamic work exposed to active feedback or used immediately as a reference (Betty’s Example: Latest How-To K-Base Article; James’ Example: Content of 1.3.20 app release version).
  • Want to get control of the workflow and its lifecycle and make sure that the feedback is given on the specific timeline of which everyone is aware (Betty’s Example: Page Status: Under Review James’ Example: Page Status: 1.3.20)

Learn About Advanced Status Management: Handy Page Status

With Handy Page Status, both Betty and James can go the distance and level up their Confluence Page Status experience, In addition to native functionality, this macro can:

  • Create status options that work best for your company process and reuse these status sets across pages for status consistency. James’ and Betty’s works are often parallel lines. Still, they benefit from each other’s Handy Page Statuses. James, assign each Confluence page with the bug report or feature request overview with the corresponding app version when it is planned to deliver them. Betty knows she needs the How-To Article in the blog ready precisely on the release date. All thanks to James’ Handy Page Status for Release. So she knows it’s safe to have the article in the ‘IN PROGRESS’ stage rather than ‘OPEN TO FEEDBACK.’
  • When making updates in one click, also see the update history.  The Handy Page Status history can help teams identify bottlenecks and encourage action. Maybe it’s time for another R’n’D session if the same bug fix has been postponed for three consecutive app versions. History also supports tracking time and seeing if Betty is in timing while changing her content from status to status.
  • Search and filter for specific page statuses and have a big picture of custom data in the form of the Handy Page Status Reports. Betty can create a custom report with a specific ‘READY FOR REVIEW’ status for selected spaces to signal feedback givers the article’s status before it goes live and public. James can review at a glance what will be released in version 1.3.20. It helps him decide whether the release can be locked, and the team can proceed with the following steps.

Boost Content Marketing and Product Management in Confluence

And now, here is an example solution. We will see how James and Betty put the Handy Page Status and Handy Page Status Report into practice. They immediately ace their daily workflows and relieve the pain that hits the nerve.

The solution only requires three easy steps:

  1. Сreate a new status set that reflects your needs.
  2. Have the time of your life assigning statuses to all relevant pages.
  3. Benefit from the Page Status Report to search and filter Confluence pages and have all the critical information ready at one glance.

Minimalistic Dark Mode Lovers – we’ve got you covered!

Minimalistic Dark Mode for Page Status Report

For those who live on the bright side, Handy Macros for Confluence has a variety of colors to choose from and play with!

Organize Confluence Page Status Data into Reports 

Those steps look easy enough. Still, they remain to be an effective tool for page status control. The Handy Macros for Confluence app has even more to offer, from Confluence dark mode support to multiple reporting criteria.

The data can be collected in a separate Handy Page Status report based on:

  • Confluence spaces where the status is set
  • Handy Page Status sets
  • Handy Page Status options
  • Confluence users who set the status
  • Handy Page Status dates

Handy Page Status report

Now it’s time to review how it goes on Confluence pages. We will see how you can track release versions and indicate content creation progress in Confluence Cloud.

Control App Releases: James’ Case

So, James keeps it simple with the release versions. Page Status is assigned to each feature/bug fix page, eventually forming a release. This way, users know when to expect the feature/bug fix to be delivered.

Workflow with Confluence Page Status

All the changes can be done directly in the mode. James and his team can always check for the dynamics if everyone has been waiting for the delivery for ages. James can view the history of the Page Status updates to validate the point or’ ages’ hypothesis in a few clicks. Sometimes, the path is straightforward; sometimes, it’s a bumpy road.All the changes can be done directly in the mode

With multiple Confluence pages actively and dynamically worked on, it is essential to silence the noise and focus on the priority task. James’ priority task is to lock the upcoming release 1.3.20.  He also needs to communicate critical release information to all relevant stakeholders. For that, he chooses appropriate space and a particular Handy Page Status; James can make the report author-specific and filter for status updates done only after a specific date. Let’s say one of the developers promised to confirm the app version on or after a particular date. The result can look like this and be customized and elaborated even further.

Page Status Report comes in HandyThe view-mode page status updates and the ability to craft a custom report in a matter of a few clicks and seconds has a lot of benefits. James and his collaborators can review the critical data at a glance and focus on the issues at hand. This saves the team a lot of time and enhances overall productivity, autonomy, and collaboration in their workflows.

Facilitate Content Writing: Betty’s Case

Writer’s block and fear of the blank space can be scary. Betty sees Handy Page Status as a game-changer (and a lifesaver). Often, the root cause of her writer’s block is that the feedback on the working piece is given well in advance while still being a work in progress. So, Betty invented her superheroes in the form of Handy Page Status to avoid the frustration associated with the feedback given well in advance by indicating clear expectations on the pages. And if you’re asking if she has a favorite page status, a ‘MESSY MIDDLE’ is Betty’s favorite.

Betty’s collaborators and readers love the new workflow as well. They know that while it is interesting to witness the process or see how the messy middle evolves, they’re invited to the party only when the ‘UNDER REVIEW’ and ‘READY’ page status is indicated.Facilitate Content Writing

Humble Drafts and Messy Middles are good, but those are also the ones that need a check-in or clean-up. How many of those does Betty have? What can be done about the ones in those states? And what if Betty needs to review her work only in a particular space after today? For this case, use the Handy Page Status report with the required search parameters.Handy Page Status Report data

With this solution and specific spaces for which Betty writes content, Betty can locate her not-so-work-in-progress items and see what can be done about them with just a few clicks. She is also having her superhero moment because now she needs to browse only through the Handy Page Status Report data vs. looking through her notes/manually exploring Confluence pages. Besides, her colleagues benefit a lot from the report. Everyone can see what’s new and ready to be read in the Blog space regularly without getting ‘content dupes’. Here the Last updated after field can help them with that even if they like only to read fresh blog updates each Friday.

Closure

Betty and James work in different departments, and their daily workflows are different, too. Still, they are impressed with the diversity and customization opportunities of Handy Page Status and Page Status Report functionalities. Moreover, Betty and James are eager to spread the word to the other teams who can benefit from incorporating the opportunities into different fields like project management or documentation review.

You can check out the Handy Page Status Management in action by trying it out in Confluence Cloud to see how you and your team can benefit from it. Feel free to check out Handy Macros for Confluence at the Atlassian Marketplace to see if this app can be a good fit for your needs and use cases.

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    Unlocking the Power of an LMS in Confluence for Efficient Employee Training

    March 14, 2023
    #Confluence#Learning Management
    9 min

    Employee training is an essential part of any business. It helps employees understand their roles, increase productivity, and stay current with industry trends.

    To maximize the effectiveness of employee education, many companies turn to modern solutions for learning management. Of course, choosing the right solution for top-notch training can be challenging.

    We think that one of the best ways to do this is to provide training tailored to each employee’s needs. As such, you can use the software that your team is familiar with, like Confluence. By adopting this approach, companies can reduce the time and resources they spend on training while also providing their staff with the tools they need to succeed.

    Let’s see how to elevate employee education by leveraging a learning management system in Confluence.

    Why use LMS in Confluence for employee training

    Confluence is a remote-friendly team workspace that allows users to create and share content, collaborate, and access various learning resources. You get a centralized platform for managing content, reducing the need for multiple third-party tools. Furthermore, Confluence allows users to easily structure content in a cohesive way, which helps accelerate the learning process.

    We bet that you already have a lot of information in your Confluence that training administrators can use for employee education. So turning your Confluence into a fully-fledged learning management system is a great idea. And it is possible with the help of izi – LMS for Confluence. This app requires minimal setup and makes Confluence more powerful and user-friendly, allowing companies to quickly get their courses up and running. And employees, in turn, get an interactive environment to engage in.

    Create courses in Confluence

    Setting up an LMS in Confluence is quick and easy. After installation of the app, creators and learners get immediate access to the Learning portal in Confluence.

    lms-in-confluence

    Learning administrators can create courses from the portal view or from anywhere in Confluence by clicking the Create button and using the Course template.

    One of the main advantages is that izi LMS allows reusing the existing content and separate Confluence pages as training blocks of the course. Administrators can edit content if required to ensure each training module has a clear objective and the course is well-structured and easy to follow.

    Populating training modules with images, videos, PDF files, and quizzes helps create engaging and interactive training materials. Moreover, administrators can update content for already enrolled course participants. In this case, employees receive the most up-to-date information when something has changed in the process covered in the course, or there is a new training module.

    Check for content updates

    To notify course participants about the necessity to finish the course, creators can set up automatic reminders for course participants.

    Course reminders

    Enjoy a smooth learning process

    Confluence users can browse the Learning catalog of available courses and self-enroll in the ones they find interesting. Also, they see their progress in the courses they are taking.

    My courses in Learning

    Learners see every course as a set of training modules they need to study carefully and complete one by one. Courses can contain quizzes that help assess user knowledge and understanding. This allows course administrators to rapidly identify gaps in knowledge to pay attention to and adjust courses accordingly. Questions can be of four different types:

    • single choice
    • multiple choice
    • true/false
    • free text

    Free text questions let participants share their thoughts on the question with the course creator, who then needs to review answers and mark them as correct or wrong.

    Free text review page

    Participants can self-enroll in quizzes with a link. This facilitates the task of inviting multiple users to a quiz without typing their names individually.

    Quiz self-enrollment link

    After course completion, participants get certificates they can download and share with their colleagues or on social media. It helps increase employees’ engagement and productivity.

    Course certificates for participants

    Read more about how to ace employee certification in Confluence with the help of courses.

    Track participants’ progress with reporting

    One of the most common challenges is ensuring employees are motivated to complete courses. To overcome this challenge, it’s crucial to track their progress and guarantee they are meeting the necessary objectives, as well as gain insights into where additional training may be needed.

    izi – LMS for Confluence lets course administrators track participants’ activity, assess their performance and generate reports both for courses and quizzes they take.

    For example, every course report shows statuses such as Not started, Started, and Completed. Moreover, hovering over the status, you can see the status change history. This feature provides course administrators with a birds-eye view of course progress among all the participants.

    Course history of status changes

    When it comes to quizzes, course creators can view answers participants gave while taking a quiz vs. correct answers.

    Take advantage of an LMS in Confluence

    With a suitable learning management system, businesses can ensure their employees receive the education and training they need to succeed. This approach benefits for both the company and its employees, as it allows them to manage their learning and development effectively.

    Whether you’re looking for a way to master employee onboarding, level up compliance training, or improve self-directed employee education, izi – LMS for Confluence has got you covered. It allows you to set up courses, track employee progress, and measure their performance on the fly right in Confluence, the software you already know and enjoy using.

    Try izi LMS for free and check how it can power up your training processes. The app is available for Confluence Cloud and Data Center.

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      Connecting Sharepoint and Atlassian Confluence together

      February 18, 2021
      #Confluence#How To
      6 min

      Did you know that switching between different systems and apps is not only annoying but costs businesses hundreds of billions of dollars annually due to wasted time? Enabling users to immediately find the information they are looking for is crucial to empower efficient teamwork.

      Let us imagine you want to create an overview of an upcoming marketing campaign in your Confluence. Having all information and documents available on this specific page helps all employees, from marketing to sales, to get what they’re searching for with ease. But how do you accomplish such a comprehensive overview?

      SharePoint Connector for Confluence

      Communardo’s SharePoint Connector for Confluence is here to help! By integrating Confluence and SharePoint, you enable a seamless work experience and get the best out of both worlds. The app makes it possible to easily embed SharePoint content into Confluence.

      Using the SharePoint document macro, you can either embed full-views or links of SharePoint documents as simple as posting the document URL. In case you got many files to share, you can even choose to embed a whole SharePoint document library. Now your colleagues can easily edit documents without the need to navigate to SharePoint first.

      The SharePoint Connector for Confluence is available for all Atlassian hosting options (Cloud, Data Center, Server), as well as SharePoint Online (as part of Microsoft 365/Office 365) and on Premise (2016, 2019).

      » Start my free trial of SharePoint Connector for Confluence

      Smart Attachments for Confluence

      If once you decide to finally migrate your document library from Sharepoint to Confluence, the Smart Attachments for Confluence app is the first option to consider. It integrates with Confluence and allows you to create local file storages within your Confluence spaces.

      For those of you who migrate from Sharepoint, you can just drop all your existing folders with files and internal folder structure, and the app will recreate this structure from scratch. So that you can preserve all your folder structures and files as you have them in your Sharepoint.

      You can perform all the basic operations on folders and documents, keep document revisions, manage labels, or move them between folders of yours. What stands this app from others is that it closely integrates with Confluence itself, so as a result, you can preview all the files and documents, edit them with Atlassian Companion, embed them into Confluence pages, and, of course, comment on them. This greatly simplifies the end-user experience and reduces the number of context switches, which leads to better productivity of your team.

      By default, the file storage is available to all Confluence users, and the availability of specific features is regulated by space permissions, so you needn’t adjust anything in your access control policies and go as is. The app also lets you perform non-trivial tasks, such as:

      • lock a specific document against edits while you are editing or reviewing it
      • restrict access to folders with sensitive information
      • share a folder with documents with some external users who do not have regular access to your Confluence, for example, when sharing assets with your customers.

      To minimize the necessity to constantly switch to the file storage, you can embed specific folder structures into Confluence pages. This way, you can instantly view, edit, and upload documents from your Confluence pages without losing your current page context or interrupting your activities.

      » Start my free trial of Smart Attachments for Confluence

      Bring Sharepoint capabilities into Confluence

      It is no longer a problem to show Sharepoint content in Confluence. As of now, you can consider two options:

      Which option to choose? Try both options and then decide which better fits your needs. Have any questions? Leave your comment and we will reply to you shortly.

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        How to Power up Page Properties Report in Atlassian Confluence

        July 17, 2020
        #How To#Confluence Tutorial#Confluence#Document management#Reporting
        2 min

        We’ve recorded this presentation for the online Team Up Forum hosted by k15t and Scandio.

        Discover how to power up the Page Properties Report macro with the help of two apps:

        You can easily filter and aggregate information on Confluence pages. Moreover, you can create your set of statuses and change them in the page view mode on the fly.

        Discover our comprehensive list of apps to boost your project planning capabilities here!

        If you have any questions, feel free to comment on this blog post below. Don’t forget to subscribe to email notifications about new articles in our blog.

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          How Broadband Forum Uses Talk and Confluence to Get Answers in Context

          September 26, 2019
          #Collaboration#Case Study
          3 min

          Broadband Forum, our Talk – Advanced Inline Comments for Confluence customer, delivers ultra-fast broadband services for home and business, access and converged 5G infrastructure, and Cloud with the help of the innovative use of NFV, SDN, Ultra-Fast access, and IoT.

          Broadband Forum is a member organization. It aims to accelerate the adoption of their work to bring new, valuable services to their member companies and all stakeholders who use the developed work.

          In the company, the Talk app is used by its technical participants, who are hundreds of users from more than 150 different companies. They develop technical standards for the global telecommunications industry.

          Easy communication inside Confluence

          The Talk – Advanced Inline Comments app helps the Broadband Forum participants communicate about logistics, administration of projects, and technical issues. Their Confluence users get to ask questions in Talk inline comments, which are added to the needed parts of the page content. It gives the insightful context for everyone involved in the conversation.

          Automatic notifications about new discussions and replies sent to the watchers of a space assure that the right person jumps in and provides a timely answer or feedback. Talk Report allows Broadband Forum to track and easily find unresolved discussions that are pending for way too long. With the help of suggestions, the users can propose a change on a page without editing the content.

          The team also appreciates that they can view, add, and resolve comments in the editor and set priority to discussions to signal others whether it waits or they expect a quick follow-up.

          Challenges and benefits

          The Talk – Advanced Inline Comments app made technical discussions much easier for Broadband Forum. The users can easily ask questions and rapidly get answers next to the discussed information on Confluence pages. Seeing all Talk comments of a space in one place, working with inline comments in the editor and giving priority to threads of comments take collaboration on technical issues to a new level.

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            10X Your Performance in Confluence With 10 StiltSoft Apps

            August 22, 2018
            #Confluence
            15 min

            Atlassian Confluence is a content management software that lets you get more done keeping your work organized. This team collaboration platform helps you get an immediate access to the information you are looking for because everything you could possibly need to create great content is in one place. Confluence allows you to easily create, update, and share content with your colleagues making this solution ideal for teams of all sizes and specializations. But there’s always room for improvement, right?

            The Atlassian Marketplace offers almost 1,000 handy solutions to improve Confluence capabilities and take your team collaboration on project documents and files to the next level.

            In this post, we will highlight 10 useful apps from StiltSoft you can use to enhance your productivity, stay focused, and do the best work you can.

            For Confluence Server:

            For Confluence Server, Cloud and Data Center:

            Here’s how these apps can help you get most out of your Confluence.

            Effectively collaborate with your team

            Talk – Advanced Inline Comments

            You can easily add inline comments to your content in Confluence when you want to discuss a page or blog post with your team. However, native inline comments are available only in the view mode. Moreover, everyone who has access to the page will see the comments you add.

            Talk – Advanced Inline Comments helps you add more powerful inline comments anywhere on the page, both while editing and viewing the page content. You can also restrict access to specific talks for appropriate users or groups making your conversation private, prioritize discussions, and use the Talk report to have a bird’s eye view of all the discussions spread over multiple pages in the space.

            Try Talk – Advanced Inline Comments free

            Smart Attachments

            Sharing files and project documents in Confluence might be a challenging task. Have you ever thought about how to categorize and group your files in Confluence? We already did.

            The Smart Attachments app provides you with a new way to keep all you project files in the centralized space storage. Now you can create separate folders for the group of files, easily use the already uploaded documents, and quickly integrate them into your Confluence pages.

            Try Smart Attachments free

            Handy Macros

            If you want to make your content more appealing and interactive, you can try our Handy Macros app. It is a comprehensive set of ready-to-use tools for your Confluence site.

            You can create your own statuses and switch from one status to another on the fly right in the page view mode. Handy Macros also allows you to keep the track of your tasks and events with the Handy Page Diff macro, the Handy Reminder macro, the Handy Tasks macro, and the Handy Timestamp macro. This app helps you add attractive image and video carousels for capturing attention of visitors using the Handy Carousel macro, and more.

            Try Handy Macros free

            No Email Storm

            No Email Storm is an app that can be a life saver for those who forget to uncheck the Notify Watchers button when saving minor changes and bother your teammates with tons of notifications.

            After installation of this add-on, you will see the Update & Notify button next to the Update button instead of the Notify Watchers checkbox. This way you can click Update if you just want to save changes without notifying the page watcher, or click Update & Notify to share the information about what has been changed.

            Download No Email Storm free

            Turn your Confluence pages into something more

            Table Filter and Charts

            Table Filter and Charts is a must-have app that provides you with exceptional functionality of Confluence tables making them much more usable. Now you use flexible and powerful filters to easily find the required information relevant to your current goals. Moreover, you can get a comprehensive insight into your table data and transform it into a visually-readable format.

            With the help of the Table Filter macro you can quickly filter dates and number ranges, icons and images, and more. The Pivot Table macro allows you to summarize large sets of data and easily manipulate data series in the realtime mode using your source tables. When you use the Chart from Table macro, you can generate visual-appealing charts and graphs built from tables.

            Try Table Filter and Charts free

            Courses and Quizzes – LMS for Confluence

            Courses and Quizzes – LMS for Confluence helps you build quizzes, tests, and training courses on the fly right in Confluence. With the help of this app you can assess knowledge and skills of your job applicants, create tests for onboarding of new-hires, or set up training courses for employee training.

            You get a learning management tool that helps you design educational courses, entertaining and fun quizzes. You can track participants’ progress in quiz reports and get statistics on the easiest and the hardest questions. Moreover, you can share quizzes and training course with anyone by email.

            Try Courses and Quizzes – LMS for Confluence free

            Save time on content creation

            Favorite Pages

            With the Favorite Pages app the pages you need are just a click away. This app provides you with a quick access to your top visited pages in Confluence. You can assign hotkeys to the pages you want to open ever quicker.

            This add-on allows you to open the inline list of your top visited and saved for later pages anytime you need it. By default the list of your top visited pages continuously updates. However, you can lock the pages you want to keep on the list.

            Try Favorite Pages free

            InPlace Editor

            InPlace Editor is a simple tool that makes editing large and complex pages quick and easy. This app shows the Edit icon next to the heading titles so you can switch to section editing right in the page view mode.

            You can set the global or space specific configuration of heading levels enabled for editing or allow inclusion of adjacent sections with headings of lower levels.

            This app also allows you to copy the link to a specific paragraph/heading within a page.

            Try InPlace Editor free

            Resume

            You can try all these Confluence apps for free to choose the ones that suit your needs best. They are designed to help you communicate better with your team, get things done more efficiently, create appealing content, and boost your overall productivity in Confluence

            To get more information about our solutions for Atlassian products you are more than welcome to check out all our apps on the Atlassian Marketplace.

            If you have any questions, feel free to comment on this blog post below. Tell us more about your favorite Confluence apps.

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