How to Bring Your SharePoint Folder Structure Into a Confluence Space

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Every Confluence user who also works with SharePoint knows the routine: you're writing a page, you need a file, and you leave Confluence to find it. You open a new tab, navigate SharePoint, find the document, copy the link, come back, paste it in, and by that point, you've forgotten what you were actually working on.

It doesn't sound like much. But research from Harvard Business Review found that knowledge workers toggle between applications nearly 1,200 times per day, losing roughly 4 hours per week just reorienting themselves after each switch. The American Psychological Association puts the broader productivity cost of context switching at up to 40% of productive time.

That's not a file problem. That's a workflow problem, and it's one you can fix without leaving Confluence at all by deploying a dedicated Confluence SharePoint integration.

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What the In-Context File Manager Does: SharePoint Connector for Confluence

SharePoint Connector for Confluence by ikuTeam brings your SharePoint folder structure directly into Confluence. You can browse, preview, upload, and manage SharePoint files without switching tools. Files stay in SharePoint, nothing is copied or duplicated, but you work with them from inside Confluence as if they were already there.

There are two main surfaces where this happens: Space Folders in the sidebar, and file embeds on individual pages.

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Step 1: Link Folders Using the Confluence SharePoint Connector

Space Folders pin multiple SharePoint folders (or document libraries) for direct access from the left sidebar of a Confluence space, visible to every member of that space, always one click away.

To set this up via the Confluence SharePoint connector:

1. Go to your Confluence space and open Space Settings

2. Navigate to the SharePoint Connector section

3. Connect to your Microsoft 365 account if you haven't already

4. Select the SharePoint site, document libraries, or folders you want to expose

5. Save: the folders appear immediately in the SharePoint file manager in space sidebar

From that point on, any space member opens the sidebar, sees the SharePoint folder, and can browse its contents without ever leaving Confluence.

• Who sets this up: Space administrators. End users don't need to configure anything; they just use it. Admins can define who can and who cannot connect new folders to a Space.

• What you'll access from the sidebar:

  • The full SharePoint folder tree, mirroring what exists in SharePoint

  • Live previews for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, videos and images

  • Upload capability: add new files to SharePoint directly from Confluence

  • Access is controlled automatically by SharePoint permissions

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Step 2: Embed SharePoint Files and Folders Directly on Confluence Pages

Space Folders handle navigation. But sometimes you want a specific file or folder to live on a page, attached to a decision, a project brief, a sprint plan.

You can embed any SharePoint file or folder directly on a page:

1. Open or create a Confluence page

2. Type /SharePoint to bring up the macro picker

3. Select SharePoint Connector

4. Browse your SharePoint libraries connected to the Space and select files and/or folders

5. Publish the page

The files or folders render inline. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF files open in full preview. Folders display their contents as a browsable file manager, your team can navigate, open, and upload without leaving the page context.

Files always stay in SharePoint. Edits made from Confluence save back to SharePoint. No copies, no duplicates, no sync needed.

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Step 3: Work With Files Without Switching Context

Once Space Folders and page embeds are in place, the day-to-day experience changes:

• Find files: Open SharePoint from the sidebar, navigate the folder tree, open what you need

• Preview documents: Click any file to open a full-fidelity preview, no download required

• Edit in Microsoft 365: Click Edit to open the file in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint online. Changes save automatically to SharePoint

• Upload new files: Drag and drop or use the upload button to add files to SharePoint from within Confluence

• Share context: Embed the exact SharePoint folder on the relevant Confluence page so your team always knows where to look

A project manager updating a sprint page can reference the latest spec, preview it inline, open it for a quick edit, and close it, without ever switching tabs.

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What Changes in Practice

Teams that adopt this workflow consistently report the same shift: Confluence becomes the place where work happens, not just where notes live.

Rather than bookmarking SharePoint folders separately, sending file links in Slack, or asking teammates "where's that document?", everything is findable from the space your team already works in. According to a joint study by Qatalog and Cornell, it takes an average of 9.5 minutes to get back into a productive workflow after switching to a different app. Multiply that across a team and a week, and the time savings compound fast.

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Try It Free

SharePoint Connector for Confluence is available on the Atlassian Marketplace with a free trial. Install it in seconds, no migration, no data movement, no IT ticket required.

If your team is using both Confluence and SharePoint, what's the part that causes the most friction? Curious to hear how others are handling it.

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