Page Properties in Confluence: A Simple Feature With Big Impact

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As we welcome new features in Confluence, it's the perfect time to celebrate some longstanding elements that have always been part of the platform. This article serves as a brief tribute to Confluence Page Properties, aiming to raise awareness about their benefits further.

Quick Introduction

Page Properties offer a convenient way to add metadata to a Confluence page. They are integrated natively into Confluence, even in the free tier.

Metadata of a document refers to the information that provides context or details about the document itself. I often work in an enterprise Quality System context. In this case, the metadata typically includes the type of document, the product it relates to, the document's unique ID, the version number, and the template from which it's derived.

I frequently use Page Properties when assisting my customers in migrating their Microsoft Word documents to Confluence. In Word, the document's metadata is often displayed in the header.

To attach properties to a page, edit the page and add the Page Properties Macro and fill it with the metadata names on the left and its corresponding values on the right.

We have set the page properties. What can we do with them now?

The two significant advantages of Page Properties are:

1. You can generate a list of all pages along with their properties using the Page Properties Report.
2. The Scroll PDF Exporter (and Scroll Word Exporter) can replicate the industry-standard layout by placing metadata in the header or footer of exported documents. I can't emphasize enough how this feature has helped me address objections to using Confluence in numerous companies. People are genuinely attached to having informative page headers.

Pro tip: Add a Page Properties macro to your custom Confluence template. Also, add a label to the template to identify all pages created from this Confluence template. This will ensure that all pages created from the template are consistent in their use of Page Properties, making them well-suited for listing in the Page Properties Report.

Please Vote For The Future Of Page Properties 

There are some drawbacks to using Page Properties, as they are pretty basic and have limitations. Programs cannot access them through the Confluence REST API, and they are not available in Automation. There are no Automation 'smart values' for Properties. Currently, there is a story that is 'Gathering Interest' regarding the addition of Page Properties to the Smart Values, so please consider voting for it here: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-78944 .

I understand that Confluence has evolved and now includes features like databases. However, Page Properties remain a simple yet popular tool. It would be fantastic to have an automation "smart value" for Page Properties.