The Best Way to Manage Glossaries in Confluence? We Compared the Options So You Don’t Have To

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What’s the best way to create and manage glossaries in Confluence? 

Confluence pages? A good start that’s not scalable enough. 

Databases? A step in the right direction but takes time to customize and continuously update.

A dedicated glossary app? You’re nearly there.

Our latest release? Yep that’s the one. 

I know what you’re thinking. Another marketer trying to promote the latest release of an app. In a way that’s true (can’t lie 😀). But along the way, you’ll learn a thing or two about glossary management in general, some Confluence limitations, and why you should give this new release a chance.

What constitutes a great glossary management experience?

In three simple words: Simplicity, scalability, and ease of access.

You should be able to add terms effortlessly, expand your glossary without limits, and still manage and access everything with ease. That’s it, really.

To understand how our new release improves on current solutions, let’s take a quick look at three common approaches people use to manage terms in Confluence:

• Using Confluence pages 

Using regular Confluence pages to manage terms is a simple and familiar approach. All you’ve got to do is create a Confluence page based on the “Content Design Glossary” template. Here the page contains a table of contents at the top with pre-built tables. There, you can add terms, definitions, and more. 

The flexibility here is a major plus since you can format, link, and organize each page and term however you see fit. Yet, as your glossary grows, things might become a bit challenging. 

First, maintaining a growing number of pages which in turn consists of a host of terms can become overwhelming, and error prone. Searching for terms across multiple pages can be a pain. There’s no centralized way to filter or sort, making it difficult to manage larger glossaries.

In short, while regular pages are easy to set up, they become increasingly difficult to manage and navigate through with simple search.

• Using Databases 

Databases provide a more structured solution. They centralize your glossary and allow you to organize terms by categories, tags, and custom fields. Databases give you more structure and can be a step up from Confluence pages in terms of scalability. 

However, they come with their own challenges. Customizing a database to fit your glossary needs takes time and technical know-how. Think of it as another learning curve that your teams might not be willing to take. Additionally, databases are not designed primarily for glossary management. Think highlighting terms within Confluence pages, creating terms on the go, etc. These features don’t come with databases and they’re crucial for a streamlined experience. 

While databases offer better organization, they still require a level of customization and lack some core glossary management features.

• Using Atlassian Intelligence

This is Atlassian’s attempt to streamline glossary management across not only Confluence & Jira, but other platforms like Google docs. The premise is simple: Easily create and highlight terms on the go. Upon selecting a term, you hit “Define” and the AI generates an answer for you. Of course, we humans (at least for the time being) have the final say on whether to accept or edit the definition. One cool feature here is specifying where the definition appears because a term can mean different things to different teams. You can make the definition appear on a single page, space, or site.

This solution is handy. It’s a great step toward making terminology more discoverable and easy to access. But here’s the catch, while Atlassian Intelligence is cool and all, it still lacks a holistic, centralized dashboard where all glossary terms live.

There’s no single place to view, manage, or audit your terms in one glance. You can’t add metadata and filter by project, team, or category.

Atlassian Intelligence is great to create terms but not necessarily manage them.

How does our latest release help & what sets it apart?

The latest release of Glossary for Confluence Cloud was built with your needs in mind, aimed at simplifying glossary management while laying the technical foundation for a host of upcoming features. Think of it as the Iron Man to the MCU. The beginning of something much bigger.

Here’s a breakdown of what makes this release stand out:

Simple yet rich & integrated experience:

As I mentioned earlier, a good glossary should be simple to create, easy to access, and scale. With this release, we simplified the creation of both glossaries and terms. The process now involves fewer steps with no more pop-ups or mandatory language settings.

We’ve eliminated the need to switch between different views (languages, all terms, letters, etc.). Everything you need will now be available in a single, unified view, making it quicker and more efficient to navigate.

No more language silos:

Previously, you had to tag each new glossary with a language, creating isolated silos of information. Now, you can use terms across multiple languages seamlessly, removing these barriers and increasing flexibility.

Easy access to terms:

When it comes to accessing terms, convenience is the name of the game. The new enhanced search and filtering options, allow you to display terms based on various criteria including, of course, the term and metadata such as abbreviations, synonyms, labels, and more.

Of course, using search is the obvious option but it shouldn’t be the only one. Instead, highlighting terms is the most convenient way to quickly access terms. The glossary app is integrated with Confluence pages.

Create terms on the go:

Adding terms shouldn’t only happen from within the app’s interface rather anywhere in Confluence. Whether you're writing documentation, updating a project page, or editing a space homepage, you can capture new terms on the go without interrupting your workflow. This makes glossary building a natural part of your content creation process, not a separate task you have to manage later.

One might argue, this is what Atlassian Intelligence does perfectly. Which is true! However, terms created with Atlassian Intelligence can only be visible through highlights and don’t have a dedicated glossary view (as of yet).

Easy import and export of terms:

Getting started with your glossary shouldn’t be another learning curve, and with our new import and export features, it isn’t. If you already have a list of terms in Excel, for example, you can quickly import them and populate your glossary in just a few clicks. No need to rebuild from scratch.

On the flip side, being able to export your glossary gives you full control over your data. Whether you need to share a version with external teams, create a backup, migrate terms between spaces, (or god forbid) move to another app, exporting ensures your glossary remains portable, flexible, and future-proof.

Preparing for new features:

This release sets the stage for exciting new features we have in the works. 

To minimize the learning curve, we’re rolling out additional improvements in phases including:

• Glossary Global View: See and manage all glossaries across your Confluence site
  
  
• Multi-language Support: Define and display terms in multiple languages
  
  
• Dedicated Glossary Macros: Embed terms and glossaries right into your Confluence pages
  
  

And there you have it, the different ways to create and manage glossaries in Confluence. Each option has its pros and cons, depending on your team's needs and how far you want to scale.

If you’re interested, you can take a look at our latest release available now on Atlassian Marketplace. It’s built to make glossary management simpler, faster, and more flexible. It might just be what you’ve been looking for.