The Content Hierarchy
Confluence's content hierarchy is where most people will spend most of their time, and this makes complete sense since it's where the content lives.
What is it
The content hierarchy is a visual representation of all the content in a space. This includes all the pages, databases, whiteboards, live docs, smart links and blogs (although blogs get their own section....) that live in a particular space.
The hierarchy starts at the top level (typically the spaces home page) and then allows users to create a structure of 'parent' and 'child' content. This is as simple as clicking and dragging content on top of the new parent. Note that if someone has “edit” or “Create” access to the space they’ll be able to move things in the hierarchy!
Content directly underneath the top level is typically called the 1st level, with each successive layer of content being the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc (more on this below!).
It is also important to know that content does not have to be under the home page of the space to be in the space. This means it’s possible for content to “disappear” from the hierarchy, or to appear on the same level as the home page. At best this can be visually confusing, at worst that can hide content from folks who want to find it.
What is it for
The hierarchy is mainly a tool for visually organizing content and making it easier for humans to traverse content. This makes it an incredibly important tool in using Confluence, as without it (or if it’s not organized well) users will have a hard time finding information.
It does have some.impact on other aspects of the system, including:
- Restrictions - view restrictions will be inherited by child pages. This means if a parent is only viable by three people, all the children will also only be viewable by those same 3 folks (note that you can further restrict children though!).
- Macros - Macros that create a hierarchy also rely on this to display info appropriately. These macros make it easy to create an index or lookup page, and if the hierarchy isn’t organized then that macro won’t really be useful.
Progressive Elaboration
Generally the 1st level of content (the stuff directly under the home page) should be fairly “broad” in terms of content or context. Content under that 1st level should become more focused or narrow. For example, my 1st level page might be “Policies”, with 2nd level content (e.g. “Policies” children) being categories of policies or individual policies. This structure allows people to find the general area they’re interested in and then dig in to more specifics.
While there is no upper limit (no known limit… I had someone on my Discord server get to 100 levels down with no problem!), the general guidance is you don’t want more than FOUR total levels. This is generally enough to give you flexibility for content, but not so much as to confuse or lose readers.
General advice
Before you begin adding content to a space, take some time to plan out the hierarchy. I like to do this in a confluence whiteboard in the space itself (makes it easy to reference!), but you can do it anywhere. The objective is to have a good idea of what types of content should go where. This provides guidance to your writers so they know where to add what.
It's also a very good idea to regularly review the hierarchy as over time it will 'drift' as more and more content is added. This is necessary as people rely on the hierarchy when browsing, and some features rely on it to work properly. This can be as simple as taking 5 minutes every Monday, or a complex project spanning weeks.
Depending on the space you may also want to provide training or orientation for users. This can take many forms, from a screenshot included in onboarding to more in-depth video overviews and activities to explore it. Regardless of what form it takes, including some information about how your team uses the hierarchy will make it a LOT easier for folks to find, and add, information later.
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