Anyone using Confluence to publish Help Documentation for End Users / Customers?

[Peter Alouche]

Hello. We're looking to get some insight into how we can improve our authoring and publishing workflow as well as the usability of the help documentation we currently publish from Confluence to our customer portal. Right now, information is hard to find and does not look like a professional customer centric help documentation portal like what you would expect to see as a gold standard from a large SaaS company like Salesforce or Microsoft.

For any software companies out there, are your Technical Writers using Confluence to author, collaborate, and manage admin and end user documentation? If so, are you using any add-ons or other tools to create a professional help documentation portal for your end users?  Would like to better understand what people are doing today to help us benchmark and understand where we can improve. 

[Max Foerster - K15t · Accepted solution]

Hey @Peter Alouche

This is Max from K15t, the makers of the app Viewport, which Kristian mentioned in his post. 😁 👋🏼

Right now, information is hard to find and does not look like a professional customer centric help documentation portal like what you would expect to see as a gold standard from a large SaaS company like Salesforce or Microsoft.

You can already see what is easily achievable (within like 10 minutes) in Emplifi's help center. Another example is our own help center on https://help.k15t.com/, or even the Atlassian documentation. 

But it doesn't end there. In addition to the optimized display, we also added an ElasticSearch to the site, which not only successfully delivers results from your documentation but can also be customized with filters and supports AI-assisted search, which answers your users' natural questions in the search based on the content of the portal and directs them to relevant articles.

Reading through your initial message and use case, I encourage you to book a demo with us on our website to explore whether it meets your needs and discuss everything in more detail.

Have a great day! :)

Best, Max

[Peter Alouche]

Thanks @Max Foerster - K15t! I actually did setup a demo for August 22 and we are looking forward to it.

[Kristian Klima · Accepted solution]

Hello @Peter Alouche 

I'm a tech writer and Director of technical content at Emplifi and this is our public doc site https://docs.emplifi.io/

I specifically chose Confluence and marketplace apps over other solutions for writing, publishing, and doing the whole life-cycle documentation management.

On that site, all the content is authored in Confluence, then rendered as a static site using Scroll Viewport by K15t.

You may want to read my Community article about how to built a documentation site in 30 minutes.

Feel free to ask me more questions.

[Peter Alouche]

@Kristian Klima This is exactly what I was looking for. The vertical navigation bar on the left and the layout you have reflecting your information architecture is what I'm hoping we can move towards. I will check out your article as well. Thank you for sharing.  

Would you be open to a 30 min - 1 hr chat as well in case we have questions? We're open to do a paid consult if needed. Let me know what you prefer. I will reach out on LinkedIn to connect.

Best Regards,
Peter

[Kristian Klima]

@Peter Alouche Sure, let's connect on LinkedIn, no problem with chatting more.

[Anwesha Pan (TCS) · Accepted solution]

Hi @Peter Alouche 👋

I am also a documentation person here. I love how we can make use of confluence as the biggest source. I created a Knowledge Base in Confluence for my team and other team members at my work so that it can referred as per need and avoid any conflicts. We have reduced the number of Jira service desk tickets created for our team which needs attention to be resolved.

I use some macros (already available in Confluence) to make the KB visually appealing. Few of my favorites : 

• Banner
• Search bar
• Tabs
• Advance Cards
• Include Page
• Spotlight ✨
• Carousel ✨

In my company, I do not have access to download any third-party apps from Marketplace to use them in Confluence, so I am restricted to use the in-built macros 🙂

Let me know if this helpful! 🤝

Thanks,
Anwesha

[Peter Alouche]

Thanks @Anwesha Pan (TCS) ! I will try those out. I think one of the biggest pain points is automatically building a navigation tree in a navigation bar say on the left hand side of the page based on linked content or sections and sub-sections. For example, if my Confluence Page has:

Section 1

- some content

Section 2

- some content

• Sub-Section 2.1
• some content

Is there a way to automatically generate a navigation tree on the left that would just show quick links to:

Section 1

Section 2

> expand section 2 to see Sub-Section 2.1

[Anwesha Pan (TCS)]

Hi @Peter Alouche 

Yes absolutely there are 2 macros already available in Confluence to do that.

Option 1 - generate a navigation tree that would just show quick links to your sections

• Table of Contents 

Here's a more detailed breakdown:

• • Edit the page: Open the page in edit mode. 
  • Insert the macro:
  • Method 1 (shortcut): Type "/" followed by "table of contents" and press Enter. 
  • Method 2 (menu): Go to Insert > Other Macros, then find and select "Table of Contents". 

  • Configure (optional): The macro will automatically generate the table of contents based on the headings in your page. You can further customize it by: 
    • Excluding headings: Specify which headings to exclude based on keywords or regular expressions. 
    • Display style: Choose between a horizontal or vertical list and whether to use numbers or bullets. 
    • Including/excluding heading levels: Decide which heading levels (H1, H2, etc.) to include. 
  • Publish: Once you're satisfied with the configuration, publish or update the page. 

Example : 

Option 2 - expand section 2 to see Sub-Section 2.1

• Advance Expand 

Here's how to use it:

• Insert the Macro:
  • Navigate to the page you want to edit, and insert the Advanced Expand macro using the "+" menu, the quick insert menu (type "/" then "expand"), or by selecting it from the "Insert more content" dropdown.

• Add a Title:
  • Enter the desired title for your expandable section in the designated field.

• Add Content:
  • Place your content (text, images, other macros) inside the expandable area.
• Publish: 
  • Click "Publish" (or "Update") to save your changes and view the rendered macro on the page. 

Example : Section 3 is expandable

I hope this information is helpful. Please feel free to let me know if you need any other information.

Thanks,
Anwesha