Calender in Confluence

[Md Mostofa Maruf]

Hi everyone,

We are currently on the Confluence Standard plan and are looking to create team calendar within a Confluence space to coordinate staff leave, early/mid/late shifts, and rosters.

As the Standard plan does not include the native Confluence Team Calendars feature, we have been exploring alternatives. One option we have tested is using a Marketplace app, specifically HTML Macro Pro for Confluence by OST Consulting, to embed an Outlook calendar into a Confluence page. This appears to work as a visual workaround.

I would appreciate your advice on the following:

• Is embedding an Outlook calendar via an HTML macro a recommended approach in terms of security, permissions, and long term stability?
• Are there any better or commonly used alternatives within Confluence Standard to achieve a calendar view without manually maintaining a table?

Any guidance or experiences you can share would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,
Maruf

[Staffan Redelius]

Hi @Md Mostofa Maruf 

I agree that displaying a calendar is a quite basic funtionality that should be available in Standard edition. 

When investigating this for a customer we chose Calendar for Confluence | Atlassian Marketplace for its ability to both display information from a common Team calendar in Outlook, adding custom events and publishing events from dates in Jira (i.e ChangeStartDate)

Most calendar apps can only display an already existing calendar in Confluence via iCal. I think this app is more multifunctional.

I am not affiliated with the developers in any way but I have been in contact with them on several occations. They have been reacting fast and professional when needing support.

I hope this helps!
/Staffan

[Arkadiusz Wroblewski]

Hello @Md Mostofa Maruf 

One thing I would check first is whether you can use Confluence’s native iFrame macro rather than a third-party HTML macro app. If that works for your Outlook page, it is usually the cleaner option because it avoids adding another Marketplace app just for display.

Yes, security would be the first thing I would look at.

If you use a third-party macro app for this, Atlassian notes that Marketplace/custom apps can access product data where they are installed, so I would do the normal app review first. That is also why I would test the native iFrame macro before adding another app just to display the calendar.

[Md Mostofa Maruf]

Hi Arkadiusz,

Thank you for your response. We are on a standard plan, could you please provide a little bit guidenece if we are suppose to have Confluence’s native iFrame macro with this plan. If so, how to access this? I could't finda option to access this fiunctions, is it something that needs to be enabled? Thank you

[Ajay Emmanuel]

Hi @Md Mostofa Maruf 

- yes, the Outlook embed can work
- but native Team Calendars only comes with Premium
- and for long-term stability/security, a supported calendar integration or Premium is the cleaner option

- Another option is looking at Forge platform to create your own custom Calendar App

[Md Mostofa Maruf]

Hi Ajay,

Thank you for your response, I appreciate the guidance. At this stage, we are not planning to move to a premium plan, but it is something we may revisit in the future.

Building a Forget app sounds interesting. I am quite new to Forge, although I do have some basic programming experience and would likely rely on AI assistance. Could you help me with the below:

• From your experience, how much effort is typically required to build a simple Forge app for someone starting out? is this a overkill for a small use case? 
• From a cost perspective we have around 2,000 users, and I wanted to understand how Forge pricing would apply in this case. If the app is only used by a small subset rather than the full user base, does that significantly reduce the cost? or free?
• From a maintenance and support perspective, what should I expect after deployment?

Thanks again for your help.