Confluence Table LookUp

[Paul Blakeborough]

Looking into using Confluence as a business and a required aspect is the ability to build tables with relationships / lookup between those tables. This is currently fairly easy in current SharePoint List and Excel but struggling to see anything comparable in Confluence which we are looking at for the first time. Is someone able to clarify / point us in the right direction or is Confluence not the tool for us?

[Katerina Rudkovskaya _Stiltsoft_]

Hi ,

We can also suggest trying the app developed by our team – Table Filter and Charts for Confluence.

Its Table Excerpt/Table Excerpt Include macros work similar to the standard Page Properties/Page Properties Report macros but allow you to collect multiple-row tables into one big, combined report.

To collect several tables and lookup up them by a unique column (key), you may use the Table Transformer macro.

Our add-on in general replicates most of the Excel functions: filtration, aggregation, calculations, visualization. Maybe you’ll be interested in a live demo – we’ll be happy to organize it, please book a suitable time slot here.

[Max Foerster - K15t]

Hey @Paul Blakeborough, welcome to the community!

You've already picked a real challenge for Confluence. 😄 To some extent you will be able to achieve this with built-in functionalities. Basically you can use regular tables and macros like page properties, and page properties report macros.

You can read more about it in the Confluence documentation:

• Insert the page properties macro 
• Insert the page properties report macro 

And here comes the big BUT. Page properties and tables in Confluence are limited and static. The page properties report is a read-only table generated from information kept on other pages and you cannot relate tables to each other.

Did you ever use tools like Notion and their databases? Smart and dynamic?

I imagine this is more something you want to set up in your Confluence without being tied to single pages.

I want to suggest having a look at our app, Orderly Databases. If you're curious, I recommend reading our community article about Orderly to get a first impression: Replace Confluence Page Properties with Notion-like Databases 🐝

I created some "art" for you because pictures speak more than a thousand words. 😄 

For example, a database could look like this, which is also already directly connected to a second database and also uses lookup fields. Internally, we have already moved various use cases to Orderly, from idea management for our products with a single database to a CRM using multiple linked databases (customers, contacts, interactions, etc.).

In Orderly, the data exists not only on the page and in an isolated table, but in a space in a lightweight database. The information can be displayed and edited from everywhere (and filtered, sorted, etc.).

Also, it stays in sync. Doesn't matter where you do changes. 🤘🏼 For an easier start, we have also prepared various use cases in our documentation. 

If you tell me a little more about your use case, I would be happy to use my creativity to help you implement that in Confluence. 😄

Best, Max