Content Management Tools

[Jamie Knight]

What content management tools are you using? 

We tested the following and are not fans. 

• Breeze
• Workflows
• Comala Document Control

All of them allow a user to publish content prior to the approval workflow. 

I'd love to hear about the workarounds you use. 

[Joshua Brock _ Seibert Group_ GmbH · Accepted solution]

@Jamie Knight ...

The pain point you're describing (users being able to publish content before an approval is complete) is a real gap in several tools, and it usually comes down to whether the workflow actually enforces page restrictions or just adds a status badge on top of an otherwise unrestricted page.

Natively, Confluence Cloud doesn't help much here. The page status macro is purely cosmetic, and while you can manually set page restrictions, there's no built-in mechanism to automatically lock a page during review and only unlock it once approved. Automation rules (Premium) can trigger on page creation/update but can't enforce multi-step approval gates.

If you're open to trying another Marketplace app, I'd suggest taking a look at Aura Workflow & Approval, and in full disclosure, I am a Content Writer with Seibert Products GmbH, the company behind the app.

The key difference from what you've described with other tools: Aura ties page restrictions directly to workflow state. When a page enters a Draft or In Review state, the app automatically applies restrictions so the content isn't visible to the broader audience.

Only when a reviewer explicitly approves the page, and then respectively the configured approval threshold is met, does the transition to a published state occur, at which point restrictions are lifted or the page is pushed to a target space. Users can't manually bypass this by just hitting publish, because the restriction enforcement happens at the workflow state level, not as a suggestion.

You can also configure it so that if a page is edited after entering review, it automatically reverts to Draft, which closes another common loophole.

If you have specific workflow scenarios you need to cover (e.g., multi-level approvals, different reviewers per space, content expiration cycles), we are happy to walk through how those would be configured!

Let us know if you run into questions during a trial...we'd be happy to help, and also feel free to set up a demo if you'd prefer.


Thanks!

Joshua
Content Writer & US Representative
Aura Apps and Agile Hive (products of Seibert Products GmbH)

[Jamie Knight]

Hi Joshua,

Thanks for your response.

In our case, many users have pages that are viewable to everyone in our instance. And occasionally those pages need to be updated. Does Aura allow an edit to be done, and a workflow to be started while in edit? Meaning, if the editor clicks publish, the edits won't be viewable til approved, they'd just be in the unpublished view of the page? We don't necessarily want to add restrictions as the existing content may be in use by others. 

- Jamie

[Philip Feldmann - appanvil]

Hi @Jamie Knight ,

This is Philip from the Aura Apps team. I’m one of the developers of the app.

The exact workflow you’re looking for cannot be implemented in Confluence Cloud. Due to limitations of the Atlassian Cloud platform, there isn’t a single app that can provide this functionality directly.

However, the good news is that there are viable workarounds that effectively achieve the same result.

Our go-to implementation for your use case is based on a mechanism called “publishing.” You essentially split your content into two spaces: a working space and a published space. You configure permissions in the working space so that only content editors can view and update content. Documents are prepared there, run through an approval workflow, and once a page is approved, its latest version is automatically synced to the published space, where everyone in your company has access.

For everyone except the content authors, it appears as though there is only a single, officially approved version of each document.

If you’d like to see this workflow in action, you can watch our video here.

Best, 

Philip

[Aron Gombas _Midori_ · Accepted solution]

@Jamie Knight 

We use our own Better Content Archiving app (no surprise) to track and report on drafts, unused, expired, etc. pages, send out notifications, auto-archive them, and manage content lifecycle in general.

What is (are) your primary use case(s) when you mention "content management"?

[Jamie Knight]

We're really looking in to option for page management. Eventually we'll use it for the tracking of drafts, unused, expired, etc, but for now - just editing and creating pages, and having a workflow that has a STOP before publishing. All the apps I tested allow the editor to publish before the approver can review/approve. 

[Kris Klima _K15t_ · Accepted solution]

Hi @Jamie Knight 

It seems that what you want to achieve is to ensure that content cannot be published (aka page saved) before it's approved.

I guess the reason is to prevent readers from viewing content that's not approved.

There are a couple of options.

Option 1 - Page restrictions

Ensure that the page access is restricted only to people who are working on the content. Even if the page is published (saved), it will not be viewable.

But that's not for everyone and it requires restriction ballet that might be hard to enforce/policy.

Option 2 - Two-Space setup (space synchronization)

This is based on separating your Authoring space from the Reading space. Here's how it works.

• All your authoring/writing takes place in the Authoring space - this is the Source.
• All your finalized, approved content is in the Reading space - this is the Target.
• Access to the Authoring space is limited to those few people who are working on the content.
• Access to the Reding space is open to anyone in you org. It's Read and Comment only (for the sake of argument).
• You're working in your Authoring space, you are happy with the page's content, you synchronize it to the Reading space.
• If you need to update the content, you do so in the Authoring space.

This ensures that people who are not supposed to see drafts/part saves/unapproved content... will never see it because they don't have access to the authoring space.

I wrote a lengthy piece here on Community on the subject of space syncs: https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Confluence-articles/Spaces-with-Benefits-take-advantage-of-synchronizing-content/ba-p/3007817

Personal opinion

I'd go with Option 2. It's cleaner and easier to manage. And I actually used it myself in my previous jobs. You have a space that serves the readers, that only has the content that you want them to see. And you don't have to have a complex workflow setup or fool around with restrictions.

There are several space sync/cross space publishing apps.

Some of them, like our Scroll Content Manager, also contain workflow features that basically automate that space sync/publishing upon approval, so you can automate that. What Scroll Content Manager can also do it allows you to version approved content, in case that's what you want. 

You don't have to worry about links - links between pages in the Authoring space will be converted to links between pages in the Reading space. All macros are also synced. And you don't have to sync all pages, so your Authoring space can have as many drafts as you want, contain resource material, etc.

If you're intrigued, feel free to ask :) 

[Jamie Knight]

Thank you for your response! We'll consider the options. 

[Lars Maehlmann · Accepted solution]

Hello @Jamie Knight ,

I followed various approaches and want to suggest another idea that doesn't involve any apps. I have a Jira Service Management (JSM) setup that includes a knowledge base with many articles, which always require review to ensure proper formatting and correct spelling and grammar.

I used Jira to establish a review process because its workflow builder makes it easy to configure the necessary review steps.

In Confluence, I created two spaces: one for authors and a second linked to JSM. No user has access to the second space; all work occurs in the first space, where anyone can create articles. When an article is ready, we change its status to "ready for review," triggering an automation that makes the page read-only for everyone except auditors. After review, the status updates to "publish," and an automation copies the article to the second space, which has only read permissions. This process integrates smoothly with the Jira workflow.

I hope this offers another idea to solve your challenge. It's not perfect, and I haven't disclosed a few details, but I find its simplicity appealing. Let me know if you have further questions or comments.

Cheers,
Lars 

[Stavros_Rougas_EasyApps · Accepted solution]

@Jamie Knight what do you mean by content management? It is a broad topic, you have mentioned mainly page management apps.

[Jamie Knight]

Ah, you're right! I should expand on our use case!

We're really looking in to option for page management. Eventually we'll use it for the tracking of drafts, unused, expired, etc, but for now - just editing and creating pages, and having a workflow that has a STOP before publishing. All the apps I tested allow the editor to publish before the approver can review/approve.