How to make common glossary for all spaces?

[ilya.popov]

My company have a lot of division and each of them have a personal glossary in Confluence. But, almost all of terms are similar. At the moment we use plug-in Glossary (by Spectrum Groupe) that not allow to create common glossary for more that one space or I just didn't realize how to do that.

What is the most cheapest and easiest way to create useful glossary, with highlighting terms in all pages and single storage?

Best regards, Ilya

[Patrick O_Connell]

Ilya,

I'm having trouble understanding part of your question. "Highlighting terms in all pages?"

Setting that aside, to me the most obvious solution here is this: Create a new workspace that is all about one thing: a company-wide glossary.

You could bring in the definitions from the existing department-specific glossaries, blend and delete redundant text. You would also be able to control who can and cannot read, and edit, pages in that space.

Good luck,
Pat O'Connell
Technical writer
MindGeek Montreal

[ilya.popov]

Thank you for your answer! I started to make a new workspace as you said.

By "Highlighting terms in all pages" I mean : if you push button "Find term in all glossaries" on the top, Confluence will highlight all defined terms. But, if term defined in other space, Confluence will not show the definition of term. And I don't know how to solve this problem.

 

[Marie Sachse]

Hi there,

I also have a similar question about this. We just made a global glossary page that will be company wide, however do you know how to move terms that teams already have in their spaces to the company wide glossary?

@Patrick O_Connell you mentioned it is possible "bring in the definitions from the existing department-specific glossaries", is there in automated way or does it have to be done manually?

Kind regards,

Marie Sachse

[Katerina Bletsch_ DailyMind LTD]

Hi @ilya.popov, @Marie Sachse ,

I would separate two problems here:

1. Reusing terms across spaces
2. Governing which definition is the approved one

If the need is only “one term source + highlighting across spaces”, then I would first test a glossary app that supports:

• global/shared glossaries,
• linked glossaries,
• or import/export.

That may be cheaper and easier than rebuilding everything manually.

But if different divisions already have similar terms, I would not just migrate all terms into one common glossary. First decide what should happen when two teams define the
same term differently.

A practical migration workflow:

• export or collect terms from each space
• group duplicates and near-duplicates
• choose one preferred term
• keep team-specific wording as synonyms
• mark old wording as deprecated
• assign an owner for each approved definition
• then move only the cleaned terms into the shared glossary

Example:

Preferred term: Customer requirement
Synonyms: client request, business requirement
Deprecated: customer ask
Owner: Product / Business Analysis
Status: approved

The key point: a common glossary is useful only if it becomes the source of truth. Otherwise it can become just another place where duplicate definitions live.

So I would evaluate tools not only by “can it highlight terms across spaces?”, but also by whether it helps you control ownership, synonyms, deprecated terms, review status,
and changes over time.

Disclosure: I build Compliance Glossary for Confluence, so I work specifically on governed terminology and approved definitions. I’m open to a short call if it would be useful
to compare notes on the migration/governance workflow.

[Mohammed Shakhib]

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