What do you use for Confluence content management?

[Stephen Saxon]

I'm researching options for bulk management of Confluence content. For example, generating and managing document inventory within a Confluence space, adding labels to group of documents, etc.

Is there any reasonable product or service to accomplish this?

[Levente Szabo _Midori_]

@Stephen Saxon 

When it comes to managing Confluence content lifecycle, a widely-used app is Better Content Archiving for Confluence. It has been on the market for 14 years (Server and Data Center), helping teams maintain a clear and concise Confluence, maximizing their investment in the tool.

(I understand you are using Confluence Server or Data Center, but the app is also available for Confluence Cloud.)

Better Content Archiving for Confluence is geared toward scaled usage, prepared for enterprise use cases and requirements.

You can implement dynamic content status classification (expired, not viewed, archivable, etc.), and your own content review workflow with custom notifications for content owners. Automated archiving removes not needed content from sight based on your rules, without any manual interaction or nudging content owners.

Learn more or read about teams who have been using it successfully.

(Please note that Better Content Archiving is a paid and supported app and I'm part of the team developing it.)

[Adrian Hülsmann - B1NARY]

Hi @Stephen Saxon ,

For bulk management of Confluence content, I highly recommend these apps:

1. Magic Labels - adding, removing and renaming of labels in bulk
2. Space Tools Pro - copy, create, move, and delete spaces and page trees
3. Breeze - content review workflows and bulk archiving to get rid of outdated pages
   
   

   

   It is the most advanced content lifecycle management solution for Confluence and includes:

   • automated content analyses,
   • page review and archiving workflows,
   • page and space ownership,
   • reports and notifications,
   • bulk archiving and deletion,
   • analytics,
   • data export for processing all your content, ownership, and status information  via CSV
   • and more to update outdated pages quickly and enhance collaboration.

   👉 To anyone interested, feel free to give it a try or schedule an appointment with me for a personal demo.

   Cheers, Adrian from B1NARY (the developers of Breeze)

Please notice: all of these apps mentioned are Cloud-only.

Best regards
Adrian

[Stephen Saxon]

Thank you for the quick and impactful answer, Adrian!  I am now planning to check them out.

In your experience, is the cost outweighed by their functionality and do you use all three?  I'm shopping for an environment that hasn't thought about managing their content until recently so that hasn't been part of their budgeting roadmap.

It's probably just my ignorance of the Atlassian ecosystem, but billing per registered Confluence seat instead of for the number of seats that will actually do the work of managing the content is a hard pill to swallow.  Is that just the cost of doing business in an Atlassian world?

[Stephen Saxon]

Also open to additional recommendations from the community!

[Adrian Hülsmann - B1NARY]

Hi Stephen,

Yes, we use all three of them (FYI, we are the developers of Breeze) and all of them solve a common problem of bigger Confluence systems, where things are getting out of hand due to ever-increasing information.

This is when apps for cleaning up your Confluence really make sense and can deliver a high return on investment (even if payment is per seat and not per "active user").

BTW: if you'd like to see a personal demo of any of those apps, I am happy to connect. For Breeze, there is a link for scheduling a demo in the Markeplace, but I know that xApps (Space Tools Pro) and Polymetis (Magic Labels) are also very welcome to offer a demo.

[Levente Szabo _Midori_]

I agree with Adrian. The root cause of problems in large and growing Confluence instances is the same that makes Confluence adopted widely: ease of use and creating content. It's easy to create a page and then forget it after a while.

It might be just a few admins who create the content lifecycle management rules, but every user is contributing to the growth of Confluence. So I think content lifecycle management apps are not like regular apps that are used by a certain number of people, they create value for everyone.

I know that not every user is creating content, some just consume it. But a CLM strategy creates value in different ways. Having only the most up-to-date and relevant content at hand makes teams and individuals more efficient. Especially if a strategy is put to work early when Confluence is not already overgrown.

Admins are relieved from having to chase owners of stale content. Features that notify users of expired content and allow them to set different statuses to their own content or mark for archiving also introduce a sense of responsibility over their Confluence pages. These all help maintain a healthy Confluence that's useful for the long term.