What is an "inactive" page?

Hello @Raelee Busk 

Have you reviewed the information here?

https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/branches-in-confluence-automation/

That page includes a description of that Branch option and what constitutes activity.

Hi @Raelee Busk, views are what breaks it for what you described. You said pages that haven't been updated in 6 months, and a page people still open weekly counts as active however long ago anyone last edited it, so that branch will not reach the articles you are trying to catch.

The plain Page branch is the one that matches your sentence. It carries a Date updated criterion, which the doc defines as when the page was most recently edited. It opens on the Author module, so take that off first. Your Verified gate then goes after it as a Page condition, under Analytics, which has a Status criterion, page status is one of the statuses configured for the page's space.

On the status question, the version that will bite you is your own rule. Two people report in the comments on Atlassian's Verified Pages post, one of them off their own testing, that changing page status via automation changes the last updated date. So the moment your rule writes Waiting for Review it freshens the page, and a date-updated rule won't see that page again. Whether a contributor doing it by hand lands the same way I haven't tested. That is the mirror of the bug Tobi linked, where the branch fails to see automation's own activity and re-fires forever. Either way the fix is the same, stop making the status carry the memory. Put a label on what you have already flagged and exclude that label on the next run.

https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Confluence-articles/Verified-Pages-Now-Available-in-Confluence/ba-p/2664827

Hey @Raelee Busk ,

On top of what Trudy said/linked, this is pretty much everything that counts as inactive page/content:

• Views: Any unique user viewing the page

• Content Changes: Creating, updating, or deleting the page

• Engagement: Adding or updating comments on the page

• Organization: Moving the page to a different space

• Hierarchy: Activity on a child page is also counted as activity for its parent page

Or at least it should be that. There's also this bug related to page inactivity and automation: CONFCLOUD-84539: Automation "For each inactive page" branch fails to recognize activity performed by automation, leading to re-processing loops and throttling. 

I'd still be careful with this branch and I'd monitor it for the first couple of times that it didn't remove or do any actions on pages that it shouldn't have to.

Cheers,
Tobi

If you want full control over what defines an "expired" page and how the archiving workflow operates, you can easily set this up using the Better Content Archiving app.

Setup for your use case:

1. Configure the "Expired" status with this CQL:
   arch.event.lastUpdatedOn < now("-180d")
   (This flags any page unedited for 180 days as "Expired," ignoring page views or other activity. You can customize the CQL to add extra criteria as needed.)

2. Configure the notification. Set the CQL to
   arch.status = "Expired"
   and select the Page Owner as the recipient. (You can also add the last modifier, original author, or specific team members).

The app also includes analytics, status dashboards, and additional automation features.:

Check out the Better Content Archiving documentation for a full overview!

(Discl. this paid and supported app is developed by our team. Free for 10 users!)