Know Your (Confluence) Roles!

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My live session a week or so back was on roles - collections of permissions and responsibilities in a system. Roles are found in almost every system and are an important concept to understand as they help us figure out who should do what, and where we can go for help.

Roles also vary by system - confluence, for example, only really has three (well cover those below), whereas Jira comes with some stock roles, but also let's you build your own to fit your specific needs. Typically, though, systems will have at least two basic roles - admins and users.

Admins are individuals responsible for configuring and maintaining a system or component of a system. In Confluence these are the Org and Space admins. Generally there's a much smaller number of admins than users as the amount of configuration and maintenance needed is generally low.

Users are everyone else and use the system to do their jobs. Exactly what a user can do may differ based on system (or space in confluence) but typically they're viewing and editing information. In Confluence their access is mainly managed by space admins. 

Confluence roles

There are three main roles (currently) in Confluence.

Org admins

Something like .03% of people are org admins, and this makes sense as these folks have complete access to manage and maintain an instance.  They can do things like(but not limited to)

• Setup default permissions
• Create and manage groups
• Manage and install apps
• View instance wide analytics (of premium and higher)

Space admins

Something like 1% of users are space admins. While more common than org admins, there still aren't many! Space admins are responsible for managing a space, which mainly means managing access. They are also expected to be a good point of contact for folks with questions about the space and able to answer questions about it. One of the first things I show folks is how to find their space admins as that person is in the best position to help with questions or unblock things.  Their powers include,  but aren't limited to

• Managing access at the space level
• Enabling anonymous access (if available)
• Managing and creating templates 

Users

The other 98.97% of folks are users. They're the folks who need confluence to do their job, or as part of their work. Typically they'll be using it to look something up, or add info... Although in my experience a majority may not log in on a weekly basis. To make it a bit more confusing, what a user can do is limited depending on how the space permissions are setup. For example, in one space users may be able to edit pages, but only view in another. This can cause a lot of frustration when folks switch spaces as they may not understand why there's a difference.

Users abilities include, but aren't limited to (assuming their space admins allows it!)

• Creating content
• Using templates
• Viewing content
• Multiple roles

Other thoughts on roles

It is possible for one individual to have multiple roles. For example, I'm typically both a space admin for some spaces, and a user across the instance. This can make it hard to figure out what's going on as you may not be able to easily tell what access someone has.

This is where knowing who you space admins is is very helpful. They can take a look and let you know what permissions are setup - and what access you can expect - in any given space.

While roles aren't (currently) an official designation in Confluence, understanding what each group of folks can do and what is expected of them is very helpful!

Check out the full session here: