How to make common glossary for all spaces?

Question

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

Mohammed Shakhib · Answer

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Cheers!

Katerina Bletsch_ DailyMind LTD · Answer

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.

Marie Sachse · Answer

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