Getting Started With Confluence Q&A | July 21st 2026 Sessions

Rob Hean

Hey all!

 

Below is the Q&A from a recently "Getting Started with Confluence" session I ran. I answered most of these in chat, but am including answers here in case folks find it useful!

Drop any other questions you have below, and check out the "public classes" over in Atlassian learning for more!

~Rob

 

Question 1 - "What’s up, if the checkmarks are greyed out? (Found in Email General Settings)"

• Answer: You must click the Edit button in the top right corner first before you can modify the settings.

Question 2 - "Can you have a Space within a Space, say a sub-space?"

• Answer: No, Confluence uses a flat space hierarchy (there are no sub-spaces or parent spaces). However, you can create a content hierarchy (child pages under parent pages) within a space up to multiple levels deep.

Question 3 - "What kind of rule of thumb do you have before creating a page, do you recommend create like an outline before creating a page or create as you go."

• Answer: Starting with a general outline or framework—such as establishing page headers or leveraging pre-built templates—helps structure your thinking and guides the page creation process before adding detailed content.

Question 4 - "Can pages be unpublished?"

• Answer: Pages cannot be "unpublished" back into a draft state once published. However, you can restrict access to the page (preventing others from viewing or editing it) or archive the page to hide it from general browsing and standard search results.

Question 5 - "Does the person who publishes the page get notifications if someone comments or do you have to manually remember to check?"

• Answer: By default, the author/creator of a page automatically "watches" the page. When someone leaves a comment on a watched page, Confluence sends an in-app and/or email notification to the watcher based on their personal notification preferences.

Question 6 - "If I cannot comment and it says that I don’t have permission to comment, does that mean I specifically don’t have the right permission, or could comments simply be set to off for that page?"

• Answer: Confluence space permissions manage commenting at the space level via the "Add Comment" permission. If you see a permission error, your user account or group lacks the "Add Comment" permission in that specific space. Comments cannot be disabled on a single, individual page while remaining on for the rest of the space.

Anwesha Pan

Thanks @Rob Hean for answering the questions!