Hello there đź‘‹
I'm Elena from Elevatic.
Many of us keep a “Project Overview” page that lists every active project and links to its key pages. It works for about two weeks. After that, projects start, close or move phases, and someone has to notice and update the list by hand. Before long, nobody trusts it.
We hear about this a lot from portfolio leads, so here’s a setup that removes the manual index completely. I’m from Elevatic, so this uses our apps, but the structure works even if you build it differently.
The idea: let the portfolio build itself
The fix isn’t a better index page. It’s having no index page at all. If every project overview carries the same metadata, navigation can query it instead of relying on someone’s memory.
Example: Lara is a project manager responsible for a portfolio. Joanna is a team lead running one of its projects.
Step 1: Tag every project overview with the same fields
With Metadata for Confluence, define a shared schema (project name, status, owner, phase) and add it to the project overview template used in every project space. That way, every project is tagged the same way, no matter which space it lives in.
Step 2: Build the portfolio menu from a query, not from links
In SubSpace Navigation for Confluence, create a “Project Portfolio” menu driven by a CQL query for pages tagged as project overviews.
When Joanna creates her overview from the template and fills in the metadata, her page appears in the menu automatically. She doesn’t need to ask Lara to add a link.
💡 Tip: Reuse the same query for filtered sub-menus such as “At Risk projects only” or “Projects owned by Team X”.
Step 3: Give every overview page the same phase layout
Use the Progress design in Navitabs - Navigation Macros for Confluence in the template, so each phase has its own tab (for example Overview → Progress Update → Risks & Decisions). Readers go straight to the phase they need instead of scrolling through months of history.
⚠️ Worth knowing: The Progress design is a layout set by the page author. It doesn’t read the metadata or update itself. The status you filter on stays in the Metadata fields.
Step 4: Check whether anyone is actually reading
This is the step most portfolio setups skip. Turn on Viewtracker – Analytics for Confluence reports across the project spaces to see how many people recently opened each project overview.
In the video, one project’s overview has barely been viewed since its last status update. Instead of taking silence to mean everything is fine, Lara follows up with the project owner.
What changes
Before | After |
|---|
Index page updated by hand | Menu updates when a page is tagged |
One flat list | Filters by status, owner, phase |
Team leads ask the PM to add links | Tagging the page is enough |
No idea who reads what | View reports per project overview |
The Meridian Knowledge Structure bundle brings Metadata for Confluence, SubSpace Navigation, Navitabs and Viewtracker together for this kind of setup. All four apps are available on the Atlassian Marketplace, or book a demo to see it in your own Confluence.
Over to you
How do you handle project portfolio overviews in Confluence today? Jira dashboards, a hand-maintained page, or something else entirely? I’d like to hear what works (and what doesn’t) at scale. 👇
