Is there any way to enable Office document updates without using the Confluence Companion?

Question

In our old Server version of Confluence, we could double click on document links and edit and save. This updated the document on Confluence also. Since our move to cloud this does not work and we have to use the companion. This cause us issues as;

* Companion does not install for everyone due to security issues.
* If a user updates a document by double clicking and saving, Confluence does not state that this does not update the Confluence document and updates are lost.

Is there a workaround for this or even a warning that could be added when someone double clicks on a document to edit.

Shannon S · Answer

Tommy,

Companion was written only for Cloud and is the new way to edit in Office. I believe that Server uses the old method.

If you are concerned about users not realizing they have to use the edit in Office tool, then yes, I would say you need to put it on every page. You could also put this on the header of every page automatically by editing your Space or Site templates and adding it in the header, but then this could appear on every page even ones without the Office documents.

Shannon

Tommy O_Brien · Answer

Thanks Shannon,

Do I have to put a warning Macro on every single page which has documents which may be edited? This will be a lot of work. Is there a way to update all file lists to include a warning?

As for the error, I discovered that the companion installs into the user profile for non-administrators but it will not install for administrators. Our support team is looking into this.

Why is the edit feature without Companion available on the server version but not on the cloud?

Thanks,

Tommy.

Shannon S · Answer

Hi Tommy,

If you wish to use the Edit in Office feature, then it must be done via Atlassian Companion. The other option would be to download the document to the user's computer, edit in Office manually, and then re-upload it.

In fact, when the users are just clicking on the document and not using the Edit in Office feature, then it will do just that.

You may wish to place a warning on the pages with the Office documents in case your users aren't aware they need to use the specific feature in order to upload the changes to Confluence. You can use the Warn Macro for this if you like.

As for your security issue, could you let me know what the error is exactly? There may be an existing issue reported in our system where you can follow its progress.

Regards,

Shannon