Five best ways to collect feedback on your Confluence content

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Collecting feedback on your Confluence content is essential for maintaining high-quality documentation and fostering collaboration within your team. Effective feedback mechanisms ensure that your content is accurate, helpful, and continually improving. In this post, we'll explore five of the best ways to collect feedback on your Confluence content, including some native options and popular third-party tools.

1. Confluence Inline Comments: One of the simplest and most immediate ways to collect feedback is by using Confluence's built-in inline comments feature. Users can highlight specific text and leave comments directly on the page. This method is great for providing context-specific feedback and is easy for team members to use.

2. Page Feedback & Rating for Confluence (by ServiceRocket): Page Feedback for Confluence is a powerful tool designed to streamline the feedback process. It allows users to leave structured feedback directly on Confluence pages, using byline experience (enabled on all pages) or page macro (on demand), and manage feedback efficiently. Webhook integration with Jira and other products and a comprehensive dashboard with sentiment analysis and insights ensure that feedback is promptly addressed. 

3. Surveys and Polls: Surveys and polls are excellent for gathering more general feedback from a wider audience. Tools like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms can be embedded in Confluence pages or shared via email. These surveys can include questions about content clarity, usefulness, and areas for improvement, providing valuable insights from multiple perspectives.

4. Feedback Forms: Custom feedback forms can be created using Confluence add-ons or external form builders like JotForm or Typeform. These forms can be embedded at the bottom of Confluence pages, allowing users to provide detailed feedback. This method is versatile and can be tailored to collect specific types of feedback, such as suggestions for new topics or reports of outdated information.

5. User Interviews and Focus Groups: For more in-depth feedback, consider conducting user interviews or organising focus groups. This approach allows you to gather qualitative insights that might not surface through written comments or surveys. By directly engaging with users, you can better understand their needs, preferences, and pain points, leading to more informed improvements.

Honorable Mentions:

Forms for Confluence by Kolekti: This tool allows you to create and manage surveys, forms, and polls within Confluence. It provides features like conditional fields, various question types, and data visualisation through charts and graphs, making it a robust option for collecting structured feedback directly in Confluence​.

Handy Macros for Confluence by Stiltsoft: This app includes various macros to enhance Confluence's functionality, such as creating polls to collect feedback and vote on content. It offers an easy way to add interactive elements like status updates, date pickers, and content formatting tools to make pages more engaging.

Collecting feedback on your Confluence content is vital for continuous improvement and effective collaboration. Whether you use native features like inline comments, specialised tools like Page Feedback for Confluence, or methods like surveys and user interviews, the key is to choose the approach that best fits your team's needs. Experiment with these methods and find the right mix to keep your documentation top-notch and your team aligned.

[Rustem Shiriiazdanov]

Short and valuable article! Thanks!