Rename space key is coming soon! (all editions)

[John Hooper]

Hi Admins 👋, John from the Confluence team here again.

We're excited to be announcing that the ability to rename a space key will be rolled out soon over the last weeks of September through late October! We know that this has been a long time coming with the JAC ticket for this request having been created in 2004 (looking like we'll juuuust finish rolling it out before the ticket turns 20!), so we're glad that we're finally able to deliver on this longstanding request.

How will it work

The technical approach that we are using will leverage two different keys: an internally generated ID plus an additional, separate key that is what will be shown to your users. 

This approach is represented in the UI as:

- System space key = internally generated ID 

- Space key = the visible alias that's seen by your users

A notable facet of this approach is that places where space key is being used today (ex: A4C rules) will NOT be impacted if a key is renamed since they will be based on the system space key (internally generated ID).

How to use it

You will be able to rename a space's key within the Space Details page of the desired space (space settings > space details > edit space key > save). A user needs to have product admin access to Confluence in order to be able to do this. 

Usability items of note

- A space can go back and re-use a previous key used on that same space

- A space cannot re-use a previous key that had already been used on a different space unless that space is deleted and purged

- During a S2C migration, we will prevent duplicate keys being used when new spaces are being created

- The only location that a space key can be changed currently is in the space details settings page for the chosen space

- Only users with product admin access to Confluence are able to change a space key (so space admins are not currently)

- There is currently a limit of 10 changes to a key per space (note: please leave a comment here or contact our support team if this becomes an issue)

FAQs

Can I only use lower case formatting on a key?

Initially, yes. We will be GA'ing this capability with only lower case formatting available to get it to teams asap, but we are planning to release variable casing capabilities in the next few months as well so this is coming if it's needed for your team

Which editions of Confluence Cloud is this available to?

Customers on all Confluence editions will be able to use this capability

Are more actions + capabilities coming to this feature?

Yes! We plan to add additional details such as variable casing as mentioned above as well as other enhancements going forward. Please let us know if there's anything in particular that would make this more useful for your team!

When can I start using this update?

As mentioned above, we will be rolling this feature out from late September through late October

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As always, please let us know if you have any questions or feedback with comments here or by scheduling time to chat with me here

[Maurice Pasman]

Awesome addition!

(1) Will cross-space hyperlinks use the space key or the system space key?

More importantly, will they still work when two spaces that contain crosslinks are exported and imported in a new cloud site (where there is the possibility that the system space key might change)?

(2) Which key is shown in the URL bar?

[Dhiral Pandya]

1. The visible URL will have a space key, but internally, it is stored against the system space key which remains constant.. Yes, it will work when two spaces are imported into the new cloud site.

2. It will be renamed space key.

[Maurice Pasman]

@Dhiral Pandya thanks for the reply!

I am still a bit worried about this scenario:

• Let's say in my environment there are two spaces, with keys TEST and TEST2
• TEST2 contains a page with a hyperlink to a page in TEST
• I create exports of both spaces
• In the target environment, there already is a space keyed TEST

In the old situation, the space TEST could not be imported unless it was first deleted.

It is my understanding that in the new situation, the import will run, and it will just generate a new unique key for TEST.

This would pose a problem for the import of TEST2, as it contains a hyperlink to TEST, which now has a new space key, resulting in a broken link (in reality, hundreds of broken links, as many of our spaces have cross linked pages).

[Dhiral Pandya]

>  In the old situation, the space TEST could not be imported unless it was first deleted.

This will be the same here as well. It will not allow import or migrate if any of the spaces contain the same space key or system space key in the destination site.

[Maurice Pasman]

Thank you @Dhiral Pandya for your answer!

Although this reassures me, as it will not break my use case, I now doubt if this implementation is what users were hoping for (as it is merely cosmetic), not a way to make Cloud migrations with conflicting (system) space keys?

Or could one rename the display key on one site, export it, and it will try to become the system key on the target instance?

[Dhiral Pandya]

@Maurice Pasman Thanks for your comment 

As outlined in the post, the new feature will be available shortly after our initial launch. In this, the system space key will be an internally generated ID for newly created spaces. This ID will be universally unique, helping to prevent conflicts during migration for newly created spaces.

For server-to-cloud migration, the space key from the server will become both the system space key and the space key in the cloud.

For cloud-to-cloud migration, we export both the space key and the system space key. This approach aims to maintain a setup similar to the source site. In this scenario, the destination site will import both the space key and the system space key, with validation performed on both. Once we have an internally generated ID for the system space key, conflicts can be avoided by simply updating the key before exporting the space.

[Maurice Pasman]

But then it will actually not be a solution for current customers that run into a duplicate space key while doing either a server2cloud migration or a cloud2cloud consolidation.

[Tim Eddelbüttel]

What happens to macro parameters that reference the space key?

[Dhiral Pandya]

It will work with old space keys as well.

[Dhiral Pandya]

We have completed our rollout today, and It should now be available to all customers.

[Tim Eddelbüttel]

Thanks for providing feedback for various questions.

One last question from me, will it break Confluence XML Space export functionality to transfer a space between Cloud & Data Center (Vendor Export to Customer, etc.)? Space Keys can only be in the range of the validation of isValidGlobalSpaceKey method from Space class? (https://docs.atlassian.com/ConfluenceServer/javadoc/8.5.0/com/atlassian/confluence/spaces/Space.html#isValidGlobalSpaceKey(java.lang.String)) 

For example if a page is archived (aka. content_status) this values will be imported into DC, with the result that the space can't be deleted without modifying the content_status to current or trashed as DC only knows these values.

[Dhiral Pandya]

> will it break Confluence XML Space export functionality to transfer a space between Cloud & Data Center (Vendor Export to Customer, etc.)? 

No, Space import and export for the server will continue to work on the 'System Space Key'. The imported space in DC will have the system space key.

[CEDRIC DEVAUX]

Hello,

I have some questions?

Could there be an impact on the link between a jira project and a confluence space?

Are the links dynamic, like when you move a page from one space to another?

[Tim Eddelbüttel]

Usually Jira stores links to Confluence with pageId=123456 and full base url.

[Dhiral Pandya]

There is no impact on the link between a Jira project and a Confluence space when moving a page. The page experience will remain unchanged from the current experience. The page URL will be updated with the new space key, and all existing links on the page will automatically redirect to the new space key.

[CEDRIC DEVAUX]

Also it still working if someone creates a shortlink and paste into a document as Word, Google Doc, etc. ?

[Ayelet Ben-Tzur]

Thank you!

What happens to old links to pages with the old key? Are they being redirected automatically? 

[Dhiral Pandya]

Yes, All links with the old key will automatically redirect to the new space key.

[JQ]

Thank you for your efforts, 

1. may I have a document link to the known issues/changes that would be caused by renaming the space key

2. what's the reason for "Only users with product admin access to Confluence are able to change a space key"?

thank you

[Dhiral Pandya]

1. The update is still in progress, will share a link once it's live. 

2.  it's our initial approach to mitigate the potential risk of keys being changed by users that a team's governance structure may not want to be changing a key