Announcing Table Extensibility to better visualize data in Confluence

Hello!

My name is Laura Mehrkens, and I’m a product manager for the Confluence Ecosystem team. Last month, we announced the release of Table Extensibility in Confluence through an Early Access Program (EAP). Today, I’m excited to announce the general release of Table Extensibility to all Confluence Cloud users, allowing for the visualization and manipulation of data in table format from multiple data sources!

Confluence Cloud users coming from on-premises versions of Confluence will be excited to know that Table Extensibility debuts requested functionality (transforming and visualizing table-based data) that users experienced using Confluence on-prem.

How does it work?

Table Extensibility allows elements, such as a data macro, to act as the source of another element. Confluence Cloud users can then create transformer macros – such as pivot tables – or build visual charts that reference the data in a source table. Additionally, users can chain multiple macros together to create a more complex relationship between multiple sets of data. This allows real-time viewing of the visualization as the data changes.

Using the Connect Data toolbar item available in supported Connect macros, users can open the Connected Data Panel. In the panel, users will be able to view and configure connections and create macro data chains on a page.

Currently, we support three types of data chains:

  1. Native Table to Connect Macro

  2. Connect Macro to Native Chart

  3. Connect Macro to Connect Macro

How can I use it in my day-to-day?

We imagine a lot of different ways.

Tables will become more complex and will be able to combine many data sources into a single visual presentation. These complex tables will become the source data for sophisticated charts and visualizations that will update in real-time as you edit the source data.

connect_to_chart (1) (3).gif

We will also support the reverse of that workflow with apps that let users start at the end or the middle of the macro chain. Users can start with an empty visualization macro, such as a bar chart, and then link it to its data source and data target.

While our native apps provide Confluence Cloud users with table visualizations such as pie charts and bar charts, the true power of table extensibility will come as more app developers create new extensible apps or update their existing apps. As the community explores the new possibilities in Table Extensibility, the apps they make will offer even more flexibility and power to Confluence users.

David Simpson, a developer from DS Apps, says Table Extensibility will allow him and his team to take advantage of the existing data in the apps they use:

What benefits do you expect to gain by using Table Extensibility?

“The main thing here is that using table extensibility means we can extend the functionality and usefulness of our existing apps by broadcasting their data back to the Confluence product for use by other apps or by the chart feature.”

How do you plan to use Table Extensibility going forward?

“We will use table extensibility in the ‘Table from CSV’ app, which allows us to take an attached or remote CSV and build a table within Confluence. Table extensibility allows us to the send this data to a chart (or other apps) and sort or filter the data to produce new insights for the end user.”


Want to try it for yourself? Table Extensibility will gradually roll out to all Confluence Cloud licensed users, including those on Free plans. Members of the Confluence Cloud Ecosystem Beta Group will be among the first to get it.

May 19 update: We've completed the rollout to all Confluence Cloud users. 

 

20 comments

Andy Gladstone
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
April 3, 2023

Amazing release. Looking forward to using this so our historical reporting data can be charted and made more visibly friendly for our employees.

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Hana Kučerová
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
April 5, 2023

It looks great! I can’t wait to try it!

Juliette Lallement _Elements Apps_
Marketplace Partner
Marketplace Partners provide apps and integrations available on the Atlassian Marketplace that extend the power of Atlassian products.
April 5, 2023

@Laura Mehrkens !

Fantastic news!

Can you provide more details around when the progressive roll out will take place?

Rick Westbrock April 10, 2023

I am surprised that this new feature was prioritized over fixed-width tables in Cloud. Over three years waiting for https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-67748 to become reality...

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Francis Kinsler May 11, 2023

How does this compare with power query and power pivot in Excel/PowerBI?

Mathias N. May 15, 2023

 

Don't get me wrong on this. I like to have fancy features introduced, but it feels like you focus too much on fancy things instead of fixing the product base which is much more needed for the day-to-day work, like the mentioned fixed-width tables.

And its not just limited to this, but I came across so many other example in the past 14 months since I introduced Confluence Cloud in my organisation.

I would like to ask you to make one step back and use a few sprints to sort out some main pain points for the basic use first. 

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Laura Mehrkens
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
May 19, 2023

@Juliette Lallement _Elements Apps_ We've now completed the rollout and Table Extensibility is available to all Confluence Cloud users. 

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Laura Mehrkens
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
May 19, 2023

@Rick Westbrock @Mathias N. Thank you for your feedback. While I don't have an exact delivery timeline, please be assured that our team is currently looking into solutions to enable custom table widths. Please stay tuned and follow https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-67748 for updates. 

Laura Mehrkens
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
May 19, 2023

@Francis Kinsler Table extensibility enables data sharing and visualization between different macros. Once developers adopt table extensibility in their apps, table-based data such as BI reports or Excel tables can be connected to other table-based macros (e.g. pivot table) and visualized via charts.  

Matthew McGarity June 1, 2023

@Laura Mehrkens Thanks for sharing this news!

I'm trying to test it out, but:

  1. I appear to be missing parts of the feature, like pivot tables; and
  2. I can find zero documentation on this.

Would you be able to help on both?

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Juliette Lallement _Elements Apps_
Marketplace Partner
Marketplace Partners provide apps and integrations available on the Atlassian Marketplace that extend the power of Atlassian products.
June 5, 2023

I have the same questions as you @Matthew McGarity . There are a lot of parts missing and absolutely zero documentation on how to make this work. 

One of my colleagues asked questions here but received no answer.

@Laura Mehrkens would you be able to help here?

Very much appreciated!

Matthew McGarity June 5, 2023

@Juliette Lallement _Elements Apps_ Thanks for responding — the link you shared is 404, tho. Do you have a better link?

@Laura Mehrkens Help us, Obi-Wan...!

Darrel Jackson June 5, 2023

May 19 update: We've completed the rollout to all Confluence Cloud users. 

I can't see anything on my Confluence Premium Cloud instance. How do I access it? Tries searching for "connect", "table", "data" and "pivot" macros and can't see anything. Help please.

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Jaime Capitel _resolution_
Marketplace Partner
Marketplace Partners provide apps and integrations available on the Atlassian Marketplace that extend the power of Atlassian products.
June 7, 2023

I'm arriving late, but this is the revolution!! Feel like I need a Master Reporting with Confluence certification path now!

Juliette Lallement _Elements Apps_
Marketplace Partner
Marketplace Partners provide apps and integrations available on the Atlassian Marketplace that extend the power of Atlassian products.
June 19, 2023

For those of you who may be interested, I wrote a review of my experience using that killer feature here: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Marketplace-Apps-Integrations/A-Game-Changer-for-Collaborative-Work-Confluence-Table/ba-p/2383493

Feel free to share your experience too! 

Darrel Jackson June 19, 2023

I'm still waiting for feedback from my comment on 5th June. How do I access this feature? I can't find any macros in my page. The documentation I can find looks nothing like my Confluence instance. I'm on Confluence Cloud Premium with Continuous release track so I should be running the latest. The post from May suggests this feature is fully rolled out.

Laura Mehrkens
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
June 27, 2023

Thank you everyone for your feedback. We have heard your request for better documentation and we are working on updating our documentation for this feature. In the mean time, here is a step-by-step walkthrough and answers to your questions: 

How can I access this feature? 

Table extensibility is enabled for all customers. It currently supports the following native macros:

  • Table macro
  • Chart macro

To try it out, start by inserting a table into your page. Add your data to the table, then click on the table to bring up the toolbar. Click "Manage connected data" in the toolbar.

Screenshot 2023-06-27 at 12.56.32 PM.pngThis will open the connected data panel where you can select a target macro. Select chart to connect your table to a chart.

Screenshot 2023-06-27 at 12.59.18 PM.png

Some of our amazing app partners have also already enabled table extensibility for their apps!

Here is the list of apps that currently support table extensibility:

Once you have downloaded one of these apps, follow the steps outlined above to insert a macro into your page and connect it via the toolbar. 

 

How can I access pivot tables?

The pivot table app shown in our example was created for testing purposes. It is not currently available for download on the Atlassian Marketplace, however the code is open source, available at: https://bitbucket.org/atlassianlabs/atlassian-connect-pivot-table/src/master/. This allows you to fork and deploy this Forge app on your own Confluence instance. 

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Darrel Jackson June 27, 2023

Thanks for the documentation. I have a Confluence Cloud Premium intance on the continuous release track and I still don't see the "Manage connected data" icon on the table.

2023-06-28 16_15_43-Window.png

Jeff Hoover June 28, 2023

We also do not see the "Manage connected data" icon on the table.  Our options look the same as Darrel's.

David at David Simpson Apps
Marketplace Partner
Marketplace Partners provide apps and integrations available on the Atlassian Marketplace that extend the power of Atlassian products.
August 29, 2023

Hi @Laura Mehrkens 

Here's a quick video overview of how table extensibility works on our Table from CSV app:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=oUZRb0Obh8I  

– Cheers, David

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