🎉 2024 Confluence Databases: A year of innovation & what's next! 🚀

[#1]

Hello Databases Community! 👋

As we kick-off 2025, I’m thrilled to share a recap of all the fantastic features we’ve rolled out for Confluence databases since our GA in August of 2024. Here’s a look back at what’s been released and a sneak peek at what’s coming next!

What We Shipped in 2024

Database Templates

We introduced database templates to help you get started quickly and maintain consistency across your projects. These templates are designed to streamline your workflow and ensure that your data is organized effectively.

Quick Calculations

With quick calculations, you can perform basic arithmetic operations directly within your databases, saving you time and reducing the need for external tools. Read more.

Page Creation from Database Entries

Creating pages from database entries is now easier than ever. You’re able to create pages from a database cell and that new page automatically includes an embedded view of that database entry. Read more.

Numbered Rows

To enhance data organization, we’ve added the ability to number rows within your databases, making it easier to reference and manage your entries.

Cell Interactions

We’ve improved how you can interact with database cells like double-clicking/type to edit as well as the ability to paste directly from your clipboard to a selected cell.

Performance Improvements

In addition to all the cool new visual features, we also been hard at work under the hood to improve performance with a significant reduction in the time it takes to initially load a database.

What we’re working on now

While 2024 was a great year for Confluence databases, the team is already hard at work on some exciting new capabilities for 2025. Here’s a sneak peek:

• Mentions with notifications

• Database version history

• Comments on database entries

• Improved import from CSV files

What’s coming up

Our longer term roadmap for Confluence databases wouldn’t be possible without the incredible feedback from our community. Thank you for your ongoing interest and feedback. Here are some of our focus areas on the horizon:

• Improved database setup panel

• Better keyboard navigation

• Table to database conversion

• Rich text and nested rows

• Live presence (ability to see others also viewing a database at the same time)

• Improved Jira & Confluence import flow

Thank you for being a part of our journey this year. We’re committed to continuing to improve Confluence databases and can’t wait to see how you’ll use new features to enhance your workflows. Stay tuned for more updates in 2025!

Cheers,

Dustin Smith| Confluence Product Marketing Manager

P.S. If you’re introducing others at your company to Confluence databases, Sr. PM Christina Ristevski and I are hosting a getting started webinar for databases on February 20th. It’s the perfect place for new database users to begin their training. 🙂

[Sonya McNeely]

Is there any sense of if or when Confluence databases will be included in Confluence exports? I like Confluence but we can't use it as much as I'd like because of the limitations of Confluence exports and our legal and regulatory requirements. 

I know that a new and improved "backup & restore" feature is on the Atlassian 2024 Q4 roadmap, but Q4 has come and gone and there's been no update on the feature and the group isn't responding to questions for an update on that initiative.

[Kristján Geir Mathiesen]

Sweet!

[Christina Ristevski]

Hi @Sonya McNeely , Confluence databases should be supported at the site level for export and can also be exported at the object level. Are you having issues with this flow? 

[Sonya McNeely]

@Christina Ristevski, the documentation that I found says of Confluence databases in export:

"We can’t currently export databases

They will appear in the tree when exported but won’t retain their content, data, or functionality."

Are you saying that Confluence databases are actually fully supported via site export in Confluence Cloud?  I'll run a test - this would be excellent news....

[Eric Brahmann]

Great ideas. Other features I would love:

- Confluence Search should search Databases as well

- Possibility to access the content Confluence Table via tools (Python / Power Query / Duckdb / API /  you name it). So you can easyily use them within programming / Analysis Tasks.  

[thomas.ohrbom]

This is all great. We love the Confluence Databases, and are already using it extensively. Three major features missing still though:

1. Add support for displaying Page Properties in databases (we use the Page Properties macro a lot)
2. Add support for Databases (at least make them readable) in the Confluence Cloud Mobile App
3. Allow Databases to be readable in through Anonymous Access

[Kevin Gérard]

Recently POC-ed a flow based on Databases, 
Wasn't immediatly 'in love' but deffinatley liked the potential! 

-> In a number type column, can i expect auto increment function? 

Is there a roadmap for databases where i can keep track? 

[Martin Dowie]

If/when is Databases coming to Confluence Data Center?

[Eric Brahmann]

one other nice feature i am looking forward to:
When mentioning an issue on an conflunece page, it is automatically displayed in Jira.
This should be done as well for the Conflunece Databases and its column type "Jira Issue".

[Sarah S Allis]

One thing that really needs to be on the roadmap somewhere is the ability to include the database record macro in a Confluence Template. There are so many use cases for this, and I'm really hoping that it's included somewhere in your work plans!

[Ryan Shober]

I discovered the database feature after trying (in vain) to build and configure page property reports to support a cross-function user acceptance testing project. I admit, I was surprised by how limited the native page property reports feature was. It seems like it's been live long enough to have further UX development than this. 

When I discovered databases, that seemed a likely reason for the lack of development on page property and property reporting.  

So, I made my first foray in creating a confluence database this week. My experience with databases comes primarily from Notion and will explain where my baseline expectations were.

A little about my use case: I created a "simple" database with only five properties. I wanted something lightweight to connect properties like Tester, Test Case Status, Outcomes, Page Links, and JIRA links. -We're using Confluence cloud btw.

My experience so far in stream of consciousness:

- Why is the UX so clunky and unresponsive?

- Why does the embed macro not have more configuration options?

- I have to choose only one sorting column? Why doesn't it keep the prior sort so I can give it sorting priority by workaround (e.g., by region, but keep page names in alphabetical order)?

- Syncing databases after page creation feels redundant. add page to database. open page, add database to page, which page? (this page of course)... 

- Page creation gives me the option to create using templates, but /embed database macro can't be configured in the template so I'm having to re-configure layout after creation. 

- Why is linking pages on the database so hard? I have to scroll to the bottom of a list when I search even though it's the most recent page I created or was on in another window?

- Why am I having to scroll through every page in my space even when I try to limit search by keywords?

- Why am I getting slow page loads when there's only 10 items in my database with 5 columns.

- Why are pages with embedded databases taking 4.5 seconds (aka user eternity) to load when there's 5 properties?

... ...

Recurring theme: why. is. this. so. difficult. to setup? to use?

I'm bummed and frustrated. I guess I've been spoiled by Notion. This doesn't feel ready for primetime. Shame because I really needed it and the links we already have to JIRA made this seem like a no brainer.

(sigh). Apologies for the soliloquy. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

-Ryan

[Jeff Greenhouse]

I'll say that I love the idea of Databases and would love to encourage my clients to use them, but the lack of support in the "Export Space" and "Backup" tools is a real blocker. 

The other things that would be amazing would be

1. the ability to automatically generate a database listing all of the pages in the Space
2. The ability to pull Page Properties into database fields (selecting which property you want)