Changes to the Companion App in Confluence 6.15.6 and 6.13.6

[#1]

Hello Community 👋🏼

I’m Makisa, a product manager on Confluence Server and Data Center. Today, I wanted to share an update about editing Confluence attachments.

Back in August 2018, we released Confluence 6.11 and replaced the Edit in Office feature with the Atlassian Companion app. There were several reasons why we made this change. Firstly, the Atlassian Companion app offers a better experience for end users, since it allows you to edit and upload changes to any type of Confluence attachment, not just Microsoft Office files. Secondly, it does not rely on WebDAV technology, which is increasingly becoming a limitation, with modern browsers either choosing not to support WebDAV or deciding to deprecate it. We used to provide a Firefox addon to allow this to work in Firefox. However, since Firefox Quantum (version 57), the addon is no longer compatible with Firefox.

Since the release of Confluence 6.11, many of you and your teams have told us about how you rely on Edit in Office and of several requirements that are not met with the Companion App. We also understand the recent spate of CVEs have forced many of you to upgrade ahead of schedule and lose access to Edit in Office. Because of this, we have revisited our original decision and want to provide you with more time to prepare for Edit in Office’s eventual removal. In 6.15.6 and backported to our Enterprise Release, 6.13.6 (due out on 24 June), we will be adding a dark feature toggle for you to turn on Edit in Office as a deprecated feature.

In future releases, we will look to address key requirements for the Companion App, such as using the app in a terminal services environment or with 2FA, in order to make this functionality more widely accessible. In our upcoming platform release of Confluence 7.0, support for both WebDAV and the Edit in Office feature will be removed and no longer available.

We will be working on communicating big feature changes like this ahead of time and hope you continue to share your feedback with us. Thanks as always for your patience and for helping us build this.

[Thomas Kreft]

Finally some good news on this matter. Thanks!

[Daniel Pollak]

Thank you for those good news!

[Jan]

This sounds great. Thanks for listening. 

[Irmgard Schwarzer]

Hi Makisa,

I tried to download Confluence 6.13.6, but cannot find it in within Download Archives Section. Where can I get ist from?

Thanks, Irmgard

[Makisa Appleton]

Hi @Irmgard Schwarzer - unfortunately, we haven't yet released 6.13.6. It is due out in a week's time, on Monday 24 June (Sydney). We released 6.15.5 today, which is available.

[Allan Libby]

"Firstly, the Atlassian Companion app offers a better experience for end users"

This is false.  The Companion app is clunky and all of our users refuse to use it due to its clunkiness.  The edit for Office was one of the main draws for us for Confluence.  Since you removed this feature we have had nothing but complaints from our end users.

[Thomas Kreft]

@Allan Libby Since we were never able to use the Companion app, could you please elaborate about the clunkiness? Is there a bug report?

[Allan Libby]

@Thomas Kreft There are tons of complaints if you search for them.  The fact you have to open a third party app to go to the Office app adds an extra step our users refuse to use.  Add to that all the complaints about people not being able to install a third party app on their machines due to IT policies, this whole thing was poorly thought out and doesn't really work.

[Davin Studer]

@Makisa Appleton This is GREAT news! Thank you so much for this. Our site is not publicly accessible so we have not really been affected by the CVEs, but my security folks still want us to upgrade soon. Now I can.

[MOHAN CHHETRI]

@Allan Libby @Thomas Kreft Agree with Allan 100% this whole thing was poorly thought out. Due to company policy, its difficult to install third-party app. It should have been a default macro/ feature instead of third party add-on feature. 

[Carmen Nadeau]

Thi is great, really happy to hear that. Hope that the future version of Confluence (7) will allow Citrix users to work with this feature. 

[Makisa Appleton]

We've had to withdraw 6.15.5, and will release 6.15.6 soon. I'll update with another comment once the new version is available. You can find out more about the related issue here: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFSERVER-58490

[Makisa Appleton]

Confluence 6.15.6 is available to Server and Data Center customers today. Upgrade now or check out the Release Notes to see what other issues are resolved.

[Dan Beavon]

And with one fell-swoop you knobble all Linux users as there is no Linux Atlassian Companion app.

[Ilango A]

@Makisa Appleton , any update on 6.13.6 release please? Thanks!

[Makisa Appleton]

@Ilango A Good news - 6.13.6 release is out today!

[Ilango A]

Excellent! Thank you @Makisa Appleton !

[Brad Taplin]

Hello. I see that version 6.15.5 was withdrawn, and do not see mention of this feature being restored in the release notes for 6.15.6. Before I go to the trouble of testing 6.15.6 for this, can you please advise whether the Edit in Office feature is again available there?

[Davin Studer]

@Brad Taplin I just installed 6.15.6 a couple days ago and I was able to enable the dark feature. So, yes it exists in 6.15.6.

[Brad Taplin]

Thanks, Davin!

[ShelleyDee]

Hi, I can't find any doco on how to enable the dark feature (Edit in Office). Can someone please enlighten me?

[Thomas Kreft]

It's described here: https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/administering-the-atlassian-companion-app-958456281.html

[Richard Cross]

"To edit files, users need to install the Atlassian Companion app..."

So it never occurred to Atlassian that in many (if not most) major corporate environments, users are not simply permitted or able to download and install software on their desktops/laptops?

"want to provide you with more time to prepare for Edit in Office’s eventual removal. "

Prepare how?  It's far more likely companies will simply get rid of Confluence than take on the burden of re-packaging and maintaining the Atlassian Companion app in their respective desktop software provisioning systems.

[Gonchik Tsymzhitov]

Thanks for that news. Now I can chase our accountant to use the new feature as recommended :) and no new bug fixes for old one :)