Content review similar to Git pull requests

[Gareth Budge]

Hi all,

What's the Atlassian recommended approach to instrument a review process for Confluence page (not Blogs) creation, updates and deletion?

It seems like in these forums the generally recommended approach is to get something from the Marketplace but given Confluence does have versioning, status labelling, etc. I am expected something a bit more out of the box.

Perhaps the way I am thinking of this is incorrect, but I would envisage something similar to a Git pull request. If the docs for an application were potentially versioned in the same repo as the application, any PR to change the application with/without any changes to the docs/ would attest whether or not any documentation updates were required.

Any guidance / feedback is greatly appreciated.

G

[Gareth Budge]

Hi @Levente Szabo _Midori_ @Adrian Hülsmann - B1NARY @Kristian Klima ,

Thanks for your replies and thoughts. I do appreciate you taking the time out of your day.

Yes I can see the considerations you all raise.

There are open source solutions that use Git and the Confluence API to version / publish content to Confluence, but the ones I've tried start with markdown which is very limited.

It would be great to see even a simple approval workflow to manage state from draft to published, but in any case you've guided me to the marketplace, so many thanks.

[Kristian Klima]

Hi @Gareth Budge 

a) you may wanna look at this question - about importing markdown to Confluence

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-questions/Import-URL-with-markdown-and-display-via-Scroll-Viewport/qaq-p/2804569

b) Just last week, I tested a new solution that works Confluence's native Page Status features. It is a two-space solution using Ricksoft's Space Sync for Confluence and their free Pages Manager app.

The idea is that you have your workflow / page status going in one space, to which you import markdown files, then, upon the page reaching Done status (or any other that you set up), Space Sync moves it to another space.

Pages Manager allows you to change page status of multiple pages at once... thus becoming your push for a virtual branch.

[Levente Szabo _Midori_]

@Gareth Budge I think your requirement is very valid but the way you think about it touches on at least 3 key areas of Confluence content management. There is no built-in way that would solve all these in good quality and probably can't even be expected.

Confluence Cloud has built-in "statuses", "versioning" but as soon as you start using those in real use cases, the limitations become clear (just think about the fact that it has 5 built-in statuses. No company can fit their workflows to just 5 statuses except for small teams with very simple needs.)

I think the areas you touch on are:

1. Confluence content review workflows - to automatically set page status in Confluence, notify and remind page owners that a review is due, and ultimately take automatic action (archiving/deletion)
2. Confluence content analysis and usage reporting - with the goal of better understanding content quality, overall site and space usage, and user activity, like a heatmap for your instance
3. Advanced page versioning - for clear comparisons and change tracking.

Advanced versioning and approval workflows have their dedicated apps, already mentioned.

For Confluence content lifecycle management and content review workflow, Better Content Archiving is the go-to tool. The on-premise version has been on the market for 15 years, helping teams at companies like PayPal, LinkedIn, and the like. The cloud version strives to deliver even more flexibility, features, and Confluence automation for all tiers.

Better Content Archiving also brings comprehensive Confluence analytics and reporting dashboards. It is comparable to the built-in Confluence Analytics, but with more data sources in one place, more focus on content lifecycle, and availability for all tiers, not just the high-end!

Start a free trial to take advantage:

(Please note that Better Content Archiving is a free/paid, supported app and I'm part of the team developing it.)

[Adrian Hülsmann - B1NARY]

Hi @Gareth Budge

It is difficult to achieve something similar to git with Confluence. However, you could use Confluence automation for basic stuff, e.g., identifying pages that haven't been updated for some time.

However, as soon as you want more options for the content lifecycle, the go-to way is to use dedicated content lifecycle management plugins like Breeze.

Breeze automatically identifies outdated pages and implements review and archiving workflows to keep your pages up-to-date.

It's a feature-packed content lifecycle management solution and includes

• automated content analyses,
• page review and archiving workflows (approvals coming very soon),
• page and space ownership,
• reports and notifications,
• bulk archiving and deletion,
• analytics,
• data export for all your content, ownership, and status information
• and more to update outdated pages quickly and enhance collaboration.

👉 Anyone interested might Give it a try, or feel free to schedule an appointment with me for a personal demo.

Cheers and all the best, Adrian from B1NARY (we are the developers of Breeze)

[Kristian Klima]

Hi @Gareth Budge 

I think one of the main reasons to use Confluence is to avoid Git :)

Anyway, yes, the marketplace would be your source.

We're using Comala Document Approval (one of Appfire's workflow management apps) and Comala Publishing.

We have two Confluence spaces synced with Publishing. Source and Target.

In Source, we keep pages in Draft status with Doc Approval, once they're ready, move them to Complete. This triggers the Publishing app which transfers the page to the Target space. It's the same with new pages.

It's git-like with the difference that you can do that on the page level (page to page basis).

If you need to revert, revert the Source page to the previous version, and sync it manually to the Target space.

Works like a charm as the Publishing app swallows everything hook line and sinker (labels, third party macros, everything).

We then use the Target space to built our doc center from (with K15t's Scroll Viewport)

If you need semantic versioning, you'd do that in your Target space with Scroll Documents.

Having said all of the above, I've been rather vocal on calling for a proper actionable workflow in Confluence. Current solution is, essentially, a glorified label that doesn't really do anything.