How do you handle documentation change management?

Emily Urbanski June 16, 2021

I'm curious how folks manage changes of formal docs/standards in Confluence. I know the page history is there, but that poses a number of challenges. 1) it tracks every single time a page is saved, which won't help in identifying overall policy changes. and 2) it would require a diligent approach to documenting what was changed (since the "what did you change?" field cannot be made required when editing a page). I'm looking for a way to document the big changes, like the versioning on a document that states date of change, what was changed, who changed it, and who approved it. We have previously used simple tables to capture this information, but I'm curious if there is a better way to do this. Perhaps with a macro I'm unaware of. 

Thanks in advance for any insight you can provide into the best and most efficient way to formally manage document changes!

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James Conway
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June 21, 2021

Hello @Emily Urbanski , welcome to the community!

As you say, Confluence does save a version for every page edit, but that this can make it difficult to track the major changes. While I cannot think of macros available in Confluence natively that will help, as @Matt Reiner _K15t_ indicates, there are many apps on the Atlassian Marketplace that may help you manage your document changes.

One of your options could be Comala Document Management, the app allows you to create workflows to manage your document lifecycle. This could include reviews, different document stages, publishing or automated change record tables. If you want to learn more about Comala Document Management, please check out our webinars.  

All the best

James
Senior Product Manager

Emily Urbanski June 22, 2021

Thank you, James! I will add this to the list to review with stakeholders. Appreciate your response!

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James Conway
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June 22, 2021

You are welcome @Emily Urbanski!

If you or your stakeholders have any specific questions, do not hesitate to contact our Customer Success team at https://support.comalatech.com/ 

All the best

James

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Matt Reiner _K15t_
Marketplace Partner
Marketplace Partners provide apps and integrations available on the Atlassian Marketplace that extend the power of Atlassian products.
June 17, 2021

Hi @Emily Urbanski

1. Perhaps my team's app Scroll Documents would be a partial solution here. While it still tracks individual changes and activities, it enables you to version a whole collection of pages together, and to view the changes made across all of them.

https://help.k15t.com/scroll-docs/latest/server/view-activity-182789923.html

2. I believe there is an app on the Marketplace (that I can't find🤦🏻‍♂️) that requires users fill out the "What's changed?" Field before saving. This could make the page history much more valuable.

Emily Urbanski June 22, 2021

Thank you, Matt! This could certainly be an option for us. Appreciate the response!

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