How to modify custom page status?

[Elisabeth Haeck]

Hi there, I created a couple custom page status which I would like to modify or remove. In my example, I would like to remove On hold, Ready for planning, Closing down soon or modify the text and colors.

In the Confluence page it only allows me to add a custom status, and not to modify or delete.

I'm an administrator of the space, but don't manage to find the right area to change the settings.

Any recommendations? Thanks for the help! 

[Nikola Perisic · Accepted solution]

Hello @Elisabeth Haeck 

When you click on create a status, it will create it on the space level. In order to delete it, it cannot be deleted from the page, rather from the Content statuses page. Also, make sure that you are the space admin.

[Elisabeth Haeck]

Thank you @Nikola Perisic. I am a space admin but do not see the option to remove the status. See screenshot.

[Nikola Perisic]

I see, you delete your statuses when you click on the trash bin icon. And you should create your custom statuses within that section that contains Rough draft and other statuses.

[Elisabeth Haeck]

Thanks for the help @Nikola Perisic

I only want to remove On hold, ready for planning and closing down soon. I don't see that in the Content statuses page to delete... I want to keep the suggested statuses...

[Nikola Perisic]

Hi @Elisabeth Haeck 

The workaround for this would be: 

If you have added the status from the "Add status" button, then you can't delete it. The good news is that you can restore the default suggestions if:

• Go to space settings > Content statuses
• Create a new status
• Click Restore Defaults

Also there is a suggestion for the custom statuses to be deleted here: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-74269

[Elisabeth Haeck]

Okay, thank you. I'll wait for the suggestion to be built.

[Levente Szabo _Midori_]

@Elisabeth Haeck Can you actually share more about your use case and what you are trying to achieve in terms of Confluence content lifecycle management with statuses? Is there a workflow or other criteria you would like to implement?

Because based on your comments, a few things are not clear to me:

• Those "custom" statuses that you show on your screenshots are only visible to you, and no one else. You are aware of that, right?
  What's your goal here? To manage statuses just for yourself?
• The workaround mentioned above is about the ability to delete "custom" statuses other users created for themselves as well as yours. Is this your goal to to delete statuses for other users as well?

I see both as problematic, since - I think - statuses make sense if everyone can use them and use exactly the same ones. It requires central management of statuses which is not offered in Confluence. You can only implement it with the built-in statuses if you enforce all Confluence users to create the same statuses (unrealistic) and when you want to change or delete them, enforce that everyone does the same change (unrealistic).

Even if you do this, the whole thing remains a manual process, reliant on users to manually change the status, instead of automatically refreshing the page status based on your preset rules.

I'd be happy to learn more about your goals and make sure you can implement exactly what you need for your team.

[Elisabeth Haeck]

Hello @Levente Szabo _Midori_

• No, I was not aware that they are only visible to me so thanks a lot for highlighting that!
• Our objective is to have labels that meet our workflows in Jira, so that everyone uses the same labels. Aim is to set up a table with definitions of what each status means so that we have a consistent use of status in all our workflow, also outside Confluence.
• Only the administrators of our environment should be able to create such status (that are visible to everyone), otherwise it will become a jungle of labels and we will miss out on our purpose to reduce miscommunications and inefficiencies due to this
• We are now restricted to 5 statuses, which does not meet our workflows - We need at least 7

It is exactly as you say that the current way the statuses are built, is very hard to administer and too manual. 

Another big pain point, even for those status that are created by an individual, is that the current way it is built does not allow to delete/edit a status. So in case of a typo, the status is in the list until eternity :-) 

Hope this gives more clarity,

Eli

[Levente Szabo _Midori_]

@Elisabeth Haeck Hi Eli, Yes, it clarifies and is exactly what I thought you were working toward as this is typically what we see with many teams we work with. Also, this is why we designed Better Content Archiving to cover the points you mentioned:

1. You can create and use 20 statuses so you can align your Confluence CLM workflow to your existing workflow in Jira
2. Manage statues centrally
3. Only admins can manage (create, edit, delete) statuses
4. All users can set page statuses but those also update automatically based on your preset rules
5. Status definition is as flexible as it gets with CQL
6. Statuses can trigger further actions like automatic email notifications, reminders or archiving/deletion

Please give it a try and reach out to our support or me directly (at levente.szabo@midori-global.com) if you need any assistance with the implementation or a personalized demo for your team.

[Stiltsoft Support]

Hello @Elisabeth Haeck 

If you are considering Atlassian third-party apps to resolve your use case, you can look at Handy Macros for Confluence. It has Handy Page Status to indicate the documentation status on top of the Confluence pages, similar to the native status. But you get lots of advanced features in our macro:

• create an unlimited number of status sets with unlimited options to fit in your every workflow
• reuse status sets across spaces for consistency
• track the history of page status changes in one click to immediately see the bottleneck
• search for pages in a certain status by multiple criteria using our Page Status Report
• create notifications for page statuses without updates for a long time using Confluence Automation
  

We also have an article to learn more.

Thanks!

[Aron Gombas _Midori_]

@Elisabeth Haeck If you are looking for more flexibility and features in the context of page statuses, give Better Content Archiving a try!

Important differences between our statues vs the built-in statuses:

1. Our content statuses has color, icon, name and description.
2. Our statuses support pages and blogs, too.
3. Our statuses can be automatically maintained in the background to reflect the most current status. (In fact, a job silently refreshes them multiple times a day.) For example, you can set the "To review" status to a page if it has not been viewed for N days, not updated for M days and not labelled with "evergreen".
4. Our statuses are grouped to status schemes which can be applied to any space. Managing consistent statuses is very easy even in large Confluence instances.
5. We offer dashboards and reports on statuses (see the shot above).
6. We offer automation based on the status.
7. We offer custom notification based on the status.
8. ...and so much more!

(Discl. it is a paid and supported app developed by our team. Free for 10 users!)

[Balázs Szakál _META-INF_]

Hi @Elisabeth Haeck ,

Custom statuses can not be deleted, since they are pinned to the user, and no other users can "reuse" them. So basically they are colorful labels only, while space-level statuses are managed by the space administrator. It is something like a company managed/team managed project in Jira, you have the flexibility to set anything in status.

If you are looking for a lightweight solution to manage page statuses (custom and suggested), take a look at our app, Advanced Content Navigator.

You can insert multiple macros and manage page statutes, unread pages, and much more!

Good luck, 

Balazs, PO for ACNC