Is there a way to prompt users to enter a comment when publishing or updating a Confluence page?

[Rob Horan]

The default behavior excludes the comment option, and since there is no option to add a comment after a version is published the ability to do so is lost forever (for that page version) if people forget to choose what is effectively a hidden special save option. 

[Brant Schroeder · Accepted solution]

@Rob Horan there is currently no way to do this.  There is a feature request that is pretty old that covers this https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-6373 Looks like it might not happen anytime soon, but you could vote for it in hopes it gets added one day.

[Rob Horan]

I don't want to make comments mandatory - what I'm trying to do is make the field available when publishing or updating.

[Brant Schroeder]

@Rob Horan you could add a new feature request since it is a little different but is not currently available.

[Kristian Klima]

@Rob Horan 

Typically, workflow apps have the feature to add a comment when moving a page to the next workflow stage - with or without actually editing - and you can designate which Confluence version is the 'good' one. 

What I'm saying is that the feature is far from unprecedented in the Confluence realm.

[Yulia Lenina _AppFox_]

@Rob Horan as @Kristian Klima mentioned, there is no such way of doing it in Confluence natively, but can be solved with the workflow apps. For example, with the Workflows for Confluence app you can incorporate this comment prompt into an approval process, both mandatory and not. Implementing the Workflows app will give you much more opportunities to keep your documents organised, up-to-date and compliant.