Link template

[edwin]

How do I share a template with a link?

[Shannon S · Accepted solution]

Hello Edwin,

Welcome to Atlassian Community. It's nice to meet you.

It's not possible to share a template with a link. If you need someone to edit a specific template, then you will want to tell them the name of the template and where it's located (i.e. which space, or if it's a global template.)

If you want users to create a specific template, you can use the Create from Template Macro in a page.

Let me know if you have any questions about that.

Regards,

Shannon

[Sarah]

Checking in to see if this is still the case or if there is now a way to do this?

[Jules]

Ditto

[Rory Partalis]

Agreed. Too many templates and not easy to direct people to the right template to use. Would be nice if they could be linked somehow.

[Suzanne Kafantaris]

Atlassian has filled our Confluence with third-party templates that we never use because we can't direct people to them from wiki text. I can't believe I have to write instructions into a wiki page telling people how to go find a template for their documentation instead of just linking to the danged template. I get that you want to use an instance instead of the source template (which is, pointlessly, linkable). So how about letting me create a template with a button on the page that lets the user make a quick new copy, so I can at least link to the instance? 

[Sam Lucas]

Hi @Suzanne Kafantaris ! Great feedback here! I am the new Templates lead and excited to dig into our wonderful community feedback!

• Have you explored using the Create From Template Macro? This way, you can add a button to your pages that lets a user immediately create a new page with your defined template of choice! 
• Can you help me understand what "I get that you want to use an instance instead of the source template (which is, pointlessly, linkable)" means? I am really curious here. 

Thank you so much for your time! I see that sharing templates is very important to our users. 

[Dan Crosby]

@Sam Lucas  I just created a new template and the team that I want to use this is completely non technical.   If I can't give them a link that will immediately start a new document based on that template, then I can almost guarantee that they will not use Confluence.

[Austin G]

@Sam Lucas it means that you can get a hyperlink to a specific article after you've created it, but there is no way to create that new article using a template by simply clicking a hyperlink.  

The "create from template" macro works great from within confluence... But it is limited to within confluence.  There used to be a hack way of doing this by using a url template i.e. https://[confluence]/pages/createpage-entervariables.action?templateId=123456789&spaceKey=[spaceID]&title=GPYYNNNN&newSpaceKey=[spaceKey]. 

Being able to link from outside sources (say a workflow in slack) lowers the barrier to entry for creating new content pages for the "less technical" folk as @Dan Crosby pointed out. 

[Dan Crosby]

Worse yet, because there once was a workaround for doing this as noted by @austin_gendron, Confluence admin's who desire this capability are likely to stumble across old documentation on the Internet and fruitlessly waste a couple hours experimenting with dozens of URL combinations,  and wondering what they are doing wrong, and never quite knowing if it is their failure or a true Confluence restriction. 

[Steve]

@austin_gendronand @Dan Crosby I'm actually working on a similar workflow-- are you saying that this URL hack doesn't work anymore?

[Dan Crosby]

All I can say is that I wasted a couple of hours trying to implement those suggestions that I found, and I am not aware of anyone else having success on this lately.   

[Austin G]

I had it implemented and working for awhile.  I recently found that there's an error in the redirect though... something gets tied up between the hyperlink URL and the creation of a new page using the template.  Errors out and then creates a generic page instead.

[Steve]

Ah, ok. Really appreciate the info and responses @austin_gendron  and @Dan Crosby -- you saved me lots of time.

If inspiration strikes and you figure out (another) hack-y fix to this type of workflow, it would be awesome if you could post it here. I will do the same.

Thanks again!

[Dung L]

The "Create from template" macro will do exactly what is requested here.  There's going to be a button instead of a link  When clicked will create the a new page from the specified template.  The only obstacle is having to specified the templet in the macro instead of just pasting a link.  

[Dan Crosby]

For someone reasonably technical already using Confluence I agree.   For non technical users who need extra motivation just to go looking for a button, it can be the difference in whether or not a technology actually gets utilized.