Using Confluence for agile engineering documentation

[Matt Shelton]

We have a long history of keeping design specifications as Word documents, which are currently stored as attachments in Confluence. We use Arsenale's Lockpoint plugin to lock/unlock as needed (there's a long history of SharePoint use and we have had to ensure "parity" for some key features). My team would like to natively use Confluence pages for design specifications with a custom blueprint, but we're struggling to find a workflow that gives us most of what we have now:

• Specs per version/release
• Inline comments (yay 5.7 release!)
• Commenting that is tied to a specific revision/version of the content (e.g. comments from the 2.2 release aren't still sticking around in the 2.3 version's document)
• Restricted draft visibility

I read through the Developing Technical Documentation page, and have evaluated the Scroll Versions and Comala Workflows/Publishing plugins. It seems like Scroll Versions might be sufficient given a dedicated space for the documentation, though there is hesitation to bite off the price for the size of our confluence install (2000 user enterprise, with a team of a dozen who need the functionality).

Are there other options that don't involve doing a space copy every time we cut a new branch/release? Is anyone else using Confluence natively for their engineering documentation?

[Gorka Puente _Appfire_]

Hi @Matt Shelton,

Our add-on Yoikee Creator allows you to create space templates (i.e., space blueprints) by means of mind maps. You draw the structure of your space template in a mind map, where the nodes become pages in the space. Thus, the hierarchy of nodes-sub nodes become the structure of pages-sub pages in the space.

So, you create once a mind map, and you can create as many spaces as you need with the same structure of pages (consistent spaces). Don't need doing a space copy every time!!

We are about to release the 2.0 version (this month), where you can choose page blueprints in the nodes (JIRA reports, blog post, file list, etc), mind maps can be embedded on pages (with a macro), new rendering engine, and many more new features.

Give it a try and send us feedback!

Regards,

Gorka