Version control for Confluence pages

[Paul Gordon]

With the move to the new editor and the subsequent removal of the 'Whats changed' field, how do you control your Confluence pages? We use this feature for ISO 9001:2015 and ISO/IEC 27001:2013 quality/compliance purposes to provide a summary of the changes to ensure we maintain good standards of document control. Without this Confluence is almost redundant to us and it appears it is not a feature they are willing to bring back despite a significant amount of people voicing the same/similar concerns (see CONFCLOUD-65695). 

We don't want to just upload docs/pdf to Confluence to mitigate this - we have too many pages and if that was the solution we might as well work from a shared google drive and ditch Confluence. Does anyone have any ideas on how to mitigate this loss of basic (but critical for us) functionality?

[Arthur Mack]

Hi Paul, have you thought of using INLINE Comments for each new version? Basically you would make an inline comment for each major version change you do (what did I change and why etc). Then resolve the inline comment so it is hidden. You can always go back and LOOK at resolved comments and you will have a complete history of all your version changes. They are permanent and do not go away.

This is a no cost solution.

We  use a very nice plugin for version control

and another approval app that ALLOWS all the comments you want with VERSION Notes. 

Comala Document Control

[Shannon Meehan _K15t_]

Hi @Paul Gordon , 

Have you checked out our Scroll Documents app yet? The way it works is you can define multiple Confluence pages as a single document and manage them together.

It offers a pretty powerful version control feature where you can manually save versions of your pages / multiple pages and leave a change summary for each version. We’re also currently working on a version history macro to display the document versions directly on the document.

The app also comes equipped with an activity log feature which will help you track changes made to the document – when versions were saved, who saved them, when documents were approved and by who, and even all of the individual page updates – which I think would be really valuable to your team if you need to track who does what to your documents and when. Everything in the activity log is exportable so you could share it with authorities if necessary.

If you have any questions, we'd be happy to help or show you a demo of the app. Just get in touch with us: hello@k15t.com.

Cheers, 

Shannon (K15t)

[Iz P]

I am thinking about versioning documents in Confluence. ISO requires version control. Sometimes, however, typos or other minor changes are corrected in the document which do not affect the substantive content. Confluence makes a new version of document after every little change. When changing the version, you must authorize the change and notify stakeholders. How did you handle it? 

I wonder if we should introduce manual version control (manual mark) so that I only change version when there is a significant document change. Is there any other automated way?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

It's a minor point, but ISO does not preclude you simply accepting that even minor changes are versions (in fact, in some areas, the guidelines explicitly say all change, however minor).

But the Comala and Scroll solutions mentioned before can handle this if you need it.

[Erik Boelen]

I would suggest an alternative way of working: do not Update a page for tiny changes like spelling mistakes (so no minor revisions). Instead make an inline comment to highlight the change you want to do. Next time you are doing a serious revision, also include these tiny changes.
Do this in combination with a plugin like Comala Document Management, that will initiate an approval process after every major revision.
Also restrict access to the pages to View Only, so people don't update pages, yet they can leave their improvement suggestions with Inline Comments.

[Alex Laycy]

Hi Paul,

A marketplace add-on such as this one might be a solution (at least temporarily), or labels could potentially be used though these obviously won't have the same level as context as the previous comments.

- Alex

[Paul Gordon]

Hi Alex, 

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm not sure if there is anything in the marketplace that would provide a summary of the changes made to each Confluence page version (we need to document the changes made, why, etc.). The marketplace looks good in terms of assisting with approval - If you have any experience with any of them do you know if they would help with providing a summary of every page change? 

Using labels is a good idea, but the problem with this is I think they may be removed without any lasting record of their existence (I don't use page labels often so I may be wrong) and I don't think the change in labels would be tracked in page history.

Unfortunately the removal of something that on the surface appears basic but can be critical to Confluence usage (as mentioned by other in the ticket I linked) has been overlooked for insignificant 'improvements' such as increasing the number of emojis.  

[Arthur Mack]

Paul, there is an app that can provide version notes (summary) and its Comala Document Control.

Art