Automatic archiving and content lifecycle management for Confluence Cloud

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What do enterprises struggle with in content review workflows, notifications, and automated archiving for Confluence Cloud? The EAP of Better Content Archiving for Confluence Cloud confirmed some known problems, discovered new ones, and provided answers for small teams and enterprises.

TL;DR:

The first cloud version of the market-leading Better Content Archiving for Confluence app has launched on the Atlassian Marketplace and you can try it today. It serves Confluence content lifecycle management needs at the enterprise scale with custom Confluence page statuses, review processes, flexible notifications, and automation actions, including page archiving and deletion.

The GA (General Availability) release happened in two steps.

✔️ 1. The first step brings core features like custom page statuses, rules for automatic content classification to statuses, and Confluence email notifications.

✔️ 2. The second step brings automated archiving and quick actions.

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Confluence Cloud archiving with enterprise goals in mind

Experience tells us that only large organizations care about Confluence content lifecycle management. The mess can grow large enough for them to cause performance degradation and financial loss that can't be dismissed.

Enterprises need features that are specific to their operational or regulatory environment and team sizes. This calls for a Confluence Cloud archiving and content lifecycle management solution that keeps enterprise priorities in mind.

Native Confluence Cloud features and third-party apps exist as isolated solutions and don't create a complete, scalable, and flexible Confluence content lifecycle management solution.

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What about smaller teams?

Atlassian caters to enterprises with their content lifecycle management adjacent offerings. For example, Confluence Analytics, bulk page archiving, and automation features are part of the Premium and Enterprise editions.

This financial burden pushes smaller teams away from starting a Confluence content lifecycle management strategy. For them, it could be economical to stay on Confluence Standard and use an app for analytics, archiving, and content review workflows.

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Better Content Archiving for Confluence has been serving customers since 2008. Over these years, the Midori product team gathered significant experience and knowledge about enterprise content management best practices. We learned the typical use cases of Confluence content lifecycle management by working with enterprise customers on Data Center and Server. After being available for on-prem instances for 14 years, the app is coming to Confluence Cloud:

Following a successful Early Access Program, Better Content Archiving for Confluence Cloud is now generally available on the Atlassian Marketplace!

         Content status overview showing content in different custom statuses

Content archiving and lifecycle management for Confluence Cloud

During the Early Access Program, we invited current Better Content Archiving Server and Data Center customers as well as interested Confluence Cloud customers. Participants were typically knowledge managers, department leads, and senior managers. They shared pain points and motivations that made them interested in an enterprise-grade Confluence Cloud archiving solution.

During our conversations, we discovered their troubles with Confluence. They also phrased complaints about the archiving and content review features of Confluence Cloud.

(Names have been changed for privacy reasons.)

Confluence content management problems:

1. Confluence adoption is low due to outdated content
2. Confluence search quality is low due to irrelevant pages in the results
3. Identifying different content which need different review schedules
4. A dysfunctional Confluence makes people interrupt each other too much
5. Content ownership is hard to implement
6. Content status updates are manual and inconsistent

Confluence adoption is low due to outdated content

"We are struggling to keep information [in Confluence pages] up-to-date and relevant. We know that information quality has a direct effect on user experience." - Edith

Edith and her team needed to define workflows to automatically classify Confluence content and apply a custom status that fits their processes. In Better Content Archiving Cloud, they are able to do that and automatically send notifications to the right users.

This way Better Content Archiving will help to make sure no content falls through the cracks when the content review is due.

Confluence search quality is low due to irrelevant pages

"Our knowledge base got to the point where there is a huge volume of outdated content, polluting our search results. It is making it impossible to find information that is relevant[...]." - Coleth

Coleth is a knowledge manager at a large company with 1700 Confluence users. They use the Confluence Standard Edition and don't see the price of Premium justified. This way they don't get automation, but they would still need automated archiving for Confluence Cloud to remove irrelevant and outdated content from search results. They are looking to implement automated archiving with the Better Content Archiving app when that feature becomes available.

Different content needs different review schedules

"We know that our users could help monitor content, but we also know they do not have time to spend on this." - Robert

People don't have time to monitor content, but as it turns out, it's not always because they don't care. Teams store processes and other documents in Confluence that expire quarterly, twice a year, or annually. Many pages, all with different review schedules are impossible to track manually.

With Better Content Archiving Cloud, Robert's team will have a content review schedule with automated email reminders, also on the Confluence page level.

People are interrupting each other too much

"The more people you ask, and the more interruptions you receive, the more money you lose. With more outdated information, it's exponential."

This is another way to assess the importance of Confluence content lifecycle management. More irrelevant pages mean a longer time searching for something and less chance of finding it. It creates more unnecessary interruptions which ultimately leads to lost time and money.

One of our customers quantified this effect in $ terms for managers to successfully justify the investment in a Confluence content lifecycle management solution.

Content ownership is hard to implement

Confluence users in an enterprise environment often need to assign specific pages or a group of pages to certain team members. They are often called "content owners". We heard different definitions, but a content owner is always a dedicated user (often a member of a certain group) responsible for specific content. They need a special review workflow and notification schedule for the pages or spaces.

Better Content Archiving for Confluence Cloud recognizes this need. It makes it possible to select and keep content owners posted on their own schedules.

Get Better Content Archiving for Confluence Cloud!

Does any of the above arguments feel familiar? Start building your strategy with the most established archiving and content lifecycle management solution for Confluence Cloud! 

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