Confluence collaborators👨‍👧‍👦 Introduce yourself

[Medhat Ahmed]

Great to see this group happen, and happy to be a part of it.

[Andy Gladstone]

Hi Everyone! I am not new to Confluence, been around now for about a decade, but I joined in case any of my experience can benefit group members! 

1. One highlight you experienced in this 2 years (are you a victim or Hero)?
   • A new appreciation for time with family. Working remotely while my children were on 'Zoom school' and having lunches and dinners together each day for 3+ months was an awakening about spending more quality time together. 
2. What is that "aha moment" you cherish for life?
   • When I finally appreciated all of the effort my parents put into raising my brothers and me. 
3. What's your primary use of Confluence and who do you think should use the tool?
   • KB. All of our tribal knowledge in one location. Everyone.
4. How do you explain "about Atlassian Confluence in a simple line"?
   • It's an internal KB that cuts out over 80% of the guesswork, provides a centralized repository for knowledge, is searchable, manageable and digestible.
5. What's your 1 favorite confluence word?
   • Collaboration!

[G subramanyam]

Hi @Andy Gladstone the best thing that ever happened to all professional employees- is "their family time".

The family gets a real chance to see and understand the work pressure, activities we do as an employee, number of calls etc. In short, a replica of office work doing from the home.

May I know if you have published a public KB or blog using the Confluence, if yes, please do post the link.

[Andy Gladstone]

@G subramanyam we had a public facing Confluence space for some time, but the Marketing team recently closed it down as they are mirroring the documentation that was in that space to our website using a different software. Sorry, no live examples to share right now!

[Alexander Pappert]

I am JIRA Server Admin for >4 years and now also Confluence User.

There are a lot of new things to explore when merging documents to confluence.

Also I miss not being an admin there, ...

[G subramanyam]

Thank you @Alexander Pappert for joining this group.

What are the 2 tricks to use or identify when working on the merging documents?

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

Hmm, let's see.

1. One highlight you experienced in these 2 years (are you a victim or Hero)?
   After more than five years, I've finally managed to convince my team to use Confluence, and I left the company :D I have no clue how to categorize that experience; it may be a massive joke of faith.
   
   
2. What is that "aha moment" you cherish for life?
   The moment I start keeping all my Atlassian Articles in my personal Confluence Cloud space.
   
   
3. What's your primary use of Confluence and who do you think should use the tool?
   I have no secondary use of this tool. To me, Confluence is the one-size-fits-all approach to most of the companies' activities and processes. Everyone should use it, no doubt about that!
   
   
4. How do you explain "about Atlassian Confluence in a simple line"?
   The best knowledge hub you can make.
   
   
5. What's your 1 favorite confluence word?
   Space. :)

[G subramanyam]

Thank you @Teodora V _Fun Inc_ for sharing your Confluence experiences.

Regarding your point# 1, my intuition says, you have set your legacy and prints on Confluence usage and now your teams are continuing in your foot steps. They obviously should feel blessed to have a wonderful and all-in-one tool being introduced.

It's all so much light weight having a dedicated personal space. Being digital, you an access all your articles, comments, replies, collaboration and entire notes from a simple mobile app.

[Teodora V _Fun Inc_]

I think you are right @G subramanyam :)

[M Amine]

Hello everyone,

Hope you are doing great. 

I'm a Confluence user for some years now. Enjoying its features and hoping to see more and more features.

I'm here to help and learn

[Darryl Lee]

Welcome @M Amine 

[M Amine]

Hi everyone,

I have been using Confluence for some years now and I'll be happy to help. 

I know Atlassian products for a long time now. 

I use confluence on a daily basis, for documentation, collaboration, brainstorming ...

I'm here to learn and help

[G subramanyam]

Welcome @M Amine to this group.

Glad to know about your vast experience with Atlassian products and Confluence collaboration tool.

[Ignacio Pulgar]

My answers:

1. One highlight you experienced in this 2 years (are you a victim or Hero)?
   This is not especially linked to the pandemic, but I worked in a Confluence page with more than 100 links to Jira dashboards.
   
   
2. What is that "aha moment" you cherish for life?
   The time I discovered I could focus my career on especialising in Atlassian products.
   I got a life purpose from the professional point of view!
   
   
3. What's your primary use of Confluence and who do you think should use the tool?
   I mainly use Confluence for documenting Jira configurations and to store how-to articles.
   Anyone with knowledge worth to be shared that could be collaboratively improved should be using Confluence.
   
   
4. How do you explain "about Atlassian Confluence in a simple line"?
   Write one page, see it evolve.
   
   
5. What's your 1 favorite confluence word?
   Confluencer (Confluence influencer) hahaha, not really.
   Macro.

[Hakeem Olasupo]

That's super cool 😎

[G subramanyam]

Thank you @Ignacio Pulgar 

When you mention "Write one page and see it evolve", is one of the goals of Atlassian and you are inline with the organization vision. Kudos to you :)

I'm liking that you worked with 100 links to Jira dashboards. That's pretty interesting as well quite hectic at times.

Wishing you a happy holidays and Christmas season 🍻

[Nikki Zavadska _Appfire_]

1. One highlight you experienced in these 2 years (are you a victim or Hero)? I Completely misunderstood how Confluence permission works and locking out our team from editing certain confluence pages on our wiki 😬 - not sure this is victim but definitely not a hero 😅
2. What is that "aha moment" you cherish for life? The templates in Confluence! I started creating different templates for product related topics and it's time-saving ✨
3. What's your primary use of Confluence and who do you think should use the tool? We use it to store key knowledge of our team and apps documentation
4. How do you explain "about Atlassian Confluence in a simple line"? It's a wiki for teams
5. What's your 1 favorite confluence word? Spaces 🚀

[G subramanyam]

Hello @Nikki Zavadska _Appfire_ 

Glad to see you on this introductions post. Templates is one of my favorites too- given they are pre-built and ready to consume per need of the hour. 

Happy holidays.

[Gaurav]

Hello @G subramanyam 

With my limited experience with Confluence, I will try to provide confluence centric response with the hope to learn something :)

• One highlight you experienced in this 2 years (are you a victim or Hero)? I won't say Hero or Victim, but due to the work I was able to learn a lot about Jira, JSM to be specific and Confluence by extension.
• What is that "aha moment" you cherish for life? I was recently interviewed by @Sharon Tan for JSM. That was awesome....
• What's your primary use of Confluence and who do you think should use the tool? I primarily use it as Knowledge Base with JSM and believe it has usage for everyone!!
• How do you explain "about Atlassian Confluence in a simple line"? A single place to store, organize and easily retrieve knowledge articles
• What's your 1 favorite confluence word? Collaborate

[Sharon Tan]

☺️☺️☺️

[G subramanyam]

Hi @Gaurav 

One word that does the magic is "collaborate" and we must admit the Confluence tool has blurred the importance of too many meetings. Instead it gave a way to collaborate on real time basis, sharing and discussing on the key points, secure approvals or locking the requirements to proceed with Sprints plan etc. etc.

[Pramodh M]

Hi Everyone,

I have been Atlassian DevOps Engineer for about 2 1/2 years now, and a Community Leader.

From what I have seen Confluence over years, it has really improved in Cloud Version from the past 2 years with all the new Premium features.

We manage Confluence instance for many requirements for tracking the tasks of Pre-sales team follow-ups, TAMs Check-ins on Accounts they are managing, and activities they have been carrying out, tracking meeting notes to name a few.

Insights has been a good feature and I am eagerly waiting for Automation to roll out soon!!

Thanks,
Pramodh

[G subramanyam]

Hi @Pramodh M 

Being a seasoned Confluencer, I see, you are aptly utilizing the tool to the best. I'm pretty much sure, you have lots of suggestions and ideas you can share for all members of this group.

[Gonchik Tsymzhitov]

Hi @G subramanyam  and all, 

Happy new year and happy holidays!

My name is Gonchik Tsymzhitov. 

I am working with Confluence as part of Atlassian ecosystem for the customers installations. 

1. Made centralized distribution of online documentation to customers from central via posting pages in internal Confluence.
2. What is that "aha moment" you cherish for life? Blueprints are awesome solution and helps quite often.
3. What's your primary use of Confluence and who do you think should use the tool? FAQ, meetings notes, technical documentation :) 
4. How do you explain "about Atlassian Confluence in a simple line"? Just collaborate together
5. What's your 1 favorite confluence word? Macros

Thank you! :)

Cheers,

Gonchik

[Andy Gladstone]

Thanks for sharing @Gonchik Tsymzhitov 

[G subramanyam]

Hi @Gonchik Tsymzhitov thank you for dropping in and posting.

While all the points are true to Confluence, it's the meeting notes with an inline comment that's making all the difference these days. The customers and stakeholder's are realizing the power of less meetings and more collaboration through that feature.

Bingo!

Happy New year 2022. I wish you stay safe and stay healthy.

[Josh Costella]

• One highlight you experienced in this 2 years (are you a victim or Hero)?
  • Obtained my Atlassian Certified Expert level in August 2021. My Confluence cert was actually my most difficult to pass!
• What is that "aha moment" you cherish for life?
  • When I first fell in love with Jira and the Atlassian stack and realized I didn't want to do anything else but work in them and hopefully for Atlassian one day.
• What's your primary use of Confluence and who do you think should use the tool?
  • We use it as a company-wide wiki and project/process management tool. Anyone who needs to have a centralized location to collaborate and document can benefit from Confluence.
• How do you explain "about Atlassian Confluence in a simple line"?
  • Jira is the car, Confluence is the owner's manual.
• What's your 1 favorite confluence word?
  • "Space." It is perfectly named, generic but specific, and easy to understand. If only there was a different name for a Jira "project." ;-) 

[G subramanyam]

Hi @Josh Costella 

Hearty congratulations for achieving your "Atlassian Certified Expert" certification. I'm very much aligned to your "aha moment". I have observed their is some magic with Atlassian suite of products and any one who starts their journey will stick to it's usage.

For that one simple line, "Jira is the car, Confluence is the owner's manual" 🙏👏

[Josh Costella]

Thanks! I'm glad we have that shared experience!

[elizabeth_jones]

1. One highlight you experienced in this 2 years (are you a victim or Hero)?
   1. Working with my technical writing team to create templates and best practices for using Confluence
2. What is that "aha moment" you cherish for life?
   1. realizing that having a directory page in confluence could help folks navigate more easily
3. What's your primary use of Confluence and who do you think should use the tool?
   1. single source of truth for development teams. everyone responsible for managing knowledge. 
4. How do you explain "about Atlassian Confluence in a simple line"?
   1. single source of truth
5. What's your 1 favorite confluence word?
   1. labels

[G subramanyam]

Hi @elizabeth_jones thank you for stopping by and sharing your collaboration journey with us.

I'm curious and excited to know about the templates as well the best practices your team have worked on. Their are many new comer's in this group trying to explore and your expertise will be a bonus.

[Svenja Lorenzen]

So many Confluence Newbies & Experts - I love it!

I haven't found this thread in the first place so I introduced myself here: New to Confluence articles | Introduction- Hello Confluence Enthusiasts 

Here are the answers to the questions (btw: I love the questions @G subramanyam).

One highlight you experienced in this 2 years (are you a victim or Hero)?
The sentence "I didn't know this was possible." I hear that one quite often. 😉😂

What is that "aha moment" you cherish for life?
Personal labels! I didn't know this was possible for a looong time. 🤯

What's your primary use of Confluence and who do you think should use the tool?
My primary use: documentation, collaboration, writing/consuming news, sharing information.
Who should use it? E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E!

How do you explain "about Atlassian Confluence in a simple line"?
"Life changing collaboration tools."

What's your 1 favorite confluence word?
Page Properties

[G subramanyam]

Hi @Svenja Lorenzen if people ask me, name top 10 Atlassian community contributors, your name will come up involuntarily.

Firstly, thank you for joining our collaborators and sharing your Confluence thoughts. How about this idea resonates you regarding personal labels- "i'm like svenja"

[Utkarsh Agarwal]

Hi,

1. One highlight you experienced in this 2 years (are you a victim or Hero)?

   Well I kind of was a victim of being forced to create KB's & troubleshooting articles and ultimately became a hero as I progressed through.

2. What is that "aha moment" you cherish for life?

   An aha moment for me was to add Script runner to confluence and do away with most of the admin tasks.

3. What's your primary use of Confluence and who do you think should use the tool?

   Well it does a lot of things! But i think features like blogs & questions tops the chart as it can be utilized by majority.

4. How do you explain "about Atlassian Confluence in a simple line"?

   "Use it when you want it but you can never stay away from it." Does that rhyme? No i don't thinks so.

5. What's your 1 favorite confluence word?

   "wiki"

Kind Regards
Utkarsh

[G subramanyam]

Hi @Utkarsh Agarwal I see your confluence journey from a novice to an expert, kudos to that.

"Use it when you want it but you can never stay away from it." Does that rhyme? >> Yes :)

[Jack Brickey]

Really enjoyed reading the different answers and intros here.

1. One highlight you experienced in this 2 years (are you a victim or Hero)?

getting the various teams to adopt Confluence == Hero

       2. What is that "aha moment" you cherish for life?

The ability to collaborate in real time with multiple editors.

       3. What's your primary use of Confluence and who do you think should use the tool?

Insurance - if something happens to me others will not be lost by things I have implemented.

      4. How do you explain "about Atlassian Confluence in a simple line"?

Never use Word again!!

     5. What's your 1 favorite confluence word?

Macros

[Dana M_ Jansen]

I've been working with Confluence since 2006 (golly, I feel OLD).  I've worn ALL the hats -  user (abuser), Confluence Admin, Creating modular/object oriented content, SysAdmin

1. One highlight you experienced in this 2 years (are you a victim or Hero)?
   1. Hero - creating a way to get all the users and group associated with page restrictions for a page within a space without going through the paginated pages in the Space Admin Tools
2. What is that "aha moment" you cherish for life?: I have 2 of them:
   1. As a Confluence sysadmin when I found out I could prevent the upgrade process from creating the table backup, thus cutting my upgrade time in half. (and before everyone goes crazy about recovery - I backup my DB before I upgrade, so I don't NEED the table backups)
   2. Realizing I actually know and understood more about how Confluence indexing works than most of the Atlassian Premier Support team members.
3. What's your primary use of Confluence and who do you think should use the tool?
   1. EVERYTHING
4. How do you explain "about Atlassian Confluence in a simple line"?
   1. Confluence is a powerful Content Management application - not JUST a wiki.....
5. What's your 1 favorite confluence word?
   1. Share

[Darryl Lee]

Hey everyone, this is Darryl. I am new here.

I am experienced with Atlassian product stacks and looking forward to contributing to this group!

For the questions:

1. One highlight you experienced in this 2 years (are you a victim or Hero)? I finally exercised Confluence into my family life routines!
2. What is that "aha moment" you cherish for life? Confluence can integrate with loads of different things!
3. What's your primary use of Confluence and who do you think should use the tool? Planning, meeting notes mostly.
4. How do you explain "about Atlassian Confluence in a simple line"? A single place to keep you aligned.
5. What's your 1 favorite confluence word? Macro

[Jennelle Stearns]

Always learning cool and new things you can do with Confluence.  Can't wait to meet and learn from all of you!

[Sam Tsubota]

Hi everyone! I am excited to join the group. Here are answers to the questions: 

1. One highlight you experienced in this 2 years (are you a victim or Hero)? Couldn't figure how to add users to have permissions to a site and they were waiting for me to add them. Definitely a victim.
2. What is that "aha moment" you cherish for life? Learning that Confluence has retrospective templates
3. What's your primary use of Confluence and who do you think should use the tool? Sharing content and information with customers and everyone should use the tool!
4. How do you explain "about Atlassian Confluence in a simple line"? Collaboration and sharing done easy
5. What's your 1 favorite confluence word? Comments

[Jason Dai]

Hello everyone, I am new to Confluence group and I have started using Confluence from 2012. More recently I started writing blog on Confluence for the first time, and the experience has been great so far.

[Srinatha T]

Hello Everyone,

This is Srinath and I am part of Confluence support team at Atlassian. I joined this great organisation on  Dec-2021. 

I love contributing to community and so i am here. This way I can keep myself involved in the product and get to know the issue's real world is facing and help them with my knowledge. I am super exited to meet you all. 

Cheers.!

[Karthick S]

Hello everyone,

I am Karthick and I am part Atlassian Bitbucket Cloud support team. I joined Atlassian in August 2021. I have started using Confluence last year and it was good to see how things became easier with Confluence! I would love to learn more and am excited to be here!

Thank you

[Lars Maehlmann]

Hi @G subramanyam 

Glad to be part of this group. I've been following for a while and finally have some time to answer your questions! 😊

Here are my responses:

1. The flexibility of Confluence allows you to have the freedom to do things your way and be creative.

2. My 'aha moment' came a few years ago when I discovered the page properties report and realized all the different ways it could be used. It completely changed my perspective on Confluence. Another 'aha moment' was the key shortcut g r, which significantly speeds up my navigation through Confluence pages.

3. I don't have a specific primary use for Confluence; I use it for practically everything that comes up. I also believe it's something that everyone can benefit from, given its wide range of possibilities.

4. Just give it a try! 😄

5. It's like my spell book or magic wand! 😉