I am brand new to Confluence and recently started a new position managing the Documentation Department. Currently, we have no formal Library or documentation processes. My goal is to establish the following:
1.) A Documentation Library that houses all current documentation by type of document (Marketing, Technical, Proposal), then have sub-folders in each for specific projects.
2.) Within this library, I want to setup a Documentation Request function. Meaning, a user other than me, can go into the appropriate folder and submit a request for a document (e.g., User Guide) and enter in a description, delivery parameters, a due date, etc. I then want a notification to go to a mailbox indicating that there is a new Documentation Project to work on.
2a.) It'd be great if those requests could then be distributed/assigned to a specific person.
3.) Once the document request has been received, the document would be created. When the document is near completion, I want to establish a formal peer review process. Ideally, I would like there to be some notification system or Peer Review Workflow that could be setup.
This is just a brief overview of my goals with the hope that someone has done this previously, or has a suggestion for a solution. Does anyone know if this can be accomplished using Confluence? My experience is with SharePoint and I have never used this tool. If anyone has suggestions or tips, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thank You!
Anthony
Thank you, Meg, for your thoughtful response! I really appreciate the feedback and your time in writing it! All very helpful :-)
-Anthony
Anthony,
I was a SharePoint admin now living in a lovely Confluence world. I am a very document centric person so I tried to bring those values into Confluence. As you learn, you will run into things you like and dislike because... well... the products are different with different goals.
Tip:
Idea 1: Utilize articles instead of files
On your documentation space, your parent level pages can be your categories Marketing, Technical, Proposal if you are having a centralized "knowledge base". You can also break these out in different spaces depending on your permission requirements.
These top level pages can then have a 'Create from template' button which points to a template which you will create on the space level. The "marketing" template would have marketing as the tag (for tag reporting purposes).
Your page naming convention can be your "workflow". Everything can start out with Draft - and then @mention the user who needs to approve the article. This will ping their notification box and email.
Example: Each item below has a template which generates an article instead of a file.
Idea 2: Utilize file lists and develop the "folder" hierarchy as noted in Meg's post.
Caution: Moving content = downloading and re-uploading into another location.
Note: I found out you can utilize WebDAV for bulk file changes and uploads.
Paid workflow? When it comes to workflows and approvals, you might want to check out Comala Workflows on the Atlassian marketplace.
Regards!
Agree 100%
Having the create template button on our 'top' page has made all the difference.
Thanks, Johnathan! I really appreciate you taking the time to write all this! Your suggestions coupled with Meg's suggestions have provided me with a solid base for achieving what I have set out to do.
Thanks again for everyone's help!