Please tell us how you use Confluence space settings

[Shaziya Tambawala]

👋 Hi there, a few of us at Atlassian would love to learn about how you use "space settings" functionality in Confluence. A facelift to the space settings is long overdue and we want to start with improving the navigation.

To start simply, which are the top tasks you perform in space settings?

Do you go to space settings to perform one particular task or do you find yourself navigating between different tabs to perform multiple actions? Do you have an opinion on how the space settings are grouped?

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Your responses are helping us build a better product for you, your team, and the future of work. Thank you 🙂

[Mirek]

Hi @Shaziya Tambawala , 

Good Idea to improve the navigation. I can give you feedback on new layout if you ever create one :) 

Top 3 task that I perform there? 

• Definitively I go to Permissions (both Permissions and Restrictions)
• Reorder pages
• Export

Very often I check also who is the admin of the space (sadly this is not somewhere easily available for users so that they can contact them) 

[Shaziya Tambawala]

Hi @Mirek - Appreciate the prompt response :)

Thank you for sharing your top tasks - this is very helpful! We're actually thinking of re-grouping the "Export space" action into the Overview (General) section - do you have any thoughts on how the space settings are grouped?

Also, want to make sure you're aware of the list of admins that show up in Overview > Space Details. You're right, this information is not easily available and intuitive - will keep in mind when redesigning the layout.

[Mirek]

Well.. not sure if Overview is the best place for different things than information that are included in Space Details page (just redesigned/refreshed a little bit).. However I think you should group all 'action' things like Export / Archive / Delete (a Space) into separate menu called maybe Actions (outside Overview) or something like that.. 

Do you only focus on moving the content of tabs from one to another or can change whole view including how things look like inside the tabs? 

Just to give an example what I wish to see that is changed.. I really do not like the Anonymous Access section in te Permissions.. That should be not visible at all (or replaced by some nice graphics and a button "Turn on Anonymous Access" .. if we do not allow it.  

[James Dellow]

It would be good to have a guided setup, because there are some things you might only do once or infrequently - like the name, logo, categories, etc. But permissions and content management are more frequent tasks.

Some of the groupings or labels don't make immediate sense, but it's not too bad. For example:

• I'm never quite sure what is included under content tools.
• Sidebar Configuration could be part of the look and feel.

However, I suppose, some of the controls, like the Sidebar Configuration, might be better off being embedded in context. The problem is when configuration options are found in different places.

[Shaziya Tambawala]

Hi @James Dellow - Thank you for the feedback! Guided setup is a good callout - we'll be sure to include changeboarding for space settings.

Could you share more about "problem is when configuration options are found in different places."?

[Michelle Rau HP]

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but it would be nice if system admins had the option to make the space "description" and "categories" fields required for every wiki space. In an instance with hundreds of spaces, this could help people quickly identify and understand what's in the spaces they're looking for.

I use the space details page a lot to find out who the space admins are.

I use the space description and categories info with Reporting, to generate a list of spaces related to a certain topic/category. I'm not the admin for all of these wikis, so I rely on wiki admins to populate those fields and very often it doesn't occur to people to do that.

[Glen Byrne]

We removed permission for users to create their own spaces. That works for us since we don't have that many users who request spaces, so the admin is light, and it means we can curate the spaces as they are created so people don't duplicate spaces, create unnecessary ones, we can apply simple naming conventions so discovering information is easy etc. Might not work for large numbers of users, particularly if they are used to spinning up spaces ad hoc though.

[Michelle Rau HP]

Luckily for me this is true at our company too! Users wanting a new wiki space have to enter space purpose, etc. on the request form, but it doesn't make it through to the new space when it's set up. I will be working with our system admins to coach people to take the next steps to set up their new space, but it is an "after the fact" thing.

[Capi [resolution]]

Quick feedback about the interface without entering into any new settings options:

I think it would be a much faster and less fractured experience to remove the second tab hierarchy in each of the settings sections and place all those options within the same page.

The tabs could easily placed in a side panel or as a table of content format to help navigate, but always within the same page.

[Glen Byrne]

Main things I use Space Settings For (in order of decreasing frequency):

1. Manage and edit templates for the site for meetings etc as we improve the templates.

2. Manage permissions (although not as often I used to, now that it's mainly for leavers/joiners).

3. Occasionally to edit space details like image icons, descriptions etc.

Regarding Space settings in general - I always find it a little odd (just me) that you can archive and delete the space, from within the space itself. 

If there's another location where all the spaces can be viewed and managed ("Manage Spaces") and you can archive/delete/undo from there, that makes sense, but I don't see the need to those in the Space settings under the space itself.

Apart from that, the rest of the content makes sense to me, although the interface is a tad clunky, but (just me) I kind of prefer that in admin type consoles.

[Arthur Mack]

Permissions, Templates and addons

[Ivo Smet]

I go there to manage the templates, permissions , to manage the set-up for several add-on's (comala workflows, easy-dropdown,...) and to correct things for others. (restore pages, hidden pages,...)

Trash needs to be improved IMO. 

• All pages are dropped in a long list (not easy to find the one to restore if there are a few 100)
• there is no indication on how long that page is in trash
• there is no function for the space manager to set 'delete'-times (for instance, the page will stay in trash for 30 days, after this it is permanently removed 
  (we had a script do delete trash but if we run this will remove all, also the page that was removed 5 min ago by accident)
• restoring the pages to the previous hierarchy
• a way to search in trash (this also to manage hidden pages)

an easy one i think: on permissions-page

• give a save-button next to the spot where u add groups/users. Now u have to scroll down each time u want to save

[Erika Solovjova]

Absolutely agree about the trash management, It's really due for an upgrade.

[Purujeet Parida]

Content Tools - A simplified way to add/edit templates would be much appreciated.

Look and Feel - Ability to add images and text with variables (page no. published date version etc.) to title page, header and footer on space export

[f.barot]

Yes and if we have the possibility to easiliy transfer a teamplate from global to a specific space should be really useful !

[Vickey Palzor Lepcha]

Most of the time , I am checking permissions - removing and adding access at group and user level.

I also use export options to move SPACES out of one environment and move to new environments.

With new and enhanced options , I also amend retention rules for some customized setups.