Tempo logotype

Top 12 tips for Confluence

From Team '23

Tempo Team

By Mehrnaz Karimi From ClearHub — Atlassian Contractor Providers

Confluence comes with a wide range of blueprints and out-of-the-box solutions to help users get started. In this post, we explore some of the features which we urge you to take advantage of now, whether you’re a new or experienced user.

The capabilities of Confluence are extensive, you’ll know this if you’re familiar with the wiki-tool that has built up a reputation for being highly flexible. Let’s explore some of these in more detail.

The good stuff

We could fill a book with all of the wonders of Confluence but we’ll leave that to Atlassian and give you what you came here for — TIPS!

1. Create collaborative product requirements

Ensuring everyone is on the same page across teams is vital, and writing requirements can help you achieve this. Atlassian recommends creating a collaborative product requirement to hash out the details of large and complex epics so that details can be kept in one place.

Having a single source of truth enables development and design teams to provide immediate feedback, accelerating iterations and allowing you to make a start on any required work immediately.

To get started, go to your product requirements blueprint and add in key details — outline your goals, business objectives and strategic fit. Then, you can drill down and create user stories, as well as drag-and-drop UX and design files.

2. Build a release planning page

Building a release planning page on Confluence will allow you to collect and organise projects and information for each release, improving communication efforts as a whole.

With a release planning page, you can direct colleagues to additional info in Jira (or other Atlassian applications) and identify business objectives, relevant stakeholders and ultimately, your roadmap.

3. Create pages for customer interviews

Document and share customer interviews, and gather feedback in a standardised and streamlined fashion. To do this, you’ll need to set up a page template which is a lot easier than having to collate customer interview data into a static document.

4. Create sprint retrospective and demo pages

Confluence comes with a retrospective blueprint for development teams. What’s more, using page templates, helps standardise demo pages for sprints.

5. Improve development decisions

Development teams have to make tough decisions every day, it’s a part of their job spec… I think? The good news is, Confluence comes with a decision blueprint to help dev teams use a repeatable process for making decisions.

In addition to this, decisions can be reviewed, helping you learn from mistakes as they are recorded.

6. Document and share release notes

Confluence streamlines the process of documenting software releases — an integral part of the dev team’s priority, which is to increase visibility and improve communication.

This process comes with a range of options including the Jira Reports blueprint, which allows you to create changelog reports and public-facing release notes in your own template.

7. Streamline processes

Confluence can be used to streamline a broad range of processes across both software teams and business departments.

8. Share progress

Keep everyone up to date by sharing your progress in Confluence via a blog post.

9. Create documentation for onboarding purposes

Onboarding new team members can be challenging for any department, particularly dev teams as their roles require them to keep up with customer demands and maintain the quality of code.

Fortunately, the onboarding process can be streamlined on Confluence as onboarding documents specific to the role can be created and uploaded, helping you save time on having to provide your new hire with resources to answer their questions.

10. Create a knowledge base

A company-wide knowledge base is what it says on the tin. It is a place to create and store technical documentation which can be referred to as and when needed. Centralising information is highly recommended and on Confluence, you can alter permissions so that only specific users can access it.

11. Confluence as an intranet

An intranet is an important asset to any organisation, allowing for an easy flow of information, but it needs to be simple enough for non-technical users.

With its out-of-the-box features, Confluence is a well sought after option, as it provides a navigational user interface to improve collaboration and information sharing across the board whilst ensuring sensitive data is kept under wraps.

12. Live project reporting

Confluence macros are one of the most common methods of sharing live information from within Jira.

For instance, the Jira Issues macro can post a subset of issues, a single issue or a total count of issues in Confluence. The Jira Chart macro can post a gadget from a Jira dashboard. These are both updated to show the latest information concerning issues.

Go get started!

Confluence is a feature-rich tool, which can be used for a vast range of use cases. For dev teams, it provides the agility needed to maintain pace and creates transparency within the team and across the wider business.

As easy as Confluence is to use (once you get the hang of it), setting it up requires the assistance of an expert. If you don’t have the time or the in-house expertise to do this, we can help.

Tips from the Atlassian Community:

Document meetings! (Provides critical traceability of *how* a project ended up where it did!)

Never upload a document without incorporating it in a viewer on a page. Imagine if the BBC News site was a file store where the stories had to be downloaded to be read!

Pay for Gliphy!! (brilliantly simple and simply brilliant).

Contact us if you have any more tips!

Mehrnaz (Naz) Karimi is a published writer, experienced in creating copy for both digital and print outlets from magazines and newspapers to blogs, technical white papers, video scripts, podcasts, and more.

Sign up for a demo

Register

Explore More Content

No more reporting limitations

Custom Charts for Confluence

Create and share all kinds of highly visual and customizable charts directly on your Confluence pages.

Learn more

Align your organization with proactive portfolio management

Portfolio Manager (LiquidPlanner)

Predictive scheduling and the ability to forecast project timelines and spot risks so you can meet deadlines with confidence.

Learn more

For planning leaders looking to add a big-picture roadmap view to their structured Jira data, this integration is essential. Improve visibility to leadership, reduce reporting admin, and keep your team aligned.

Learn more

Unified time and team management

Integration: Timesheets and Structure

Combining Tempo Timesheets and Structure PPM provides a unified view of time tracking and project progress, enabling more accurate reporting and effective portfolio management. Simplify workflows, enhance collaboration, and ensure projects stay on time and within budget.

Learn more

Strategic Portfolio Management

Strategic Portfolio Management

Modern modular PPM solutions that scale with your business. Align your teams with the integrated platform that bridges the gap between strategy and execution.

Learn more

Industry-leading project plan and roadmap visualizations with a Gantt chart extension

Gantt Charts for Structure PPM

Visualize project plans and roadmaps with a Gantt chart extension for Jira

Learn more

Get the data you need to succeed

Time Tracker

Extend your Jira with prebuilt and highly configurable reports for straightforward time tracking.

Learn more

Powered by Structure’s custom hierarchies, visualize your roadmap, project plans, timeline & dependencies within Jira Gantt charts

Go to marketplace

Monitor financial health at every level

Financial Manager for Timesheets

Monitor projects and portfolios to get simple, clear, and real-time views of your costs, budgets, and profits that can be shared throughout your entire organization.

Learn more

Custom charts and dashboards for Jira

Custom Charts for Jira

See how work is progressing and where blockers are with the most flexible reporting app in Jira.

Learn more

Jira Project Cost Tracking

Financial Manager

Project financial management for Jira & Timesheets. Monitor project costs, expenses, revenue, billing & budgets. Track Capex/Opex

Go to marketplace

Unified time and team management

Integration: Timesheets and Capacity Planner

Seamlessly manage project timelines and resources while accurately tracking time spent on tasks. This integration enhances visibility, improves planning accuracy, and supports data-driven decision-making for better overall project outcomes.

Learn more

Centralize real-time plans in one view

Integration: Structure and Gantt Charts

Gain a more complete project management solution, simplifying project reporting, improving collaboration, and ensuring projects stay on time and within budget.

Learn more

Take control of your projects

Integration: Portfolio Manager and Jira

Portfolio Manager integrates seamlessly with Jira to give you predictive scheduling, real-time scenario modeling, and advanced resource management – ensuring you stay on track, no matter what challenges arise.

Learn more

Jira Portfolio Management PPM

Structure by Tempo

Jira Project Portfolio Management (PPM): Visualize data and manage projects within spreadsheet-like tables — in less than a minute

Go to marketplace

Jira Time Tracking

Timesheets by Tempo

#1 Jira Time Tracking & AI Apps: Log Tempo Timesheets for Planning, Project Management & Billing. Plugin Office365, Google & Slack

Go to marketplace

Jira Team & Resource Management

Capacity Planner

#1 Jira Resource Management App: Optimize team allocation, skillset utilization, capacity planning & project management

Go to marketplace

Project and program management for Jira

Structure PPM

Visualize all your Jira data & manage portfolios of projects in real-time.

Learn more

Agile at Scale Software

Agile at Scale

Adapt to changing business needs, rapidly adjust plans, and reallocate investment.

Learn more

Never lose track of a brilliant idea again

Idea Manager for Strategic Roadmaps

Never lose a brilliant idea again. Idea Manager for Strategic Roadmaps has built-in best practices to help.

Learn more
Colleagues interacting around a desk

No-Code Power BI Jira Integration

Power BI Connector for Jira

Effortlessly bridge Jira with your preferred BI tool, unlocking unparalleled insights and enhancing decision-making

Learn more

Real-time collaboration and capacity planning in Jira

Capacity Planner

A powerful team resource management tool designed to optimize capacity planning and project management in Jira

Learn more

Jira ITSM Solutions with Tempo

ITSM

Build and scale a custom ITSM solution at your own pace with Tempo's modular suite of integrated tools. Enhance Jira's capabilities and take control of your entire IT portfolio.

Learn more

No-code BigQuery Jira integration

BigQuery Connector for Jira

Integrate Jira with Google BigQuery to seamlessly export and sync data for advanced analytics and customized reporting

Learn more

Roadmapping software for teams of all sizes

Strategic Roadmaps (Roadmunk)

The roadmapping tool designed for high-performing teams delivering boardroom-ready strategic roadmaps.

Learn more

Time Tracking Software for Jira

Timesheets

Tempo’s intuitive automation and Jira-native design make it the most trusted time tracking tool for enterprise organization.

Learn more

AI-enabled capacity visualization

Capacity Insights - Open Beta

Deliver visibility into how your team's time and efforts align with business objectives and project ROI - without the manual effort

Learn more

No-code Tableau Jira integration

Tableau Connector for Jira

Effortlessly bridge Jira with Tableau, unlocking unparalleled insights and enhancing decision-making

Learn more