First impressions of Confluence automation

Confluence automation, what is it?

It is a new feature within Confluence that can be used in the Premium and Enterprise versions of Confluence Cloud at no extra cost.

Individual modules can be assembled into rules without code according to the IFTTT principle (if this then that). The basic principle, based on certain events in Confluence, is that actions can be automatically executed. Different information can influence the sequence and result of the actions. This information can be used when defining rules in Confluence through so-called SmartValues. With their help, dynamic as well as calculated content, such as the title of the current page, the names of users, or tomorrow's date, can be used in various places in rules.

Anyone with experience using  Jira automation will be familiar with this principle. This is because Confluence automation is modeled on Jira automation in terms of function, structure, and presentation. Users of Jira automation will quickly find their way around the Confluence automation interface.

Who can use Confluence automation?

As mentioned above, Confluence automation is available for all Premium and Enterprise versions of Confluence Cloud. To use the features, you must be either an instance or a space administrator.

To create space automations, open the settings. There you will find the automation rules entry at the bottom of the list.

As an administrator, you can also navigate directly to the global automations via Confluence settings. However, the personal space is better for testing automations.

What can you do with Confluence automation?

Confluence automation can be used to implement a wide range of actions quickly and easily. I will provide short examples of four use cases that I am excited about because they improve and simplify workflows in Confluence many times over.

Content creation with Confluence automation

There are two features that I really like, and these are building page structures when creating a space and recurring page creation.

Often there is a requirement to set up project spaces according to a specific schema. From requirements management to documentation, a uniform structure helps users quickly find the information they need. Until now, this required additional apps. Now, these structures can be created natively using templates with Confluence automation.

Especially when working on a project, the documentation of meetings is necessary. However, this is often lost or not maintained in Confluence. To support users here, a page for meeting notes can be created before recurring appointments. This way, participants are informed about the creation of the page shortly before the start of a meeting and are thus encouraged to document the points discussed.

Content organization through Confluence automation

In addition to the page structure, Confluence offers another organizing principle to quickly find pages, connect them, and make them visible. We are talking about labels. Unfortunately, labels are seldom maintained because they require manual effort and uniformity within the team, e.g., assignment, spelling, inheritance rules, etc. With Confluence automation, it is now possible to minimize parts of this effort and to create uniformity.

In particular, the inheritance of labels is a requirement that could previously only be solved with apps. With Confluence automation, it is now very easy to define a list of labels that should also appear on subpages.

Theoretically, it is even possible to create dynamic labels based on the page name using SmartValues. Furthermore, a "proliferation" of labels can be prevented. Confluence automation allows you to define a set of labels that may be used. If a label is not part of this set, it is removed by the automation. Even though label management is possible in principle for more complex and, above all, scalable solutions, I recommend Magic Labels for Confluence from Polymetis Apps.

Notifying users about Confluence automation

With Confluence automation, you can send custom notifications to users. For example, if a task on a page is due soon but not yet marked as done, the assigned person can be reminded via mail, Teams, or Slack. Tasks distributed in a meeting are less likely to get lost this way.

The existing notification system of Confluence can be used by adding stakeholders to a page as watchers depending on the label, location, title, or even content of the page and informing them about changes in the future according to their preferences. In this way, the information flow of a company can be improved and controlled in a targeted manner.

Integrating other tools with Confluence automation

Last but certainly not least, the feature  can be used to build any kind of integration via webhooks, which can also replace some apps. It can not only send web requests but also receive them. This means events in other tools can potentially trigger rules in Confluence.

You can use Jira automation  to create release and meeting notes when a meeting is set up in Teams, and extend the functionality of Confluence automation using REST APIs from other tools. The use of webhooks and web requests makes it possible to run workflows and repetitive tasks in a clean, reliable, and automated way.

What can't you do with Confluence automation?

Despite all the possibilities that Confluence automation offers, there are still some impossibilities and stumbling blocks.

Content creation is still quite superficial. Although pages can be created using templates, it is not yet possible to control the content. Here, Atlassian has announced that they will make template variables usable in Confluence automation, setting up a large set of use cases implementable via SmartValues.

The conditions that can be used to change the flow of a rule are currently not as intuitive and easy to use. Technically, many applications can already be implemented today but require the use of SmartValues, which may discourage beginners. Here, a block that makes the available information and comparison options selectable via GUI would be a useful addition.

The available SmartValues do not yet provide the necessary information to summarize complex tasks into simple rules. This leads to rules being created several times in slight variations, which cannot be implemented without involving the Confluence REST API.

In addition, name conventions that exist in Jira automation SmartValues are not consistently implemented in Confluence automation, which has caused me a headache when testing.

The impact on teamwork

I have been testing Confluence automation since late April 2021 and have seen positive developments across the board. The product team at Atlassian has been able to count on feedback from the community over the past nine months, gathering information on both use cases and issues, and has acted accordingly.

Many of the applications presented in this article would have been almost inconceivable at the beginning of the testing phase, and now they can be implemented without any issues. I, for one, am excited about future developments!