Confluence automation

Atlassian extends Confluence Cloud with the powerful automation of Jira and replaces manual, time-consuming work with modern processes and simple if-then rules.

What is Confluence automation?

Automation is an exclusive feature in Confluence Premium and Enterprise that makes managing content in your Confluence instance much easier. By setting up automation rules, Confluence Automation unobtrusively performs routine tasks that would otherwise have to be done manually. For example, such rules can:

• Generate content in the appropriate format.
• Send updates on project progress to the team.
• Remind employees of open tasks.

What can Confluence automation do?

Automation essentially does what the name suggests: it takes over routine tasks that would otherwise have to be done manually.

In Confluence, for example, such automation could control workflows as follows:

• When a new page is created in a specific area, send a notification to the associated Slack channel.
• When a member of a specific group creates a new page, automatically add a specific label.

Depending on how your team uses Confluence (for collaborative work or as a knowledge base), automating certain features may make more sense than others.

Four key areas

Here are four key areas where we expect automation to be particularly helpful:

Tool integration

• Sending automatic status updates to Slack and MS Teams
• Connecting third-party applications via webhook triggers

Content management

• Enforce publishing processes and content updates
• Improved search by automatically adding page labels

Organization of Spaces

• Consistent page tree structure when setting up new spaces
• Automatically generate team documents such as meeting notes in specified locations

Stay up to date

• Meet deadlines and team updates thanks to automatic reminders and notifications
• Keep track of work progress without manual review or requests

Rules
Rules are automated processes that work on the principle of "if this happens, then do that".

Site administrators have the ability to create and activate site-wide rules in Confluence. Space administrators can configure and activate specific rules for individual areas. If you do not see yourself as an administrator: If you have a personal space, you are automatically its administrator.

Rule components
A rule is made up of different types of components: Triggers, conditions, branches and actions. Think of these components as the building blocks of a rule or ingredients for a recipe.

Usage
If a Confluence automation rule is successfully executed, i.e. if it successfully performs at least one action, this counts as an execution. Each successful rule execution also only counts once for usage, even if the rule executes multiple actions. If a rule is triggered but fails (without executing an action), it is not counted as an execution.

Monitoring usage is important if your plan is limited to a certain number of rule executions per month.

Confluence Enterprise has an unlimited number of executions. If you keep an eye on usage, you can identify problems. For example, if a rule fails (usage decreases) or is executed more than expected (usage increases). In this case, it is not necessary to monitor the specific number of executions your team is using.

Confluence Premium is limited to 1,000 rule executions per user each month. For example, if your Confluence site has 2,000 users, you will have a total of 2 million rule executions available each month [2,000 users x 1,000 executions = 2,000,000 available rule executions per month]. When your team reaches the number of assigned executions, your rules will no longer be executed until the usage is renewed on the first of the following month. Unused executions from the previous month will not be carried over.

Would you like to automate your Confluence instance or are you interested in Confluence and Atlassian itself? Please feel free to contact me.