Question 1

What is Confluence and what does it do?

Accepted Answer

Confluence is a collaborative wiki and knowledge management platform developed by Atlassian that helps teams create, organize, and share documentation. It serves as a central hub for team collaboration where users can create spaces, pages, and documents with templates and macros to streamline content creation. The platform enables teams to consolidate meetings notes, decisions, and enterprise knowledge in one accessible location, supporting both remote and in-office work environments. Confluence integrates deeply with other Atlassian products like Jira, creating a unified ecosystem for project management and knowledge sharing.

Question 2

Who founded Confluence and when?

Accepted Answer

Confluence was founded in 2004 by Atlassian, a company established by Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar in Sydney, Australia. The platform was initially created as a collaborative wiki and knowledge management solution to help teams document and share information more effectively. Over two decades, Confluence evolved from a simple wiki tool into a comprehensive enterprise knowledge management platform. Atlassian went public on NASDAQ in 2015 (ticker: TEAM), establishing itself as a leading provider of collaboration and project management software.

Question 3

What are the main versions of Confluence available?

Accepted Answer

Confluence is available in two primary deployment models: Confluence Cloud and Confluence Data Center. Confluence Cloud is the SaaS-hosted option that provides easy scaling, automatic updates, and minimal maintenance, making it ideal for growing teams and organizations. Confluence Data Center is designed for large enterprises requiring dedicated infrastructure, advanced security controls, and high availability with clustering capabilities. Both versions maintain the same core functionality of spaces, pages, templates, and macros, but differ in deployment flexibility, scalability, and administrative control. Organizations can choose the version that best fits their infrastructure, compliance, and scaling requirements.

Question 4

How does Confluence integrate with Jira?

Accepted Answer

Confluence has deep integration with Jira, Atlassian's project management platform, allowing teams to seamlessly link documentation with project work. Users can embed Jira issues, project timelines, and status updates directly within Confluence pages, creating a unified view of projects and their associated documentation. This integration enables teams to maintain living documentation that stays in sync with project progress and changes. The tight coupling between Confluence and Jira makes it ideal for organizations already using Jira for project tracking and agile methodologies.

Question 5

What are the main features of Confluence?

Accepted Answer

Confluence offers a comprehensive set of features including customizable spaces for team organization, flexible pages with WYSIWYG editing, pre-built and custom templates for consistent documentation, and powerful macros that embed dynamic content. The platform supports real-time collaboration where multiple team members can work on documents simultaneously, with version control and change tracking to maintain document history. Advanced search capabilities help teams quickly find information across all spaces and pages. Additional features include permissions management, content workflows, and integration with Atlassian ecosystem tools.

Question 6

What are the primary use cases for Confluence?

Accepted Answer

Confluence serves multiple use cases including team documentation, knowledge management, project collaboration, and meeting notes repository. It's widely used for creating product documentation, technical specifications, process guidelines, and standard operating procedures that teams need to reference regularly. Many organizations use Confluence as a decision log and meeting hub where team members can document discussions, action items, and outcomes. The platform also supports remote work by providing a centralized location for distributed teams to access company knowledge and collaborate on documentation.

Question 7

How does Confluence support remote work and distributed teams?

Accepted Answer

Confluence is built with remote collaboration at its core, providing cloud-based access from anywhere with internet connectivity, eliminating the need for physical documentation or in-person meetings for knowledge sharing. The real-time collaboration features allow distributed team members to simultaneously edit pages and contribute to documentation regardless of location or time zone. The platform's centralized repository ensures all team members have access to the same up-to-date information, reducing miscommunication and silos common in distributed environments. Version control and commenting features enable asynchronous collaboration where teams can leave feedback and iterate on documents across different shifts.

Question 8

What makes Confluence competitive in the knowledge management space?

Accepted Answer

Confluence's competitive advantage stems from its deep integration with the Atlassian ecosystem, particularly Jira, which creates a powerful unified platform for teams managing both projects and knowledge. The platform offers flexible deployment options with both Cloud and Data Center versions, allowing organizations to choose the model that best fits their infrastructure and security requirements. Its combination of powerful features (templates, macros, spaces) with ease of use makes it accessible to both technical and non-technical users. Additionally, Atlassian's enterprise reputation and NASDAQ listing provide credibility and stability that organizations require in mission-critical knowledge management systems.

Question 9

How can I get started with Confluence?

Accepted Answer

Getting started with Confluence begins with choosing between Cloud and Data Center deployments based on your organization's needs and infrastructure. For Cloud, you can sign up for a free trial or cloud instance directly through Atlassian's website, which provides immediate access without complex setup. Once in Confluence, start by creating spaces for different teams or projects, then create pages and populate them with content using templates for consistency. Confluence provides extensive documentation, templates library, and tutorials to help new users quickly become productive in organizing and sharing team knowledge.

Question 10

What are Spaces and Pages in Confluence?

Accepted Answer

Spaces are the top-level organizational units in Confluence that allow you to segregate content by team, project, or department, making it easy to manage permissions and organize related documentation. Pages are individual documents within spaces that can contain text, images, tables, embedded content, and macros to create rich documentation. You can create hierarchical page structures within a space, allowing for organized information architecture from high-level overviews down to detailed specifications. Templates can be applied to pages to maintain consistency in documentation format and structure across your Confluence instance.

Question 11

What are Confluence Macros and Templates?

Accepted Answer

Macros are powerful plugins that extend Confluence's functionality by allowing users to embed dynamic content, interactive elements, and automated features within pages without requiring coding knowledge. Confluence provides numerous pre-built macros for common use cases like embedding Jira issues, creating charts, displaying table of contents, and integrating external content. Templates are pre-designed page formats that teams can use as starting points for creating new documents with consistent structure and formatting. Both macros and templates significantly accelerate content creation and ensure documentation maintains a professional, organized appearance across the platform.

Question 12

How does Confluence ensure content security and access control?

Accepted Answer

Confluence provides granular permissions management at both space and page levels, allowing administrators to control who can view, edit, create, and delete content based on user roles and groups. The platform supports integration with enterprise authentication systems like SAML and LDAP for centralized user management and access control. Confluence Cloud and Data Center deployments offer different security features, with Data Center providing additional control over data residency and infrastructure security. Regular security audits and compliance certifications (such as SOC 2) demonstrate Confluence's commitment to protecting sensitive organizational knowledge and meeting enterprise security standards.

Question 13

Can Confluence be customized for specific organizational needs?

Accepted Answer

Confluence is highly customizable through themes, custom spaces styling, and extensions from the Atlassian Marketplace that add specialized functionality. Organizations can create custom templates tailored to their specific documentation standards and workflows, and administrators can configure space-level settings to enforce organizational policies. For advanced customization, Confluence Data Center supports custom plugins developed using the Confluence Cloud or Server API, allowing organizations to extend the platform with proprietary functionality. This flexibility makes Confluence adaptable to various industries and organizational structures, from software development teams to non-technical departments.

Question 14

What is Atlassian's commitment to enterprise customers?

Accepted Answer

As a NASDAQ-listed company since 2015, Atlassian demonstrates long-term commitment to supporting enterprise customers through continuous product development, security updates, and comprehensive support services. Atlassian provides tiered support options for Confluence customers, including priority technical support, dedicated account management for large organizations, and regular security patches. The company maintains an extensive knowledge base, documentation, and community forums where customers can find solutions and best practices. Atlassian's investment in innovation, as evidenced by the evolution of Confluence from a simple wiki to a comprehensive knowledge management platform, shows its dedication to meeting evolving customer needs.

Question 15

How does Confluence handle version control and change tracking?

Accepted Answer

Confluence maintains a complete version history for every page, allowing users to view previous versions, see who made changes and when, and easily restore earlier versions if needed. The platform tracks all modifications with granular detail, showing exactly what content was added, deleted, or modified in each version. Commenting and mention features enable team members to discuss changes and provide feedback directly on pages. These version control capabilities ensure accountability, support audit trails for compliance purposes, and enable easy collaboration on evolving documentation.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is Confluence and what does it do?

Who founded Confluence and when?

What are the main versions of Confluence available?

How does Confluence integrate with Jira?

What are the main features of Confluence?

What are the primary use cases for Confluence?

How does Confluence support remote work and distributed teams?

What makes Confluence competitive in the knowledge management space?

How can I get started with Confluence?

What are Spaces and Pages in Confluence?

What are Confluence Macros and Templates?

How does Confluence ensure content security and access control?

Can Confluence be customized for specific organizational needs?

What is Atlassian's commitment to enterprise customers?

How does Confluence handle version control and change tracking?

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