Setting Up Confluence

Getting started with Confluence is easy. But things can get derailed very quickly.

The amount and variety of information we collect on Confluence will increase daily, so keeping it organized is essential. To set up a system that people will enjoy using, it is necessary to sit down and plan. While making this plan, it is helpful to benefit from a well-known concept: information architecture.

In this chapter, you will first learn fundamental concepts such as information architecture to help you set up the Confluence environment from scratch. The main goal of this chapter is to make an excellent start to your Confluence journey.

In this chapter, we’ll cover the following topics:

• Introducing information architecture
• Planning your Confluence site
• Installing and configuring Confluence
• Managing users
• Setting up spaces – team, project, company, and personal

Technical requirements

You will need to have the following software requirements to complete this chapter:

• An up-to-date web browser
• An active subscription to Confluence Cloud Premium

Introducing information architecture

Information architecture is a highly complex concept, and it could easily fill up an entire book on its own. Our aim in this section is to raise awareness about the information architecture concept and to make you think about some basic questions on this subject. If we achieve this goal, we can proceed much more consciously in the following chapters of the book.

Defining the requirements of your knowledge management system

To predetermine the system’s features, we want to install and return to them frequently, as this will help us a lot in keeping our focus. The most important requirements are as follows:

• We should be able to record and view information easily
• We should be able to find the information we are looking for easily
• We should be able to quickly reach other concepts related to an idea
• We should be able to view the outline of the information architecture easily
• The system should be easy to use for people...

Planning your Confluence site

Setting up Confluence is a straightforward task. However, if you do this within a company, you need careful planning. This way, you can foresee your needs, what you can do with this product, the essential decisions, and the risks.

An environment that hosts the knowledge that a large team develops daily can quickly get out of control if not meticulously designed. Content may become inaccurate or outdated, difficult to find and understand, and even cause information security, compliance, and other legal issues. With good planning, you can avoid most of these risks. If you want to gain resistance against all these risks, we recommend you consider the planning process. This way, you can make the right decisions and establish and maintain a collaborative working platform that your teams will enjoy using, while avoiding confusion and lack of motivation among teammates.

Introduction to iterative planning

We live in a time where everything changes rapidly...

Installing and configuring Confluence

Our goal here is to create an Atlassian Cloud site, install Confluence on it, and configure Confluence to meet our needs.

Mastering the terminology – sites and products

Before installing Confluence, we present you with two fundamental concepts:

• Product
• Atlassian Cloud site

First, Confluence is an Atlassian product like others such as Jira, Trello, Bitbucket, and so on.

On the other hand, Atlassian Cloud products reside within an Atlassian Cloud site. Your Confluence product must therefore be installed on an Atlassian Cloud site. An Atlassian Cloud site generally hosts multiple products such as Confluence, Jira Software, Jira Service Management, et cetera.

If you already have an Atlassian Cloud product such as Jira, you can easily add Confluence alongside this product in the same Atlassian Cloud site. If you don’t have an Atlassian Cloud site, you should create one. Every Atlassian Cloud site has a URL...

Managing users

In this section, we will share the main principles of user management; then, we will immediately move on to practical applications.

Users will be among the most dynamic components of this system. The reasons for this are as follows:

• New users arrive
• Users leave
• Some users’ teams and roles change
• User needs change
• Company rules change

The system we will establish must be capable of responding to all this dynamism. In addition to this feature, the system we will install should allow the following:

• We should be able to easily make and maintain authorization according to teams, groups, and individuals. We should be able to ensure data security and privacy easily.
• When designing user management, it is always necessary to foresee. Of course, the current structure of the team is fundamental. However, when anticipating the changes the team may undergo and expectations from Confluence, we must design a sustainable user management...

Setting up spaces – team, project, company, and personal

In this section, we will increase our knowledge about Confluence spaces. Then, without going into too much detail, we will learn how to create four different kinds of spaces with specific purposes. The following sections will cover the details of configuring settings and creating content.

What spaces should you create?

Any content you create or bring together on Confluence must be in a space. You will have many spaces that serve different purposes according to your company’s needs.

As a result of your studies in information architecture, you can have a prominent list of spaces. In some cases (especially if yours is a small company), there may not be enough content to accommodate domains early in the process; however, it is helpful to foresee and open these spaces at the beginning of the process.

What is the life cycle of a domain?

During the work of information architecture, it becomes clear in which...

Summary

We recommend careful planning to establish a robust, secure, and flexible Confluence environment. This chapter presents the information architecture concept, providing transparent processes, checklists, and tips to assist you in your planning journey. You can now iteratively plan and build a Confluence environment from the ground up and set up the fundamental spaces for letting your teams collaborate remotely on Confluence.

In the next chapter, we will cover the core features of Confluence that will help you easily navigate within your collaboration environment. We will also discuss how to create and maintain dynamic content.

Questions

1. What is information architecture, and why does it matter?
2. What is a Confluence space, and how can it be used?
3. Explain the different types of administrators in Confluence.
4. Explain the technical contact role and the billing contact role.
5. What are the purposes of user management groups?

Answers

1. It’s the discipline that focuses on the organization of information. You can build a better knowledge management system on Confluence with the help of information architecture.
2. Spaces are used to store and organize content within Confluence.
3. Space administrator, Confluence administrator, site administrator, and organization administrator.
4. Technical contacts are the people who will seek support directly from Atlassian. The primary technical contact’s address information (including VAT) will appear on your invoices. Billing contacts are the people who will have access to billing-related sections. Here, you can add people who can see the invoice history.
5. It’s easier to configure permissions with the use of user management groups.

Further reading

• https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/what-are-confluence-cloud-permissions-and-restrictions/
• https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/what-are-space-permissions/
• https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/assign-space-permissions/
• https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/manage-global-permissions/.
• https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/what-is-a-confluence-group/
• https://support.atlassian.com/user-management/docs/create-and-update-groups/
• https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/guides/get-started/set-up#step-5
• https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/choose-a-space-key/