Less toolbar, more action

As someone with a touch of ADD, I’m easily distracted by formatting options while editing, and most of the time I just want a larger canvas to work on. Thanks to the new distraction-free editing mode I can hide the Confluence header, page title, and editor toolbar while I work and stay focus on the content I’m creating.

Power user? Press Ctrl+Shift+F to enter distraction-free mode without touching your mouse.

With distraction-free editing you can put your headphones on, and get into the zone while working in Confluence. When you want to return the editor toolbar all you have to do is hit the ‘ESC’ key.

No toolbar? No problem.

Worried about editing without the toolbar? Fear not, you can still use all your formatting options and insert content with keyboard shortcuts. Access all your shortcuts from the ‘Help’ icon in the toolbar. Whether you’re are a power user or novice, we promise Confluence will provide you the fastest, and easiest editing experience out there.

See for yourself

Check out this video to see how you can leverage keyboard shortcuts to access all the speed and power of the Confluence editor while in distraction-free mode.

We’ll be talking about…

Confluence Blueprints: Best practices made easy

Matt Hodges and I will be on hand to show you how you can put Confluence Blueprints to work for your organization. With Blueprints, you don’t have to start from scratch every time you want to plan a meeting, share files, or create a product requirements document – the framework is already there for you:

• Meeting Notes: make meetings more productive with an agenda, attendees and action items
• Product Requirements: define and track product requirements as they evolve
• File Lists: Keep track of your important files in one spot – searchable and available for preview

If you can’t make it, watch our recent webinar on Blueprints, which includes an sneak peek at our upcoming Decisions Blueprint:

HipChat: Group chat and IM built for teams

Atlassian’s resident HipChat guru, Jeff Park, will be demoing our new native Mac client and soon to be released new iOS app. See how HipChat works seamlessly across desktop, web, and mobile to help your team stay productive no matter where they are. Curious about how HipChat works with Confluence and JIRA? We can show you that, too.

We’ll also be giving away some of the infamous HipChat t-shirts:

Matt, Jeff and I look forward to chatting with you in Boston. Come visit us at Demo Pod #7 at the E2 Conference, June 17-19.

1. Keep track of Pages with Favorites

I quickly realized that there are a few Confluence spaces and pages I visit often, like the Marketing space and my team’s page. There are other pages that I need to reference occasionally like our GoToMarket Plan, but I don’t want to have to search for them every time I need them. I added these pages to my Favorites so I can easily reference them later. To Favorite a page, click on the “Tools” button in the top right of any page and select “Favorite” from the drop down menu.

You can access your Favorites by clicking on your personal icon in the top right of your screen. Click on “Favorites” from the drop down to bring up your list of Favorite pages and spaces.

2. Use keyboard shortcuts to navigate faster

In my first few weeks with Confluence, I used Search A LOT to find the pages and spaces I needed. I love working fast, so I quickly learned I could make searching even more efficient with the keyboard shortcut “/”:

type “/” at any time to search

and start typing what you’re looking for in the search field

I also started creating a lot of content – my introductory blog post, pages for upcoming launches, etc. To save time, I started to use the keyboard shortcut for Create, “c,” to get to the create screen faster than clicking!

type “c” to open the create dialog

then select what type of Confluence Page you want to create

Want to learn more keyboard shortcuts? Find the whole list in the Help drop down, located in the global header, or check out Matt Hodges’ post, Five Keyboard Shortcuts I Can’t Live Without.

3. @mention other users to get their input

One of my first projects was planning an infographic campaign. I had to coordinate with product marketers, designers, and data scientists. I created a page with all the requirements for everyone to reference, and then “@” mentioned each person on the page so they would see it and could comment on the plan. You can “@” mention other users on pages, posts and comments – any time you want to bring someone’s attention to something.

Type “@” followed by the person’s name anywhere on Confluence to mention someone – a list of suggested users will populate as you type.

Once you publish the page or comment, the person will receive a notification in their WorkBox, directing them to the page on which they have been mentioned.

4. Reply and Like straight from WorkBox

Everyone at Atlassian writes an introductory blog post in their first week. I included a bit about the merits of different kinds of Southern barbeque here in the U.S., which led to spirited debate in the comments. Each time someone commented, Liked my post, or “@” mentioned me, I got a notification in my WorkBox. I was able to quickly reply to the confused Australians to explain what “barbeque” means in America or “Like” welcoming comments others had left, straight from the WorkBox.

Click the WorkBox icon in the upper right to see your notifications, and click on one to expand it. You can Reply or Like the comment right there, or Open it to see it on the page or post.

5. Save drafts for later

While writing my introductory blog post, I wanted to make sure it had the right combination of fascinating information and witty remarks, so I went through a few rounds of edits. Confluence automatically saves what you are working on as a draft, so I could work on it for a bit, and then close it and come back to it later.

You can see when the Draft was last saved in the bottom right, below the “Preview” and “Save” buttons.

Access your drafts by clicking on “Drafts” in the drop down below your profile icon. When you’re ready to publish your page, click “Save” in the bottom right corner.

Learning these features helped me get up to speed quickly. Any other beginner favorites I missed? Help out other new Confluence users by sharing your tips in the comments.

Want to learn even more helpful Confluence features? Sign up for the Confluence Insiders Email to find out the latest tips.

Sign up here

• Make it simple for customers to understand our product list at-a-glance.
• Make it easy for customers to distinguish stand-alone products from Atlassian add-ons.

What exactly is changing?

The following product names and logos are being updated:

The products you know and love remain the same, only the names are changing. We are standardizing how add-ons like GreenHopper and Team Calendars are branded by including the parent brand in the logo. In addition to clearly identifying add-ons, it will also be easy to tell which add-ons are made by Atlassian when customers browse the Atlassian Marketplace.

Why the changes?

Back in 2004, Atlassian had only two brands: JIRA and Confluence. For a word-of-mouth business model like ours, we wanted our products to have a strong brand identity.

Fast forward to today and there are closer to twenty: a mix of products like JIRA and Confluence and add-ons like GreenHopper, Bonfire, and Team Calendars. It’s confusing. Stand-alone product brands have the same weight as their add-ons, and some add-ons have functional names (like Team Calendars) but others don’t (like Bonfire). Between inconsistent naming, and the sheer number of brands, it was time to make some changes.

That’s why we’re launching the new names. Parent products will have unique, strong brand names. Add-ons will be named in a way that explains what they do. For example, JIRA Agile adds the Agile tab to JIRA.

Simple, right?

When is this happening?

Over the next few months, customers will start to see the new brands reflected on our website, in their products, on our blogs, in their invoices and statements, etc. We will be emailing customers who own these products and add-ons to let them know about the changes. More details coming soon.

Watch the recording, share it with your team

If you’re interested in learning how to drive a collaborative culture in your company, then this webinar key to helping you get started.

• 01:15 – Rob Koplowitz: Vice President, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research
• 20:20 – Matt Hodges: Manager, Product Marketing at Atlassian
• 32:40 – Christopher O’Donnell, Director, Product Development at Hubspot

Join an online demonstration of Confluence

Confluence, our content and team collaboration platform, is critical in building and maintaing the collaborative cultures at Atlassian and Hubspot. If you’re interested in learning more about Confluence and how it can help your team and organization work better together, join us for one of our online demonstrations.

Register Now

Ready to try?

Get up and running in a matter of minutes with a free 30-day Confluence OnDemand trial.

Watch Now

In this webinar, guest speaker Forrester Research VP and Principal Analyst Rob Koplowitz explained the meaning and business value of “social content,” which lies at the center of any collaborative culture. Atlassian’s Matt Hodges shared the importance of company values in building a collaborative culture and the tools Atlassian uses to foster their famously collaborative culture. Lastly, HubSpot’s Christopher O’Donnell shared proven best practices that helped his company keep their core values of transparency and innovation while rapidly growing from 10 employees to over 400.

In sixty short minutes we covered:

• Defining business value of social content – what is it, what’s the point?
• The tools that drive a collaborative culture at HubSpot and Atlassian
• Practical examples that you could implement in your own workplace

Guest Speakers

We have three awesome guest speakers that know a lot about building and sustraining highly productive and highly collaborative cultures.

The recording is available. Check it now.

Watch Now

• Hold effective meetings using the Meeting Notes Blueprint
• Share files and documents in one place using the File Lists Blueprint
• Define product requirements documents using the Product Requirements Blueprint
• Make and record decisions using the Decisions Blueprint (coming soon!)
• Customize Blueprints for your own business processes

Watch the recording, share it with your team

If you’re interested in Confluence, or are planning on upgrading to the latest version, this webinar is must see. Enjoy!

What are you waiting for?

The sky is the limit with Confluence Blueprints. Get started using, customizing, or building your own now.

Learn More

Free next week?

We’re hosting another webinar with special guests from Forrester Research and HubSpot. Join us to learn about the keys to driving a collaborative culture at your company.

Register Now

New to Confluence?

Get up and running in a matter of minutes with a free 30-day Confluence OnDemand trial.

Ready to upgrade?

Check out the full release notes and start seeing real results with Confluence Blueprints today. OnDemand Customers: You’ve been auto-upgraded with Confluence Blueprints!

Trigger autocomplete for links by pressing:

Then choose from a list of your recently viewed pages, or start typing to search for other content to link to:

Here are four ways you can use Autocomplete to create links in Confluence pages and blog posts:

1. Link to Confluence pages and blog posts

If you’re creating, sharing, and storing most of your team or company’s knowledge in Confluence, it’s more than likely you’re going to want to link to a relevant page or blog post at some point. It’s easy to find Confluence pages from any Space and link to them instantly.

2. Link to web content

Whether it’s a funny YouTube video or an article you read on Hacker News, there’s always interesting content around the web. With autocomplete you can quickly share this content with your colleagues.

3. Link to attachments

It’s just as easy to link to page attachments, such as Office docs or PDFs, as it is a Confluence page.  This is the perfect solution for when you just want to reference the file or document instead of embedding it in the Confluence page.

4. Link to new pages

At Atlassian, we use Confluence pages to build out project plans. Autocomplete makes it easy to create links to pages that don’t yet exist, but will eventually need to be created to support the project. For example, when planning a marketing launch we’ll create a link to a page that we’ll eventually use to draft the copy for an email announcement to our customers.

When you create a link to a page that doesn’t exist yet it will display in red. When you come back to the project plan later, just click the link, and Confluence will create that page for you with the page title pre-populated.

Try autocomplete today

Want to learn even more tips and tricks about Confluence? Sign up for the Confluence Insiders Email to stay in the loop.

 Subscribe

1. Creating content

This one’s a no-brainer. The must fundamental thing you do in Confluence is create content you need to get work done. Here’s the fastest way to create content, without touching your mouse.

Create new content by pressing:

Then select what you want to create:

If you’re anything like me sometimes you don’t want the structure of a Confluence Blueprint or page template, instead you want the freedom of a blank page. No sweat.

Create a blank page by pressing:

2. Editing content

You’re not always creating content from scratch in Confluence. More often than not, you’re updating a page you’ve already created or contributing to someone else’s work. For that, there’s one key – e.

Edit an existing page by pressing:

3. Saving content

Finished making edits? There’s still no need to touch your mouse. You’re just two keystrokes away from publishing your changes to a page or adding a comment to a page.

Save edits and post comments to pages by pressing:

Using Windows or Linux? Just sub ‘⌘’ for ‘control’

4. Sharing content

There are times you need to make sure your team sees a particular page. There’s a shortcut for that too.

 Share pages with co-workers by pressing:

Then enter the names of co-workers or any email address:

5. Finding content

This one’s my favorite. It’s quick to find content – pages, blog posts, file attachments, and people – and navigate to other Confluence spaces using Quick Navigation.

Search for content by pressing:

Start typing to find what you’re looking for:

Shortcut for more shortcuts?

You bet. These are just 5 of the many shortcuts I use in Confluence every day to help me get my work done, faster.

View a complete list of keyboard shortcuts in Confluence by pressing:

What’s your favorite keyboard shortcut?

Try Confluence for FREE

This is a guest post from K15t Software, Atlassian Experts and makers of Scroll Office, Scroll Versions, Scroll PDF Exporter, and many other Confluence add-ons.

If you manage complex content in Confluence, Scroll Versions is a must-have add-on for keeping your Confluence instance organized. With it, you can manage concurrent versions of pages or product documentation in one space, enhance content-reuse, improve SEO, and now publish to an existing Confluence space!

We’ve taken all the customer feedback we’ve received since we launched Scroll Versions last year, and today we’re proud to announce what’s new in Scroll Versions 2.0.

Page Info Panel

Scroll Versions introduced the “Page Info Panel” and in Versions 2.0, we’ve overhauled it completely. Its primary function is still to select the working version in which you are making changes, but it now also provides all the important information you need to know about the current page, including:

• A list of all page versions
• Which variants of the page are available
• Where it has been reused
• Where it has been published

But the best thing: It’s fun to work with! We’ve incorporated the Atlassian Design Guidelines to give it an awesome look and feel. (My personal favorite: you can now double-click to expand and collapse the page info panel.)

Variant Management

Variant Management is especially important when you need to document slightly different variations of the same product or service. It’s necessary to define which content is relevant, in the right context, to the right users.

So we allow you to get content attributes at the page level or within pages (using the new Conditional Content macro), and variants define which attributes are required to make the content relevant to a variant.

See the Variant Management feature in action: