Automation basics
Understand the general concepts and best practices of automation in Atlassian cloud products.
Automation is an admin feature available in Confluence Premium and Enterprise.
Rules always end with an action component. Actions are what you want the rule to do, that is, what you want to happen if it executes successfully.
When a Confluence automation rule runs successfully, that is, it performs one or more actions as intended, it counts as an execution. Usage is important to monitor if your plan is limited to a certain number of rule executions per month.
Confluence Enterprise has an unlimited number of executions.
Confluence Premium is limited each month to a pooled sum that’s equivalent to 1,000 rule executions for every user.
Learn more by reading the Usage section of What is Confluence automation?
These actions are specific to automation for Confluence and can be used to organize and manage content in a single space (Space automation) or across multiple spaces at once (Global automation).
This action removes a standalone page from the content tree and stores it in the archive.
Exception: A space’s overview page (the page people land on when navigating to a space) is always excluded from this action since it’s the root page of the content tree.
This action transfers page ownership to the person you specify.
When this rule runs, it is transfering ownership on your behalf — as the admin who created the rule.
This action changes a page’s content status to a status you specify (for example, “ready for review”).
Content statuses are specific to each space. So, if you’re in Global Automation, the action can’t provide status selections until you set and save the rule’s Scope (in rule details) to a specific space or spaces. Once the scope is saved, both Suggested and Custom statuses will surface as options.
In order to use this action, content statuses must be enabled. Space admins can control them in Space Settings > Manage space.
This action publishes a copy of an existing page in a designated location. The rule's trigger often defines the page that gets copied. (So, for example, if the trigger is “when a page is edited”, the edited page is the page that gets copied.)
Select (or type) which space to publish the copies in and, if you’d like, a parent page for them to nest under. You also have the option to update the default page title.
When a page is copied, its labels and view/edit restrictions are copied as well, unless you uncheck the boxes. Comments (both page and inline) and attachments, however, can’t be copied.
The title of each page copy must be unique. The default adds a date variable smart value – so that the page title is always modified by the Month/Day/Year it is published.
If you remove the smart values that make the title unique, a sequential number will be added to the title each time this action publishes a copy.
This action deletes a page, sending it to the trash.
“Page” in this context is a distinct content type from “blog”.
This action moves a page, and any nested pages it may have, to another space you specify.
Select (or type) which space to move the page to. You also have the option to designate a page from the selected space as the parent of the page or nested group that is moving.
This action publishes a new page in a designated location.
Select (or type) which space to publish new pages in and a parent page for them to nest under. You have the option to update the default page title and/or add a page template. (Without a template, the published page will be a blank page with a title.)
The title of each published page must be unique. A sequential number will be added to the end of the title each time this action publishes a page.
Alternatively, you can use a smart value to make each title unique. For example, you could add a date variable so that the page title is always modified by the date and time it is published:
Meeting minutes {{now}}
This action changes a page's view and edit permissions.
Select the permission you’d like to apply from the dropdown. If applicable, you’ll be prompted to enter the names of specific people and/or groups.
This action deletes a blog post, sending it to the trash.
This action adds a page comment to the bottom of a page or blog post, as defined by the trigger.
Type your comment in the text field.
This action adds one or more labels to a page or blog post, as defined by the trigger.
Select (or type) which labels to add.
This action removes one or more labels from a page or blog post, as defined by the trigger.
Select (or type) which labels to remove.
This action adds or removes specific people or groups as watchers on a page or blog post, as defined by the trigger.
Select (or type) which watchers to add or which ones to remove.
(Global automation only)
This action gives the specific people and/or groups you specify permission to create, archive, or delete spaces, pages, certain page components, or blogs.
Select (or type) the names of people or groups the action will give permission to. This action will, by default, give them permission to add (create) pages — but you can select different options in each dropdown.
This action removes a space from the Space Directory without fully deleting it, and stores it in a list of Archived Spaces.
These actions allow you to connect Confluence automation and Jira Software, so that a rule triggered in Confluence can make something happen in Jira.
Jira actions are available in both space and global automation.
Jira actions require a connection. Connecting your automation rule to your Jira Software instance is kind of like when you give a social media app permission to access your photos.
You’ll be prompted to connect them when you select a Jira action in the rule builder.
This action creates a new issue in a Jira Software project.
For example, you could create a rule that says when a page is published in a particular Confluence space, create a task to review it in a corresponding Jira project.
In order to configure a Jira action, you have to connect your automation rule to Jira. You’ll be prompted to do this each time you select a Jira action in the rule builder.
To configure the Jira issue component:
Select the Jira project you’d like the rule to add an issue to.
Select the type of issue (epic, bug, task, etc) to create.
Type a Summary in the text field to name the issue.
(When the rules runs, a Summary ID number will automatically be added to keep the name unique.)
(Optional) Enter a default description in the text field.
(Optional) Choose other fields to set (or remove) as defaults.
Different default fields may be shown or required depending on the type of issue you select.
Not all fields are currently supported. Select More options to display additional fields for advanced field editing.
When the issue is viewed in Jira, the person who created the rule will be listed as the Reporter.
If you’ve used automation for Jira, you’ll recognize some of the same general actions. You’ll configure them in the same way, but they won’t currently function across products. This is on our roadmap.
This action sends an automated email message to designated recipients.
To configure the email component:
Enter one or more recipients in the To: field.
Select Cc or Bcc to add additional fields and recipients as needed.
Type your Subject line and message content in the text fields.
Select More options to edit sender information.
The Reply to: field is limited to one email address. If more than one address is added, replies will only be sent to the first one in the list.
There are limits around how many emails this action can send.
This action sends a Microsoft Teams message to a channel.
To configure the Microsoft Teams component:
Create an incoming webhook for Microsoft Teams
Paste the URL in the appropriate field.
Type your automated message title and content in the text fields.
(Optional) Select More options to add an image to the message.
Learn more about using automation with Microsoft Teams.
This action sends a Slack message to a channel or individual.
To configure the Slack component:
Create an incoming webhook for Slack
Paste the URL in the appropriate field.
Type your automated message in the text field.
(Optional) Uncheck Sender if you don’t want the message to come from you.
(Optional) Enter a new channel or user to override the webhook default.
Learn more about using automation with Slack.
This action sends an SMS message using the Twilio service.
This action is useful for service teams that rely on SMS for on-call scenarios.
Twilio messaging rates will apply. See Twilio’s SMS pricing page for more information.
Enter your Twilio account information in the appropriate fields, including a valid Twilio phone number. Add one or more recipients in the To: field. Type your automated message in the text field.
This action sends an outgoing web request to notify another system when a rule is run. You can set this action to return response data that can then be used in a subsequent action.
You can leave the web request body as Empty or enter a custom data format.
Define your own smart value, which can be used in other actions and conditions in the same rule. The smart value you define can consist of other smart values, as well as math functions.
This action logs a value to the audit log.
The log action is useful when debugging rules.
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