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Status: Early Access **CLOSED to new participants**
Automation is available to a limited number of Confluence customers who signed up for early access. Sign-ups have closed, but watch for updates on the Automation community page.
Confluence automation is a premium feature that can help teams manage their content at scale. When admins create and enable automation rules, Confluence automation works behind the scenes to complete routine functions that would otherwise have to be done manually. For example, rules can automatically:
Create new content in the correct format.
Send team updates on work progress.
Remind people about incomplete tasks.
Learn how to manage automation in Confluence Cloud.
To learn about automation in other Atlassian products, explore our Cloud automation documentation.
Automation, generally speaking, does what it sounds like: It automates routine functions that would otherwise wait for a person to do them.
In Confluence, this might mean automating workflows like:
“When a new page is created in this space, message this Slack channel.”
“When a person from this group creates a new page, add this label.”
Depending on how your team uses Confluence (for collaborative work or as a knowledge base), automating certain functions may be more useful than others. Here are four key areas we expect automation to be especially helpful:
Integrating tools
Send automated work updates to team Slack and MS Teams channels
Connect third-party apps and services using the webhook trigger
Tracking the content lifecycle
Enforce publishing processes and keep content up to date
Make related content more discoverable by managing and auto-adding page labels
Keeping spaces organized
Set up new spaces with a consistent page tree structure
Auto-create team documents, like meeting notes, in a standard location in the page tree
Staying informed
Meet deadlines and keep teams connected with automated reminders and notifications to
Complete assigned tasks
See when work progresses without having to manually check or ask for updates
Rules are automated workflows constructed in an “If This, Then That” format.
Site admins can create and enable rules that function across Confluence at the site level. Space admins can create and enable rules for individual spaces. (And while you may not think of yourself as an admin, if you have a personal space you’re an administrator of your space!)
If you don’t see Automation in your Site or Space settings, this might be why:
Your team isn’t enrolled in our early access program (which is closed to new participants)
You’re not an admin of the space you’re in (for Space automation)
You’re not a site admin (for Global automation)
Your team has Cloud Standard or Cloud Free – automation is a premium feature in Confluence
Learn how to create rules in Confluence automation.
Each rule is made by combining different types of components: triggers, conditions, branches, and actions. Think of components as the building blocks of a rule. (If you’ve used automation in other non-Atlassian products, you may have also seen this described as the ingredients that make a recipe.)
Rules always begin with a trigger component. The trigger is the catalyst that sets the execution of your rule in motion.
See a list of available triggers in Confluence.
Condition components are optional. They limit the scope of your rule. For example, you could add a User condition so that “when a new page is published”, the rule only runs if the page was published by a specific user.
See a list of available conditions in Confluence.
Branch components are also optional. They expand the execution of your rule. When a branch is added, the rule no longer executes in a linear fashion, but instead expands to multiple paths (with the potential to perform multiple actions).
See a list of available branches in Confluence.
Rules always end with an action component. Actions are what you want the rule to do, that is, what you want to happen after it executes successfully.
See a list of available actions in Confluence.
When you select the Create rule button, a rule builder opens where you can build a new rule from scratch (instead of using a template from the Library). It guides you to add and configure components, starting with a triggering event. Each component you save will appear in a rule chain on the left.
Templates can be found in the Library tab within automation. A rule template functions similarly to a page template: It provides a starting point with appropriate components pre-selected and arranged in a rule chain. Select each component in the rule chain to configure and save it.
When you view a rule or rule template, the rule chain is an ordered list of components on the left. These are the instructions (the chain of events) for your rule. Once the rule is enabled, components will run in the order they appear from top to bottom. Drag and drop to reorder them. Hover and select the X to remove them.
There’s a link above the rule chain to edit Rule details like the name, description, and rule actor. You can also troubleshoot an existing rule by viewing execution data in its audit log. Together the rule details, rule actor, audit log, and rule chain summarize all the information about a particular rule.
When your rule performs an action, it’s performed on behalf of the individual (or group) listed as the rule actor. For example, if your rule ultimately sends an email – the name of the rule actor appears in the “From” line. In Confluence, the rule actor defaults to the person who created the rule. If you’re creating rules for another team, this can be changed (in Rule details) so that actions appear to originate from the appropriate team member or group. (In Jira, the rule actor can also be set generically as “Jira automation”, but this isn’t currently an option in Confluence. It’s on our roadmap.)
When you configure components to add to your rule, you may be prompted with an option to use smart values. They can look a little intimidating, but using them is easier than you might think.
Smart values are dynamic variables. They follow a specific syntax called dot notation that’s written inside double mustache brackets. The first word in dot notation is the object, followed by a period, followed by a property of the object. For example in {{page.title}}, “title” is a property of the page. If you used this to configure a page-based component, it would fill in the page’s title when the rule runs.
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 in products where rule executions are limited to a certain number per month. However during our early access program, Confluence automation won’t impose any execution limits. We hope this encourages broader experimentation from our early access participants. Limits may be added when we release the feature to our general audience, and we’ll provide details at that time.
To confirm that your rules are executing successfully, view the automation audit log.
Learn more about Confluence Cloud automation.
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