How to Make a Great Template in Confluence

[@tech6474]

This is the best video by far out of dozens I've been watching on not just templates but effective use of Confluence.

[@Littletime839]

@@_k15t Thank you. I've since found all of your other videos.

[@_k15t]

Thank you so much! We're glad we could help you!

[@GCU_GCU]

The best video about confluence templating. Thanks

[@_k15t]

Thanks! We're happy to hear your positive feedback.

[@southpaw1979]

Thanks, this is exactly the info I was looking for plus extra tips

[@joiedevivre0]

K15t is a treasure trove of Confluence videos, both in terms of explanation and presentation. Thanks a lot. I wonder - do you have any experience with template variables?

[@_k15t]

Awe, thanks! We also have a treasure trove of friends like you who have joined us along the way. 💙💚💛 While we don't use template variables all that much, we did talk a little bit about them during one of our live streams. Here's a link, we hope it helps: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hIGVaWCMqKiAbLs

[@weipeng_huang]

Very useful for me, many thanks!

[@_k15t]

You are welcome!

[@somebody6480]

Helpful overview. THX!

[@_k15t]

Thanks for the feedback! :) Was there a certain part that you found most helpful?

[@Gimme_Cornbread]

Super-helpful! Thank you 🙇

[@_k15t]

Thank you so much!

[@tejpatnaik6615]

Hello! Very helpful video. I am creating a decision log in confluence. In the default decision log within confluence, the button opens up a form which when filled out, pre-populates the confluence page template that I created. How do I go about creating that pop-up form which will populate the template? I figure I might need to use variables

[@_k15t]

Hey, yes these are variables you can define in your template. Once you've defined them the popup shows up and asks the user to fill them in. Let me know if that helped or if you need more details. Cheers, Steffen

[@tejpatnaik6615]

@@_k15t thank you for your response. I tried adding the variables and it worked (somewhat). The OOTB Decisions template has a pop-up come up to fill out some information, which then redirects to the template of the new page. In my template, however, it redirects to ‘Page Template Wizard’ which looks very outdated…. Still captures the information, but not in the way I expected. Any ways to work around so it will appear as a pop up and avoid Page template wizard?

[@lucaslegz]

Thank you for another great video! May I ask, what is on the tee shirt you are wearing?

[@_k15t]

Hi Tonya, this is our companies logo (K15t) which you'll find across all our stuff, e.g. also in our Avatar here on KZbin :). Steffen

[@lucaslegz]

@@_k15t , Do you seek the shirt?

[@mattreinerk15t93]

Sorry @@lucaslegz, at this point we don't sell them. Currently, only K15t team members are sporting these beauties.

[@marcoveneziani8670]

Thank you for your video. It has been helpful thus far. I have a couple of questions: When you are using the Status macro - you give it a descriptive label "Set A Status". When I do it, I can't get custom labels, such as "To Do", "In Progress", "Done" - all I can do is change the color of the label stays the same, to "Set A Status". How did you get your to change to "Answered"? Also, when you are building the Report using the report macro (8:47), you say that you are only pulling Un-answered questions, but you pull one with a Green "Answered" label, which confused me a bit. But the question is: how do you filter only the statuses you want? Thanks again for the helpful video!

[@_k15t]

Hi Marco, you should be able to set the status text with the following steps: Click the marco A dialog opens to choose the color and an input field

[@ngatenoeno78]

Thanks a lot

[@_k15t]

Happy to help

[@spadhnik]

What permissions one need to be able to create a template?

[@_k15t]

Hey @spadhnik, to create space templates you need to be an admin in that space. If you want to create global page templates you need to be Confluence site administrator. Cheers, Steffen

[@imabeapirate]

no idea how you got to that settings page...

[@_k15t]

To create a template, you at least need access to the space settings menu in the left side navigation, and you might not have the permission to create templates, so you may not see it. So, it's best for you to talk to the person running your space, or all of Confluence and ask for that permission. They should be able to fix you right up!

[@christianbrown8814]

This is cool, thanks! In my organization, I need to do some reporting. Specifically I have a "master" confluence data page with table full of data from JIRA (Epic, task, due date, assignee, etc.). For each Epic (project), we want to have a separate confluence page which shows only the tasks and other relevant information for that epic. Finally, we would like to display the report on each Epic's confluence page in a particular format using a common template. Ideally the template could be edited later by our space admin (for example, to add an additional data point from the master data page) and that template change would propagate automatically to all Epic pages. Is such thing possible? If yes, I would love to see a demo.

[@christianbrown8814]

@@_k15t Thanks for the reply! I think I can leverage the excerpt macro as you advise in the "content reuse". Thanks for your awesome videos. They are extremely helpful and very clear and professional.

[@_k15t]

Hi Christian, Unfortunately something like that isn't possible. A template in Confluence is like a blueprint for a page. If you create a page from a template, the created page doesn't have any relation to the template anymore. This means changes in the template won't effect pages which have been created by it. However if your "master data page" only contains static information which is always the same for all the epic pages, you can also use an "include page" within your template for that kind of information. Changes to your original master data page will propagate to all epic pages. But the information from the included page can't be individualized for the epic pages. We also have a video about using single sourcing everything and about content reuse: kzbin.info/www/bejne/p3jNqnupncmGiqc or checkout the Confluence Cloud documentation: support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/insert-the-include-page-macro/ We hope this helps.

[@user-dj7pf4rn6p]

00:00

[@anilasood2870]

Hi, I am unable to find the placeholder text macro

[@anilasood2870]

@@_k15t Hi Steffan, I am using confluence cloud only. I am not able to find this macro.

[@_k15t]

Hi Anila, You can find this only if you create a new template or edit an existing one. The macro is only available in the template creation editor. The editor is only accessible if you are space admin. You can read the Atlassian Documentation to see how you can access this: support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/create-a-template/ I hope this helps.

[@mdmobleycsmcspo1368]

On my version, this is available in the Edit Template space, from the Icon, near the Insert Macro icon, which looks like a piece of paper. I have two options there; Instructional Text and New Variable. Instructional Text performs the function @K15t is describing.

[@mdmobleycsmcspo1368]

LOL. Just noticed he referred to his placeholder text as "Instructional Text" almost immediately after in the video.

[@Brandyp2010]

I have one issue... You ASSUMED that everyone already know Confluence. You did not provide step by step instructions. You keep saying... "You can do.....", but you don't show them how. You didn't even tell the viewer where Templates are located... You just jumped to Global Template. You are assuming that we already know how to use it.

[@MattReiner]

Hey Brandy, maybe you can check out some of the great step-by-step videos that Atlassian has shared, like this one: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r5O0eolnaqeCapY

[@_k15t]

Hi @brandy phillips, thanks for your feedback. That is true, our best practice videos are made for users who already know the functionalities of Confluence but want to learn best practices (as our series is called). Anyway we are aware that not everyone has this knowledge, that is why we were thinking on making more basic instructional videos as well. Do you have any specific topics, like this, you want to see in a more instructional step by step way?

[@Brandyp2010]

@@_k15t I'm a Sr Technical Writer and organizations are requesting knowledge of the Application. I learned the hard way... Confluence is good for tracking Incident Tickets, but not for detailed documentation. It's good for Online Help Reference Guides, but not Technical Documents or "How To" docs. Users must have knowledge of Web Design to get the best from Confluence. It's extremely challenging to learn... The basic is not good enough. Developers and Engineers loves it, because they can create simple online knowledge base briefs, so it seems as if they worked hard on a doc...

[@pnewton]

yeeeeah... while I appreciate the video and it had me thinking about some ideas, you don't really show 'how' to do anything. You throw out some ideas at an incredibly fast pace that following along is almost impossible. Forget that my version of confluence looks significantly different, you need to slow things down and explain yourself. Sadly, its not just a case of watching the video 100 times, you just don't explain how or what you're doing.

[@_k15t]

Hey Paul, thanks for your feedback. This is a best practice video which focus not on the how but on the why. If you want to see how this is done step by step check out our livestream we've done where we dive deeper into the topic and how a template like that is setup. kzbin.info/www/bejne/bmemaYGQht-WprM I hope this helps and provides the information you're looking for. Happy to get your feedback on our livestream as well. Cheers, Steffen

[@pnewton]

@@_k15t Thanks Steffen. Appreciate the response and I'll check out the livestream!