Your company has decided to make Confluence your collaboration platform, and you've been asked to get this thing going. Where do you start? Don't worry, you are not alone. Trying to figure out what makes up a Confluence space is a struggle that many people have when getting started with Confluence (and even for those who've had it for years). There are two questions that should be asked to help make the decision: What's the purpose of the space and who will be using the content? Once you get the answers, you'll be on your way to setting up the perfect space for you.
What's the purpose of the Space?
Confluence and Jira will be working hand-in-hand to get work done. Because the two applications work so closely together, it is important for the information to be organized in a way that will allow users to draw parallels between the two applications. The best practice is to create a Confluence Space for each Jira Project. By doing this, users are able to create and find information quickly and easily. This mapping will allow users to first create the ideas in Confluence that will relate to Jira Issues as the ideas mature. Confluence can then be the home to the reports of the products or process as the issues are worked and closed. This prevents guesswork from trying to figure out where content should live or where to find information in the future.
This is not a hard and fast rule, as there may be reasons for having multiple spaces for a single Jira Project, but those should be edge-case scenarios and not the norm. It is highly recommended that users do not create a space based on a single user or group's access permissions. Confluence Space permissions, along with page restrictions, can often satisfy the need to keep information segregated. There may be times that one Confluence Space represents multiple Jira Projects when the projects are closely related. If this is is the case, be sure that the structure is clear so users can find the information quickly.
Who will be using the content?
Spaces don't always need to have a related Jira Project in order to created. Sometimes, a Space needs to be there to coordinate the thoughts of other entities like a Team or Department. For example, my Team may want to document how we are going to improve our Agile process. This is not something that others will care about when they are looking at the Space of the product that team happens to be building. So rather than having one large space that contains all the things the Team is doing, split the space with a clear distinction based on who will use the content.
Last but not least, socialize the decision
Don't forget that you are not alone in your Confluence instance; others in your organization are likely feeling the same! Be sure to take action by clearly naming Spaces based on what their purpose is to the business. Feel free to add Space Categories and Descriptions to help other navigate more easily to your content. Following these simple rules, Praecipio has helped other companies organize their Confluence into a more productive and manageable application.
If you have questions on Confluence, Jira, and how these two amazing Atlassian tools can work together in your organization, contact us and one of our experts will get in touch with you.