Spaces now have owners!

[#1]

We're thrilled to announce a new feature that will make managing your Confluence spaces easier than ever: Space Owners.

The Problem

With potentially dozens of admins in a space, it's not always clear who's responsible for what. This can lead to confusion, duplicated effort, and a general lack of accountability. As one customer put it, “I want to be able to manage my spaces the way I manage my projects in Jira. We have 3,000+ spaces, and I can’t tell who owns each space and when each space was last active."

The Solution: Space Owners

Now, you can designate a specific person (or group) as the "owner" of a space. This designated owner becomes the primary point of contact for all things related to that space.

What does it do for you?

• For admins: Easily identify and manage the directly responsible individuals (DRIs) for all your site's spaces. Direct questions to the active user designated to control the space.

• For end users: Quickly find the right person to ask questions or report issues to. No more guessing, messaging each admin individually, or that dreaded “mass email” when you need help.

Benefits

• Improved governance: Clear ownership leads to better organization and accountability.

• Simplified delegation: Easily delegate admin tasks to the space owner.

• Enhanced communication: Quickly connect with the right person for any space-related issue.

Ready to get started?

Check out our support documentation and head over to your Confluence spaces to designate your space owners! We're eager to hear your feedback and how this new feature is helping you manage your spaces more effectively.

A note for existing spaces: The person who created the space will be automatically assigned as the current space owner. Space admins can change the owner (to another space admin) at any time.

Get ready to get organized. Let us know what you think in the comments below.

- The Atlassian Team

[Christie Gera @ Appfire]

Spaces have always had owners. Did something about the space owner role change? 

[Thorsten Letschert _Decadis AG_]

Given this also comes with all permissions according to the docs, can this be seen as a space administrator, but with better visibility for the users?

[Rune Rasmussen]

When a user encounters a Space/Page they don't have access to and use the "Request access" button, does the email still go out to the Space admins, or will it start going to the Space Owner?
We have product admins and system accounts with Space Admin permissions and they shouldn't be getting those requests.
Ideally we should be able to customize the message, but that's another topic entirely.

Will we be able to change Space Owners through automation actions?
We have thousands of Spaces and often ownership is based on job roles of functions.
Manually keeping Space Owner up to date whenever someone changes role or leaves the company will inevitably go wrong, and it will go wrong sooner rather than later.

And will we be able to update Space Owner through the REST API?

Christie Gera @ Appfire Did they? In Cloud?
I feel like we (at our company) has been asking for this for years and years. Something similar to Jiras Project Lead.
Has it always been there and then just not been present in the UI?
Spaces always had admins, but that list of users also includes product admins making it akin to a half truth.

[Christie Gera @ Appfire]

@Rune Rasmussen Yes! We converted to Cloud in Dec 2021 and there have been space owners in Cloud at least since then, present in the UI in Space Details. 

[Abby Crisp]

Hi all, thanks for the questions and feedback!

Christie Gera @ Appfire  To confirm the Space Owner role remains unchanged. This release improves visibility of who the owner is for both admins and end users.

@Thorsten Letschert _Decadis AG_ I agree - space owners function as administrators for their spaces. This update clarifies ownership for admins and end users alike.

@Rune Rasmussen The email will still go out to admins for now and not the space owner. But we'll soon release a change that re-routes all space access requests to the space owner instead of an assortment of space admins.

Right now, only the space admin can change the space owner in the space details or spaces site settings pages (changes cannot be made through automatic actions). 

There is no public REST API exposed to update the owner as of now.