Confluence Organization Setup Question

[Mark Janecek]

I have been using Jira for years, but recently I added Confluence. I do marketing work for various clients. That means for each I need to store details about projects, resources, tools, and other details. My thought was I would use Confluence for this.

Based on what I am seeing, it seems like I have two options:

1) I can create workspaces for each client, and then have documents for each client stored in the appropriate workspace. 

2) I can create 1 workspace for all clients, and then store the 1-3 pages in that single workspace, and have a second workspace for my company specific information.

Option 1 means I will have many workspaces, with just a few documents in each.

Option 2 means I will have one workspace, but many documents nested for each client.

Like many things Atlassian, it appears there is no wrong answer, just how you want to go about it. The question is, is there an unintended consequence for either of these setups, or a better third option that an experienced user sees.

Thanks for your help...

[Diego · Accepted solution]

Hello @Mark Janecek !

You are right when you say that “it appears there is no wrong answer, just how you want to go about it”. Deciding between them depends on what you need for your documentation.

I would say that deciding between both depends on how much power you need to give to the customer itself when it comes to creating, curating and managing content within Confluence.

If we look at the second option “I can create 1 workspace for all clients, and then store the 1-3 pages in that single workspace, and have a second workspace for my company specific information.” Creates an “open” layout for your space.

This means that all your users will need to have access to the space as a whole. Each page will need to be restricted individually after each page is created. All space administrators will be able to grant themselves with enough privileges to all pages, even if they are restricted.  Meaning that this may not be ideal if you need to give administrative powers to some of your customers users.

You may also find that it is harder to apply the broader aspect of space permissions in this model due to the fact that a pretty heterogeneous group of users will have access to the same space.

Using the first one “I can create workspaces for each client, and then have documents for each client stored in the appropriate workspace.” May allow for a broader approach to limitations but also results in a tightly locked space. A customer that is not supposed to access another customer space will not be able to do so, even if they are an admin in another space. Unless they are individually added to the space permissions or a group of which they are part of is added.

Here is our documentation on both Page restrictions and Space permissions:

• [Confluence Cloud] What are Confluence Cloud permissions and restrictions?
• [Confluence Cloud] Add or remove page restrictions
• [Confluence Cloud] Assign space permissions

I hope this helps!

[Mark Janecek]

Thanks Diego, this was helpful - your comments about client accessibility were the kind of concern/items I was looking for...

[Diego]

Good to know that my reply was helpful!