Confluence Templates dynamic dates

[Christy Plommer]

Can I create a Template in which I pass a date as a parameter, so all the dates are pre-populated based on the value of the date provided?

In searching the Atlassian Documentation, there was reference to Blueprint, which is apparently a step up from Templates, but I don't see how to create or access Blueprints and wonder if it's been deprecated.   If Blueprints are not deprecated, how does one access them, and can they support dynamic dates?

[Laura Campbell]

HI @Christy Plommer Blueprints were the name used for templates on Confluence on premise (Server and Data center), so not relevant for Confluence Cloud.

What about using Confluence Automation and/or Rovo to create your page using the template and calculating the dates? I wrote up an explanation of what I did over here https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Confluence-articles/How-to-use-Confluence-Automation-to-create-a-page-amp-send-a/ba-p/3015372 that might serve as a bit of inspiration.

[Barbara Szczesniak]

@Christy Plommer Welcome to the Atlassian Community.

You can include variables on your template that the person creating the page must set. There is not a date type for a variable, but you can add placeholder text instructing the creator what information they should put in the variable. See https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/create-a-template/ for details.

I believe that you can also use Smart Values in your template to insert dynamic content when the page is created. See https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/smart-values-in-confluence-automation/ for a list of smart values.

[Christy Plommer]

Thank you Barbara.  I looked into Smart Values.  With respect to Confluence pages, they apply to page properties, not to content within the page.

I'd looked at variables before, and again now, trying to jerry-rig it as a date, but it doesn't do the job.  It'd be great if there were a variable of datatype Date.
If it's worth creating a template for a page, chances are dates are relevant.  After creating a page from a template, the most time-consuming part is updating the dates.  (which ideally could be automated as the date values are usually the same relative to an anchor date).

[Barbara Szczesniak]

@Christy Plommer I found this similar post from last September with a response from an Atlassian team member that indicates that these variables are not available on templates: https://community.atlassian.com/forums/Confluence-questions/Auto-Fill-in-Creation-User-and-Date-when-creating-a-page-out-of/qaq-p/2821338 

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