Creating a process library with searchable and filterable TOC

[Nicki Schermann]

Hello! I'm creating a process library and am seeking best practice setup ideas. Ideally what it would look like is this:

• On the front page, a table of contents that is automatically populated when a new page (i.e. process) is added. This should include tags and last updated information.
• I would love it if this table of contents was filterable - e.g. if a user is looking for all processes tagged with a certain term they should be able to surface those. 
• There should also be a panel with details of the most recently updated processes.
• Lastly, a search bar for specifically searching all processes.

Any suggestions are appreciated!

[Oliver Siebenmarck _Polymetis Apps_ · Accepted solution]

Hi @Nicki Schermann ,

Welcome to the community!

I believe you're on the right track, Confluence is a great tool for libraries of any kind and especially processes. 

My first recommendation would be to create one or more templates for your process descriptions. Be sure to include labels in your template, that makes everything easier. 

Your template should also include a Page Properties Macro with every attribute you want to display on the front page. Most Confluence templates already have this, so there should be plenty of examples to look at. 

You can then use a Page Properties Report on the front page to display a dynamically created table with all your pages that have a specific label. Personally, instead of filtering the table, I would suggest using multiple tables instead. Like one for all processes, and one for each specific type. If that amounts to a lot of tables in your org, then it might be a good idea to have different sub-front pages for specific process types or areas.

As you are going by label, it doesn't matter too much how you structure the pages, as a page can easily appear in multiple pages. For example, a process could be labelled process, process-sop and process-how-to and appear in different places. 

There also is a macro for recently updated pages, and of course, you can also select which pages to include by using labels. 

Finally, there is a search macro that you can add. And it allows you to search only a subset of pages defined by, you guessed it, labels!

Hope that helps, let us know how it goes!

Cheers,
 Oliver

P.S. Really, labels are the most amazing and in my mind most underused, feature of Confluence.  We are such big fans of labels, we even wrote an app called Magic Labels to make labelling pages in Confluence easier, be sure to give it a try!  

[Darja Majninger (K15t)]

Hi @Nicki Schermann

Welcome to the community!

As mentioned above, using the Page Properties Macro and templates in Confluence is a great way to solve your case.

I think you may be also interested in our newest app Orderly Databases for Confluence Cloud.

There you can create a database for your documenting your processes where you can add several types of fields (selectable labels, dates, linked pages with automated page creation) and filter by them. So you could filter by the date or a specific label, for example.

You can add a table view of this database or parts of it easily by inserting an Orderly Database or Entry macro anywhere you like and also edit the database from anywhere, where it is referenced through macros.

Unfortunately there is no search bar for the macro or database yet, but we are planning to integrate this in the future.

Maybe you want to give it a try, it free for up to 10 users.

Happy to assist if you have any further questions!

Cheers,
Darja