How to implement document review procedure in Confluence

[Naama Lev]

Hello Experts, 

I am looking into implementing document review procedure in confluence

Can you please share ideas with me? How are you doing it in your companies?

Thanks

Naama

[Milo Test · Accepted solution]

You can do it simply with labels. Add a label "needs_review," "review_marketing," "review_jimmy_johnson (or whatever works for you) then list pages with that label on a To Be Reviewed page.

[Hiba_Fathima]

Hi Milo,

an you please explain me a little more

[Milo Grika]

There's a couple of ways to list this out.

1. Use the free Labels List macro to list out all the labeled pages in a space. You can also have multiple Labels List macros on a page and restrict each to a specific label.
2. Use the free Page Properties Report macro to list out all the labeled pages —  more information can be visualized. This macro can also be used multiple times on a page with label restrictions to make lists.

We use #1 to list out all the skills of our technicians, then clicking on a skill brings up a list of technicians with that skill.

We use #2 to list out projects by status and, as suggested, we separate the lists by status label. Then the PM just changes the label as the status changes. Your reviewers would do the same; changing the label to the next review stage.

[Nick O]

Hi Milo, great tips. I'm doing the same on my side and it works well. Curious if there's a way to have the document age out of a label. For instance, we have "approved" documentation but would like to trigger a review annually to ensure it is still needed. It would be nice to be able to have Confluence flip the status to "pending-audit" a year out from its approval date. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

[Stéphane Veraart]

Hi Nick, we are using Comala Document Management with workflows for this purpose. With this add-on you can set a trigger based on time (i.e. 1 year, 6 months) to have documents reviewed by either the creator or reviewer of a page.

The trigger will then start a review workflow, to have certain groups (i.e. process owners, managers, product owners) do the review: https://comalatech.com/

I did notice that they have recently changed their product line up a little bit, but their team is very helpful in setting it up if you decide to do so.

[James Conway]

Hi @Stéphane Veraart , thanks for mentioning Comala Document Management!

Hi @Nick O , welcome to the community. As you say, it would be really useful for Confluence to flip a page status after a certain time, unfortunately Confluence doesn't have a great method to help with having process and control with life-cycle of pages or content.

Having said that, this is where the Atlassian Marketplace can extend your experience with Confluence. The Atlassian Marketplace has some really cool tools to help fill the gap for your lifecycle and review process of your pages and content. As @Stéphane Veraart mentioned, Comala Document Management for Confluence has a Content Expiry Workflow that enables a lifecycle to your space of pages and content. 

Comala Document Management is available on the Marketplace and you can try it for free for 30 days for Confluence Cloud, Data Center or Server. If you want to learn more you can check out our webinars here.

Kind regards

James
Senior Product Manager

[Midori]

Review procedure can mean different things, but:

1. If you want to use custom review workflows, approvals, etc. on pages: Comala Workflows Plugin
2. If you want automatic tracking, reminders and reporting to help your reviews with little efforts: Archiving Plugin

[Stéphane Veraart (Devoteam)]

Hi Ferenc, 

Thanks for your suggestion and we are already using Comala for reviewing purposes.

We using a CQL query to list (outdated) pages that need maintenance or revisal.

My client now has an additional request on the same subject, but a different level. This question is not only to you but the community in general. We are using Confluence as a Knowledge Base.

When using the Review process, how would we be able to only make the Approved pages visible to the wider community of users? I have thought of using a filter in some way, to let only pages with the attribute set to "Approved" be visible to all users but I haven't yet been able to find the right solution.

Process Owners or Subject Matter Experts need to validate and approve the KB articles that have been put in first, before they can be shared with the rest of the team.

Bear in mind the thought of trust in the organisation and encouraging people to share without any limitations has crossed my mind but my client isn't yet to the point of confidence to do that.

Any thoughts?

[Vera]

Hi Stéphane, 

I see that your post is a little bit outdated but any chance that you found a solution in the meanwhile for this problem?

We are trying to tackle the same problem at this moment - So, pages can be made by anyone of the team but have to be reviewed by an appointed person before they are published and visible to the other employees. Has anyone found a solution to this problem as of yet?

Thanks in advance,

Cheers, 

Vera 

[Naama Lev]

Hi, 

Thanks for that - I was hoping to implement the document review procedure with our spending money...

Thanks

Naama

[EPS Software Engineering AG]

Hi Naanma,

Have a look at the Comala Workflows add-on. It provides the functionality to have a process on each page.

Regards,
Stephan

[linh nguyen]

Is there a cost associated with the Comala Workflows? 

[Chris Rimmer]

Prices are in the above link.

[Mick Davidson]

Does it have to be in Confluence? Could you do it in JIRA as part of the dev/QA process?

If not, you could do it using the Task and @mentions functionality.

You could create a page for each doc, set up the tasks and who has to do them, with dates as well. Each person could add a comment to their task saying they'd completed it, and then use @mentions to tell the next person in the process that they have something to do.

Just repeat that until the docs review procedure has finished and the doc can be published.

Cheers.