Reviewing Confluence Documentation

[Kali Horton]

Has anyone established a process at their company where confluence documentation owners are tasked, at least annually, to review their documentation for updates?  As we all know, documentation can become out dated over time due to new polices, procedures and technologies.  A document owner may need to be reminded to make these changes.  Is anyone doing this efficiently with atlassian products?

[Zak Laughton · Accepted solution]

Hi Kali!

In the past, I've used a Page Properties Macro on each page that needs to be reviewed that included a review date. I then compiled a list of all the pages in one place using a Page Properties Report Macro so the pages could be sorted by due date. A group of Confluence champions would regularly review the list and ensure that pages were reviewed when the time came.

This was a more informal manual process, but there are also several page-auditing 3rd-party apps in the Atlassian Marketplace you may want to check out.

I hope this helps!
– Zak

[Thomas Bowskill]

@Zak Laughton I never thought of that. Might start to introduce on some of our larger docs

[Thomas Bowskill · Accepted solution]

@Kali Horton 

For my most common use-case in tech, I have found tying Confluence into the change governance process to be essential: if we introduce change, in the change approval process someone should be checking the relevant documentation is updated -- so it's more instilling the culture of change=updated documentation. 

While this might not cover 100% of your use-case, I hope it helps somewhat.

I'm also aware there are applications like Commala Workflows that might help you

[Jared Brenner · Accepted solution]

Hi Kali,

I tend to let my users notify me of gaps or outdated information in the knowledge bases I maintain.  Of course, there may be process changes that spur an update to the documentation - in those cases I'll also check the inline comments for feedback to implement and then make all my edits at once.  As time and preferences allow I may also overhaul a page to use a more up-to-date style template, but I personally don't have regularly scheduled reviews.

Jared