That’s why we’re excited to introduce Learning Paths, a powerful new feature in Smart Courses for Confluence that helps organizations design structured learning journeys directly inside their Confluence LMS.

With Learning Paths, training administrators can guide learners step by step, improve training effectiveness, and significantly increase employee training completion rates.

What are Learning Paths in Smart Courses for Confluence?

Learning Paths let you group up to 10 courses or exams into a single, cohesive learning journey.
You can mix training courses and exams in any order or even build a path made entirely of exams. Instead of learners choosing what to take next, you define the sequence to ensure the right knowledge is delivered.

Each Learning Path is created within a specific Confluence space and follows that space’s permissions, making it ideal for new hire onboarding and department-specific training programs.

Key benefits include:

• Structured Learning Paths with clear course sequencing
• Centralized training content inside Confluence
• Improved learner engagement and progress tracking
• Higher training completion and accountability

Why Learning Paths matter for onboarding, compliance, and employee development

Disconnected courses often lead to confusion, low engagement, and incomplete training. Learning Paths solve this by turning individual courses into guided learning journeys.

Perfect for common training use cases:

• New hire onboarding programs
• Workplace compliance training
• Employee development and upskilling
• Corporate training and L&D initiatives

By combining self-paced learning with structured progression, organizations can create more effective learning and development (L&D) experiences.

A closer look at the Learning Path editor

Learning Path editor

The Learning Path editor is where paths come to life. After naming your path and selecting a Confluence space, you can add up to ten courses. Courses can be reordered with drag-and-drop, added or removed at any time, and visually enhanced with thumbnails to clearly communicate the learning flow.

Learning Path configuration

Configuration settings let you control how Learning Paths are maintained over time. You can manage contributors, add linear progression, define a short description, and set categories, labels, and difficulty level.
These controls ensure Learning Paths remain easy to manage, scalable, and aligned with your training goals.

Learning Path landing page

The Learning Path landing page brings multiple courses together into one guided experience. Learners see the full journey up front, including the order, overall progress, completion status, a brief description of the Learning Path’s difficulty level, and lables.

Learning Path insights

Learning Path insights focus on how learners progress through the path as a whole. Instead of reviewing individual course performance, you get a consolidated view of enrollment and completion across the entire journey either by courses or by learners.

How to get started with Learning Paths and courses in Smart Courses

Ready to transform your employee training from scattered content into a structured learning experience? Here’s how to get started with Learning Paths and Courses in Smart Courses for Confluence.

Step 1: Audit your existing training content

Start by reviewing all your employee training courses already stored in Confluence. Identify:

• Which content works best as standalone courses
• Which courses naturally belong together in a learning path

Ask key questions:

• What should new hires learn first in their onboarding experience?
• Which courses act as prerequisites for advanced training?

This audit lays the foundation for learning paths and effective course sequencing.

Step 2: Choose one high-impact training use case

Don’t try to structure everything at once in your Confluence LMS. Start with one critical use case, such as:

• New hire onboarding
• Compliance training
• Core role-based employee training

Decide whether you need:

• A Learning Path (up to 10 courses) for a guided learning journey, or
• A single, well-structured course for focused training

Launch small, validate the approach, then scale across your training programs.

Step 3: Map the learning journey

Before building in Smart Courses, outline the learning experience:

• What is the first concept a learner needs to understand?
• Which course or module comes next?
• Are there clear course prerequisites?
• What does “completion” look like?

This planning step applies to both learning paths and individual courses, making the build process faster and more intentional.

Step 4: Build Learning Paths in Smart Courses for Confluence

Create a Learning Path in Smart Courses:

• Add up to 10 courses to a Learning Path
• Arrange courses using drag-and-drop sequencing
• Add descriptions, labels, and categories for discoverability

Once built, preview the experience to ensure clarity and flow.

Step 5: Test before you launch

Invite 2–3 learners to complete the course or Learning Path. Gather feedback on:

• Course order and pacing
• Clarity of instructions and descriptions
• Overall learning experience

Refine your content based on real learner input, especially for onboarding and compliance training.

Step 6: Share and monitor training progress

Publish your course or Learning Path and assign it to the target audience. Use the training insights dashboard to track:

• Course and Learning Path completion rates
• Progress through the learning journey
• Drop-off points in structured Learning Paths

Use these insights to continuously improve training effectiveness.

Pro tips from our Smart Courses team

Start with solid foundations: Create clear, well-scoped courses and exams, then organize them into Learning Paths that guide learners toward a specific goal.

Design with purpose, not overload: Each Learning Path can include up to 10 courses. You can mix training courses and exams in any order, or build a path entirely of exams. making it ideal for onboarding programs, compliance training, and employee development, structured but never overwhelming.

Combine guided journeys with standalone learning: Use Learning Paths alongside individual courses to give learners both direction and flexibility.

Balance short, focused modules with more in-depth training to keep learners engaged while still delivering meaningful knowledge.

Explain the value of every step: Make it clear why each course exists and how it contributes to the overall learning journey.

Motivate progress with recognition: Certificates and completion milestones help learners stay engaged and feel rewarded along the way.

Refine with data over time: Once your paths are live, use analytics to review performance, spot drop-offs, and continuously optimize course sequencing and structure.

With Learning Path, you can bundle courses and exams into a single, structured journey, transforming scattered content into intentional learning experiences. Whether you’re building onboarding programs, continuous training, or upskilling initiatives, Learning Paths help learners see the bigger picture and stay motivated from start to finish.

Create and manage Learning Paths with ease

Learning Paths are intentionally easy to create and scale. Any user with creation rights can build and manage Learning Paths, making content organization more inclusive and collaborative.

From the editor, creators can:

• Add up to 10 published courses or exams to a Learning Path
• Set linear progression
• Restrict access when needed
• Enable certification
• Add contributors and collaborate

This flexible editor experience helps teams build a learning path experience while staying in control.

A clearer Catalog experience

To support discovery, the Smart Courses Catalog has evolved alongside Learning Paths.

Learners will now see:

• New filters that make Learning Paths easy to find: switch to change the types between Courses, Learning Paths or show all
• Dedicated “Learning Path” tag on cards that clearly distinguish paths from standalone courses or exams
• You can now combine the statuses to find the right course

These updates help learners quickly find what they need to start learning.

Learning Path Player

Once learners enter a Learning Path, the Path Player keeps them focused and confident throughout their journey.

With the Path Player, learners can:

• Move easily between courses in a Learning Path.
• See exactly where they are in the overall journey
• Track progress across the entire path at a glance

Learners always know what they’ve completed and what’s coming next without feeling locked into a rigid flow.
Another update in this recent release is that learners can access and download certificates directly from landing pages. This applies to Learning Paths and courses as well.

Powerful insights

Learning Paths are fully integrated into global insights dashboards, giving admins and managers a clearer view of learner engagement and progress.

Learning Path insights include two dedicated dashboard views:

• One focused on courses and exams within the path
• Another focused on learner progress across the entire journey

Reports automatically include only users with access to each Learning Path, ensuring accurate, actionable data you can trust.

Confluence is where your teams collaborate, document knowledge, and share content. To add structured training and compliance management, Smart Courses for Confluence turns your wiki into a full-featured LMS. The app lets you build courses, quizzes, and certifications directly inside Confluence.

In the latest release, we’ve significantly enhanced the Course Insights dashboard, making learner progress and course versions crystal-clear. Training admins can now instantly see if a learner session is based on an outdated course version, and reports can be broken down by version. These improvements deliver reliable, version-specific analytics that are essential for compliance audits and continuous training.

Enhanced course insights & version tracking

We’ve enhanced the Course Insights section to make tracking learner data clearer and version-specific.

• When a new major course version is published, existing learner sessions from older versions are automatically deprecated.
• Each course title now shows the latest version and when the course was last saved.
• Next to each learner’s name, an icon now shows if their session was completed on an outdated course version. By hovering over the icon, you can see which version they took. Learners can reopen the course player to access the latest version and automatically update their session.
• When data is exported to Excel, each course version with submitted answers to questions will now appear on a separate sheet, giving you clearer version-based reporting.

These changes make Insights more reliable, especially for compliance, audits, and tracking ongoing training performance.

Major versions: What counts as a significant update

Not every edit creates a new major version. Smart Courses automatically creates a new major version only when substantial changes are made to the default-language content, such as:

• Content edits: Adding, removing, or editing course sections or components in default language.
• Reordering: Changing the order of sections or components.
• Exam parameters: Updating the minimum pass score.
• New SCORM package: Uploading a new SCORM file.
• Version restore: Rolling back to a previous version of the course.

Minor edits, such as translations or minor course settings changes, do not trigger a new major version.

When a major update is published, the course card and landing page display a “New Content” tag to notify learners.

Course editing rules & Session protection

To preserve the accuracy of learner data across versions, Smart Courses enforces several editing safeguards once learners are enrolled:

• Course type locked: You can’t switch between “exam” and “regular” course types after learner sessions exist. This ensures consistent reporting in Insights.

• Quiz integrity: When editing quiz questions that already have learner responses, changing the answer choices may impact existing data.
  A warning message will appear before saving, reminding you to be cautious before making these changes.

• Certificate protection: If at least one learner has earned a certificate, the certificate feature cannot be disabled in the course editor.
  However, the “Only when pass” setting can still be modified.

These safeguards ensure historical results remain intact and reporting stays consistent over time. You maintain a clear audit trail, with edits that could affect past results either restricted or clearly controlled.

Learner view: Update notifications & certificates

Learners will now see a new information panel on the course landing page whenever a new major version of the course is published.
This helps them know when updates are available and ensures they always learn from the most recent version.

Importantly, when a learner completes a course and earns a certificate, that certificate remains linked to the version they completed.
Any new major version published afterward won’t affect their earned certificate or progress.

Why This Matters

These updates give teams better visibility into training activity across evolving course content.
You can clearly see:

• Which version did each learner complete?
• When and how the course content changed
• How updates affect completion rates and results over time

With session deprecation and enhanced version visibility, Smart Courses for Confluence makes learning data more transparent, accurate, and actionable. You can confidently track, manage, and trust your team’s training history even as courses grow and evolve.

This release brings a smoother course experience, smarter collaboration, and faster content creation, all designed around how teams actually work. From reusing course sections and components across spaces to simplified course access and cleaner course card design, everything in this update helps you save time, stay organized, and keep your learning process flowing inside Confluence

Let’s explore what’s new!

Import Sections and Components Across Spaces

Before this release, only components and sections from courses published in the same space could be imported.
Now, you can import sections and components from courses created and published in other Confluence spaces, saving hours of setup time.

This update is handy for teams that manage training across multiple spaces, HR, Product, or Compliance… who can now reuse modules, quizzes, or whole sections without starting from scratch.

This new import capability keeps content aligned and up to date across your entire organization.

Improved Course Player Access

We’ve refined how learners access and interact with their courses to create a smoother, more intuitive experience.

The Play, Resume, and Revisit buttons are now located directly on the course landing page, providing a clear and consistent starting point for every learner. Learners can access the landing page by clicking a course thumbnail or title. This update helps users quickly pick up where they left off or restart a course without having to navigate multiple screens.

We’ve moved secondary actions such as comments, share, and delete to a three-dot (⋯) menu, keeping the card layout clean and focused. The status indicator now appears directly on the course card, allowing learners to see whether a course is ongoing or done instantly.

We’re continuously improving Smart Courses to make it the most seamless, native learning experience in Confluence.

Stay tuned for the upcoming release!

At the same time, Smart Tables brings powerful spreadsheet capabilities into Confluence tables. You get Excel-like formulas, filters, sorting, and charts right on the page, without exporting to external tools. Together, these apps let teams learn and manage projects in one place, without having to jump between systems.

Smart Courses for Confluence

Smart Courses brings a full LMS into your Confluence site. Instructors can use the drag-and-drop course editor to assemble lessons from Confluence pages, images, videos or SCORM modules. Smart Courses editor: you simply create sections and lessons, then choose existing wiki pages or files to include. This makes it easy to turn your documentation and know-how into structured courses. Smart Courses also supports interactive quizzes, including graded exams, so learners can test their understanding and earn certificates automatically.

All courses appear in a global, searchable catalog where team members can self-enroll and learn at their own pace. Behind the scenes, Smart Courses provides dashboards and reports that track enrollments, completion rates, and quiz scores for every learner. In short, it enables you to deliver and monitor training directly within Confluence.

Key features of Smart Courses include:

• Course Editor: Assemble courses right in Confluence, reusing pages and media. You can structure content into chapters, add videos or images, and PDF files.

• Quizzes & Certificates: Create multiple-choice or open-ended quizzes and exams to reinforce learning. Smart Courses automatically tracks scores and can issue a completion certificate to learners who pass.

• Course Catalog: Publish training in a global catalog with filtering and search. Employees browse and enroll in courses relevant to their role or department, and progress through content at their own pace.

• Insights and reporting: Managers and learners see real-time status in a built-in dashboard. You can view who has started or finished each course, how they scored on quizzes, and identify any knowledge gaps.

• Skills & Prerequisites: Define key skills, link them to courses or exams, and control learner progression with prerequisites that guide users through structured courses.
  

Smart Tables for Confluence

Smart Tables enhances Confluence’s native tables, transforming them into interactive, data-driven components that teams can manage, analyze, and collaborate on. Instead of switching between Confluence and external spreadsheet tools, you can create Smart Tables directly on your pages or import data from Excel using the Live Spreadsheet macro for real-time editing and collaboration.

Each Smart Table supports advanced capabilities, including inline editing, sorting, grouping, filtering, and formulas, providing the analytical power of a spreadsheet while remaining fully integrated within Confluence. Whether you’re tracking project progress, managing reports, or analyzing results, Smart Tables keeps your data dynamic and organized.

Smart Tables capabilities

• Formulas and Functions: Apply over 390 built-in functions (SUM, AVERAGE, IF, VLOOKUP, etc.) to calculate and analyze data directly inside your tables.

• Advanced Filtering, Sorting & Grouping: Quickly organize information with dropdown filters or sort/group options to focus on what matters most.

• Charts and Pivot Tables: Visualize key insights directly from your Smart Tables with built-in charting and pivot tools, updating automatically as data changes.

• Export: export your tables to PDF for easy sharing and reporting.

Use Case: Unified Project Learning and Tracking

Imagine a cross-functional team preparing for a major product launch. Their Confluence space becomes both a training hub and a project command center.

With Smart Courses for Confluence, the project lead creates a “Product Launch” course to onboard new team members. The course includes lessons on product details, workflows, and marketing guidelines, all within Confluence. With Skills & Prerequisites, new hires must first complete the “Product Knowledge Basics” course to earn a required skill before unlocking more advanced modules like “Launch Execution.” Thanks to group enrollment rules, new joiners are automatically added, receive reminders, and must complete a short quiz to earn the “Launch Readiness” certification. The manager can easily monitor progress, see who’s finished the course, and identify knowledge gaps across teams.

Meanwhile, the Smart Tables macro powers the project’s live tracking dashboard. The main planning page hosts a Smart Table listing every task with columns for owner, department, due date, and status. Team members edit their tasks inline, and updates appear instantly for everyone.

To make the data actionable:

• Sorting helps prioritize tasks by approaching deadlines.
• Grouping clusters work items by department or phase to reveal workload distribution.
• Search and Case-Sensitive Search let the manager instantly locate specific entries, such as “Q4 Budget” or “Launch-Day Checklist.”
• Regular Expression Search identifies all items matching complex patterns (for example, all milestones starting with “Phase”).
• Pivot Tables summarize hours logged and tasks completed by department, giving leaders a clear overview of performance.

The manager also uses filters to display only “In Progress” items, while a live chart visualizes workload by phase. Every metric updates automatically as team members make changes; there are no page reloads and no version conflicts.

Because training and tracking occur in a single Confluence space, the team gains full transparency. The same dashboard displays who has completed their onboarding milestones, which skills they’ve earned, and the current project status in real time.

By combining Smart Courses and Smart Tables, this organization has established a comprehensive learning, skills-building, and tracking ecosystem. Employees gain the foundation they need right where they collaborate, and managers gain data-driven insights all without leaving Confluence.

Why use Confluence for onboarding

Keeping all onboarding content within Confluence offers significant advantages. First, it is cost-effective: instead of purchasing a separate LMS platform, businesses can leverage Confluence with an LMS app to deliver training, saving the time and money associated with a standalone LMS. Second, it provides an exceptional user experience; new hires don’t need to switch to another system or remember extra logins. They can access all training materials directly inside Confluence without leaving the platform, making it easier to find the content they need. This convenience increases user satisfaction and reduces friction in the learning process.
Finally, integrating an LMS adds flexibility to content creation. Many traditional LMS platforms lack robust authoring tools. Still, with Confluence, you can easily design and update training content (wiki pages, how-to guides, etc.), and then use the LMS plugin to deliver that content efficiently. In short, Confluence combined with an LMS plugin transforms your wiki into a one-stop onboarding and training portal.

Bringing structured learning into Confluence with Smart Courses

Smart Courses for Confluence is an LMS app that adds powerful training capabilities to Confluence. It allows HR teams and team leads to create customized courses, quizzes, and even certifications, all within Confluence’s interface.
With Smart Courses, you can build engaging training modules using rich content: embed Confluence pages, images, videos, and even import SCORM e-learning packages. New hires can browse a global or space catalog to find required training, and a modern course player lets them progress at their own pace. Behind the scenes, Smart Courses provides insights and reporting dashboards, so you can track each learner’s activity, quiz scores, and course completion rates. This integration essentially turns Confluence into a full-fledged LMS, eliminating the need for external training systems.

Key benefits of integrating Smart Courses with Confluence include:

• Easy content creation: Smart Courses provides a straightforward course editor directly within Confluence. Team leads can easily assemble pages, videos, and quizzes into sections and lessons without technical expertise.
• Centralized course catalog: All training materials reside in Confluence. New hires have a one-stop catalog to find their onboarding courses or reference materials, with robust search and filtering.
• Progress tracking and reporting: Both learners and managers can track training progress. Smart Courses’ Insights give a clear view of each employee’s completions, quiz scores, and overall progression.
• Unique Confluence experience: Since training occurs within Confluence, new hires can access learning materials alongside documentation and collaboration tools .

Overall, integrating Smart Courses with Confluence ensures that onboarding is not just a documentation exercise, but an interactive learning journey embedded in the tools your team already uses daily.

New skills and prerequisites: building a skills-based onboarding path

Defining key skills for structured learning

One of the added features in the latest Smart Courses release is the introduction of Skills & Course Prerequisites. This feature brings structure and personalization to onboarding. It allows you to define key skills that your organization wants every learner to acquire and link those skills to courses and exams. For example, an onboarding program might define a skill called “Product Knowledge Basics.” As an admin, you can configure Smart Courses to grant learners a skill upon completion of specific introductory courses.

Controlling learning progress with prerequisites

You can now set prerequisites on courses based on these skills. For instance, an advanced course like “Product Advanced Features” can be locked until the new hire has earned the Product Knowledge Basics skill. Learners cannot start a course unless they already hold the required skill, ensuring they build on a solid foundation instead of skipping ahead. This sequence ensures employees receive the right content at the right time and progress at a steady, structured pace.

Empowering learners through visibility

Each course landing page clearly displays which skills are required before a learner can start. Employees can see their earned skills and track growth through a user dashboard. This transparency helps them see progress as a meaningful journey rather than a checklist, turning training into a motivating, skill-building experience.

Aligning training with business competencies

For team leads and HR, you can add custom Skills & Prerequisites to align onboarding with core competencies. Courses can be mapped to key skills like Security Awareness, Product Knowledge, or Compliance Basics, ensuring new hires develop the right capabilities in the right order. This structured, skills-based approach prevents knowledge gaps and improves long-term retention.

Keeping learners engaged and informed

Motivating learners with progress tracking and user dashboard

Smart Courses’ skill-tracking increases engagement by breaking onboarding into achievable milestones. Learners receive automated notifications when they gain or lose a new skill, helping them stay informed and motivated throughout the process, and they can check them out through the user dashboard.

Managing progress with the User Insights board

The new User Insights board gives team leads and HR full visibility into learners’ progress. It displays course completions, time spent learning, expired course, and earned skills. This makes it easier to track onboarding progress, identify gaps, and provide timely support.

Additional features that enhance onboarding and training

Reinforcing learning through quizzes and certifications

Smart Courses supports multiple quiz formats, exams, and certifications to reinforce learning. Each skill can be linked to measurable assessments, ensuring employees demonstrate knowledge before progressing.

Managing timelines and multilingual learning

Courses can include assignments, due dates, and reminders to keep learners on schedule. Smart Courses also supports SCORM packages and multiple languages, allowing global teams to access training in their preferred language within Confluence.

Fostering continuous learning

Beyond onboarding, Smart Courses supports recurring training for compliance or upskilling. This transforms Confluence into a continuous learning hub where employees can grow, refresh skills, and discover new courses throughout their careers.

Effective onboarding with skills that drive growth

Integrating Smart Courses LMS into Confluence transforms onboarding from a one-off orientation into an ongoing, skills-driven journey. With Skills, Prerequisites, and Progress features, new hires get the right content at the right time, see the skills they’re building, and stay motivated. Managers gain confidence that training aligns with key skills and can track development precisely, reducing knowledge gaps and improving retention.

Smart Courses makes learning engaging with bite-sized courses, interactive quizzes, and visible skill achievements. It fosters continuous learning, boosts engagement, and creates a culture of growth. By combining Confluence’s collaborative power with LMS structure, organizations can onboard more effectively, build real skills, and help employees grow in the right direction.

Keeping learners motivated along the way is just as important as delivering the right content. When employees can clearly see the skills they’re building, training stops feeling like a box to tick and starts feeling like progress toward something meaningful.

In this blog post, we’ll explore how the new Skills & Prerequisites feature in Smart Courses works, how you can set it up as an admin or creator, and the impact it can have on keeping learners motivated and engaged.

How to Set It Up

For course creators and admins

Setting up Skills & Prerequisites is simple and flexible. From the Smart Courses global configuration, admins can define which courses must be completed or which exams passed for a learner to earn a specific skill. This ensures that skills are directly tied to measurable achievements.

At the course level, creators can also add a skill as a prerequisite. This means learners cannot start a course unless they already hold the required skill. It’s an easy way to enforce learning structure, making sure employees build on a solid foundation instead of skipping ahead.

Admins and users with insights viewing permissions also get access to the new User Insights board, where they can check a learner’s completed courses, assigned courses, and earned skills. This visibility makes it easier to track progress and identify areas for development.

The User Dashboard button in the global catalog now leads you to the new User Insights for a general view.

The User Dashboard remains accessible from Course Insights, User Insights, and User Profile.

For learners

On the course landing page, learners can immediately see which skills are required before they can start a session. Their user dashboard displays all the skills they’ve already earned, helping them track their own growth over time.

Whenever an admin updates the requirements for an obtained skill by adding or removing courses, learners are notified right away. Notifications are also sent whenever a learner gains or loses a skill. This keeps everyone aligned and ensures employees always know where they stand, what they’ve achieved, and what’s needed to maintain or expand their skill set.

The Impact on Learning With Smart Courses

Adding skills and prerequisites makes training in Smart Courses more focused and effective.

For managers and HR teams, the benefits are just as clear. Training can now be aligned with business-critical skills, and prerequisites ensure that employees have the right foundation before advancing. This helps prevent knowledge gaps, improves retention, and makes it easier to measure the value of training efforts.

The result is training that feels purposeful: employees know what they’re working toward, and companies can trust that their people are growing in the right direction.

In short, Smart Courses brings rich LMS capabilities directly into your Confluence environment, so your teams learn in the same place where they collaborate.

Recurrent courses notifications

Many compliance or certification programs require periodic refreshers on a schedule. Smart Courses’ recurrent courses feature automates this process. When a course is set as recurrent, it automatically repeats after each interval; any expired sessions are reset when a learner revisits the course. In practice, this means a learner must retake the course on the new schedule.

The latest update adds email alerts for expired sessions. Now, whenever a learner’s prior session in a recurrent course lapses, Smart Courses sends them an automated notification. This expiration email prompts the learner to retake the course, ensuring nobody misses a mandatory refresher. Administrators can set up an annual or quarterly training and trust that the system will both reset progress and nudge learners to complete it on time.

• Expiration notifications: Learners now receive an email when their previous session expires, reminding them to relaunch the recurring course.
• Automatic session reset: Once the recurrence period ends and the learner revisits the course, Smart Courses resets the session so they can begin the new cycle fresh.

These enhancements make Smart Courses ideal for compliance workflows. You get a complete in-Confluence compliance LMS (with exams, pass thresholds, insights, and more) that automatically handles session renewal. With email reminders built in, both managers and learners no longer need manual follow-up – the system keeps everyone on track.

Multilingual learning and up-to-date translations

Global teams need training in multiple languages. Smart Courses already supports multilingual courses: you can enable up to 24 languages and add translations for each course, even using an AI translation engine to speed up translating the course’s content. In practice, an employee can switch the course player to Spanish, French, or any other enabled language and view the translated content immediately. This avoids duplicating entire courses: everything is managed under one course ID in Confluence.

The new release improves translation management by flagging outdated versions. Now, if you edit the default (source) language of a course after translations exist, Smart Courses marks each translated version as outdated. Course editors will see a clear indicator on any translation that no longer matches the default content. This makes it easy to spot and update older translations. For example, if you update the English course text, the Spanish and French versions will show that they need review. Translators can then use the built-in AI “translate” button (if enabled) to quickly refresh the content. The result is that every learner always sees accurate, up-to-date course material in their language.

• Multi-language support: Smart Courses handles up to 24 languages with AI-assisted translation, so you can offer training to global teams without duplicating work.
• Outdated translation alerts: When the default language of a course is updated, any existing translations that are no longer aligned are highlighted in orange, so administrators can quickly identify which versions need revision.
• Missing Translation alerts: If a course already includes translations but some parts of the content haven’t been translated yet, Smart Courses highlights them in red, making it easy to see what’s incomplete.

Together, these features ensure no translation “falls behind” when you update a course. Administrators can confidently maintain training content in multiple languages, knowing that Smart Courses will both translate new content and alert them to any outdated material.

Our app turns Confluence into a powerful learning platform, letting you build and manage interactive courses right where your teams already work. And now, with our latest Smart Courses for Confluence update, we’re making it even better and easier to use by improving clarity and adding valuable insights.
Let’s explore what’s new.

What’s New in Smart Courses for Confluence

A brand new landing page (Cloud)

Every course in Smart Courses now begins with a completely redesigned landing page, giving learners all the essential details upfront, before they even hit “Start.”

This new layout provides a comprehensive overview, including:

• Course title, description, and thumbnail
• Categories and difficulty level
• Estimated duration and total number of sections
• Last updated date and learner progress
• Number of learners enrolled, course ratings, and feedback

For exam-based courses, the landing page also displays:

• Number of exam attempts remaining
• Hover messages explaining the minimum passing score

This update brings transparency and clarity to the learning experience, helping learners feel informed and confident from the first click.

Learner feedback in course insights (Cloud)

Previously, learner feedback was either sent by email to course contributors or accessed through the app via Global Insights or the Course Editor, where you’d see all feedback grouped from different users.

With this release, we’ve added a dedicated Feedback column directly within Course Insights, allowing you to view feedback per learner, right alongside their performance data.

This means you can now easily understand how each individual learner felt about the course, without leaving the insights view. It’s a faster, more contextual way to connect feedback with learner outcomes.

Smart Terms Glossary and Smart Courses LMS integration ( Cloud & DC)

With our new Smart Terms integration, your courses can now include interactive, highlighted terms perfect for definitions, acronyms, or key concepts.

Just highlight a word or phrase inside your course, and link it to a Smart Term. When learners hover over that term while playing the course, they’ll instantly see the definition pop up without leaving the page.

This works in all the major areas: the course player, preview mode, text, and HTML component. And it’s available for both Cloud and Data Center.

It’s a simple way to make your learning content more interactive and easier to understand.

Version history now shows the publisher name (Cloud)

Working together on course content is now easier to manage and track.

The Version History panel now shows who saved each version, when it was saved, and includes a link to the editor’s profile.
This added visibility helps teams stay aligned and ensures that everyone knows who made which changes and when.

Whether you’re reviewing updates, restoring a previous version, or resolving conflicting edits, knowing the author of each change helps maintain clarity, prevent confusion, and improve accountability throughout the course creation process.

Use Case Example:

Imagine your compliance team is rolling out mandatory security training across departments. Multiple contributors are involved; one adds policy updates, another adjusts quiz questions. Suddenly, a team member notices a critical section was removed.
With version history, you can instantly identify who made the change, why, and when, so you can quickly validate, revert, or refine the content without slowing down the training rollout.

This collaboration ensures the accuracy, quality, and consistency of learning materials, especially when training content impacts regulatory compliance or employee onboarding.

App performance improvements

We have made key performance enhancements behind the scenes to boost speed and responsiveness across Smart Courses.

Whether you are opening a course or navigating between modules, everything now loads faster, so your team can focus on learning, not waiting.

In the course editor, loading times have been significantly reduced, nearly 3x faster, delivering a smoother, more efficient authoring experience for course creators.

In addition, we’ve renamed “capsules” to components to reflect their modular nature better and make course creation more intuitive. Settings that affect the entire site.

Try it all today

These updates are now live in your Smart Courses for Confluence instance.

From clearer course previews and more innovative feedback management to term highlighting and multilingual support, this release is all about making your learning experience more useful, more interactive, and more global.

Ready to explore what’s new?

Head to your Smart Courses dashboard, or visit our documentation to learn more.

Understanding view and add page permissions in Confluence

Confluence spaces use simple permissions to control access and editing. View permission allows a user to find and open a space’s pages and content. Without this permission, the user won’t see the space at all. Add Page permission allows you to create and edit pages in that space, including adding or updating Confluence pages or child pages, whiteboards, and live pages. In effect, View permission determines who can access spaces, and Add Page permission determines who can edit them. If a user lacks the View permission, content in that space is hidden. Without the Add Page permission, a user can only view content, not create or edit it.

How Smart Courses inherits Confluence permissions

Smart Courses LMS inherits the Confluence permission model. In the cloud, course visibility follows space View permissions: anyone who can view a space can view its courses. Similarly, if a user has the “Add Page” permission in a space, they can create a new course there (they’ll see the “New Course” button). Smart Courses also offers course-level restrictions, allowing a course to be limited to specific groups or users, granting exclusive access to those named. In summary, Smart Courses content resides in Confluence spaces and adheres to the same View/Add Page rights as any other page, ensuring consistent course access and creation in accordance with Confluence’s own access rules.

How permissions shape the learning experience in Confluence

Permissions directly shape what learners and instructors see. Over-restricting View rights can hide valuable training: if a team lacks View permission on a space, its members will never know those courses exist. Conversely, Smart Courses’ restrictions can “hide” courses by hiding them from most users or risk exposing too much content. Properly mapping permissions, however, facilitates learning: teams that use their department space see only their relevant courses, and employees only see training meant for their role. In short, View/Add Page rights determine who can access and create content. A thoughtful permission scheme ensures that learners find the right courses while only instructors and administrators receive course-creation rights.

Global vs Space level course Catalogs: What’s the difference?

Smart Courses offers two catalog views: a global catalog and a space-level catalog. The global catalog (from the Apps menu) aggregates all courses the user has access to across the site( different spaces). Each space also has a space catalog (accessible via a “Courses” entry in that space’s sidebar), which displays only the courses created on that space. Administrators can even disable global courses, forcing every new course to belong to a specific space. This flexibility lets an organization choose between a site-wide learning hub (with global courses) or strictly space-bound course libraries.

Global catalog configuration

Global catalog settings are managed by Smart Courses admins. They can:

• Set the default sort order of courses and pin featured courses.
• Choose which metadata appears on course cards (such as creator name, attendee count, or space name).
• Enable or disable filter panels (e.g., by Difficulty, Categories, Labels, Contributors).
• Define default certificate templates and assignment rules.
• Insights permissions: Control who can access Smart Courses analytics

These global configurations enable administrators to consistently brand and organize the catalog across the site, providing learners with a uniform experience.

Space-level catalog configuration

Space admins can override certain configurations for their space:

• Comments: Enable or disable comments on courses within the space.
• Multi-language support: Turn on or off multi-language courses for that space.
• Certificates: Revert any customized certificate to the global default, or use space-specific ones.
• Space catalog branding: Most organizational settings (such as categories or difficulty levels) are defined globally. Space-level settings enable teams to tailor minor features (such as comments and certificates) to their specific needs without affecting other spaces.

Space admins and catalog management

Each space’s admin fully manages that space’s course catalog. A space admin can:

• Grant or revoke Add Page (course-creation) rights to users or groups in the space.
• Control which Confluence groups have View/Add permissions (thus governing who can see or create courses).
• Configure the space’s catalog filters and branding.
• (If they have Add Page rights) Create courses directly from the space’s catalog page.

In practice, this means each team “owns” its training hub. When a user clicks the Courses entry in a space, they see only that space’s courses. The space admin ensures that the right users have view and add rights, and can curate the course catalog for their team. Meanwhile, global admins oversee settings that affect the entire site.

Real-World Use Cases: Permission Strategies across 3 companies

Company A: Department-based access

Each department HR, Sales, Marketing) has its own Confluence space. Team members are only granted access to their respective department’s space. As a result:

• Learners only see relevant training
• Content is siloed but organized
• Each department owns and controls its catalog

Company B: Project-based cross-functional access

Spaces are organized around projects rather than departments. For example:

• Project 1: Sales, Marketing, Design
• Project 2: Operations, Quality
• Project 3: Sales, Operations, Marketing

Users are granted access to the spaces for the projects in which they’re involved. Smart Courses restrictions are used to fine-tune access to specific content. Course contributors and editors are defined per course, allowing precise control over who can view and edit.

Company C: complex shared spaces with guest and anonymous access

This setup includes a mix of:

• Spaces are restricted to specific internal groups
• Spaces shared by multiple groups
• Publicly accessible spaces

Public spaces can be opened to:

• All internal users
• Guest users (e.g., external collaborators)
• Anonymous users (if enabled)

This model is ideal for organizations that offer public training or work with external stakeholders. Permissions must be carefully audited to ensure both security and accessibility.

Best practices for managing permissions

• Map audiences to Confluence groups: Use role-based groups to manage space access more easily.
• Use space-level catalogs for decentralized ownership: Let each team or department manage its content.
• Restrict sensitive content: Utilize Smart Courses restrictions for confidential training, such as audits or leadership materials.
• Plan roles with a clear matrix: Define who can create, edit, and analyze courses based on job functions.
• Audit guest and anonymous access regularly: Review permissions frequently to avoid unintentional data exposure