That’s the gap Smart Tables and Smart Terms close.

Smart Tables gives structured data a functional home inside Confluence.

Smart Terms ensures terminology is defined and consistent across pages.

Used together, they turn Confluence from an archive into a working knowledge system.

What Confluence does well and where it stops

Confluence excels at documentation. It’s a collaborative wiki where teams capture decisions, brainstorm ideas, and store information. Spaces and pages make it easy to organize work, and integrations with tools like Jira keep everything loosely connected.

But when your documentation becomes operational, Confluence shows its limits. Tables in Confluence are fine for static content, but you can’t filter, sort, or calculate within them. If you need to slice data by priority or generate a quick chart, the answer is usually “no.” Teams end up exporting to spreadsheets, and those spreadsheets become the new source of truth while Confluence pages go stale.

Teams often try to address this with glossary pages, tooltips, or expand macros. These solutions can work temporarily, but they rely on manual linking and individual page authors remembering to apply them. Over time, definitions drift, duplicates appear, and terminology becomes inconsistent across spaces.

Smart Terms solves this by introducing a centralized terminology layer for Confluence. Instead of defining terms manually on individual pages, teams maintain a single glossary in which each term includes an official definition, synonyms, and related documentation. Smart Terms then automatically detects these terms across pages and highlights them with consistent tooltips. Because the definitions are managed in one place, updating a term once updates it everywhere, ensuring that teams across the organization use the same language and understand the same meaning.

This is the ceiling: Confluence captures knowledge well. It doesn’t operationalize it at scale. Smart Tables extends Confluence’s data capabilities. Smart Terms extends language governance.

Use case: Transforming onboarding with Smart Tables and Smart Terms

Consider how a growing technology company uses Confluence to onboard new employees. Before adopting Smart Tables and Smart Terms, the onboarding process looked like this:

• A long page titled “New Hire Tasks” listed steps like “Set up your laptop,” “Complete security training,” and “Read the architecture runbook.” Managers copied this list from a spreadsheet, so some formatting broke, and deadlines and assignees disappeared.
• Acronyms such as “HLD,” “QA,” and “SOC2” peppered the document with no explanation. New hires had to ask someone or search the wiki, hoping to find a page that defined them.
• Managers couldn’t see who had completed which tasks without reaching out individually, and any updates had to be made in multiple places to keep the spreadsheet and the Confluence page aligned.

Step 1: Converting the task list into a Smart Table

The team decided to turn their New Hire Tasks page into a Smart Table. Instead of a static list, they created a structured table with columns for the task description, the responsible person, due dates, status, and priority. Each column used the appropriate field type dates for deadlines, a user field for assignees, and a status field for tracking progress. Because the data was now structured, managers could filter tasks to see which ones were overdue or assigned to specific departments. They could also sort tasks by priority and generate quick reports without leaving Confluence.

Step 2: Defining internal language with Smart Terms

While setting up the Smart Table, they noticed that many tasks referenced specialized terms like “SOC2 training,” “HLD review,” and “MFA enrollment.” To avoid confusion, they compiled these terms into a Smart Terms glossary. Each term included a clear definition, a link to the relevant policy or documentation, and, where appropriate, synonyms or acronyms so that different variations of the same concept could still be recognized and explained consistently. For example, “HLD” was defined as “High-Level Design document used to describe system architecture and components.” The glossary also provided translations for teams working in multiple languages.

Once the terms were defined, Smart Terms automatically highlighted them in the Confluence page. New hires could hover over “HLD” or “MFA” to see the full definition without navigating away from the task list. Because the glossary was centralized, updating a definition once ensured consistency across all pages and spaces.

Step 3: Enforcing consistency and tracking progress

With Smart Tables handling the structure and Smart Terms handling the language, the onboarding page became a living document. Managers could watch task progress in real time, filtering by status or assignee. New hires understood every term they encountered, and if a new acronym cropped up, it was easy to add it to the glossary and have it highlighted everywhere.

By keeping the task list in Confluence rather than exporting it to spreadsheets, the team reduced duplication and version-control issues. Smart Tables’ built‑in formulas automatically calculated completion percentages, and a pivot view summarized onboarding progress across departments. Meanwhile, Smart Terms maintained the company’s internal language. Even as processes changed, the glossary could be updated once and reflected throughout Confluence.

The result

Combining Smart Tables and Smart Terms turned a confusing onboarding checklist into a structured, self‑explanatory experience. New hires completed tasks faster because they knew what each step required. Managers saved time by filtering and reporting directly in Confluence. And everyone began using the same language, reducing miscommunication and reinforcing company standards.

Bringing it all together

The problem of outdated pages, copied spreadsheets, and inconsistent terminology is not unique to onboarding. Any process that involves structured data and specialized language, from compliance tracking to product roadmaps, suffers when Confluence is used as a static archive. Smart Tables solves the data side, giving you a place to filter, sort, and calculate without leaving the page. Smart Terms solves the language side, ensuring that everyone reads and uses the same definitions across the wiki.

By adopting both, your Confluence space evolves from a collection of documents into a working knowledge system. Data stays fresh, language stays clear, and your team stops losing knowledge to siloed files and context‑less jargon.

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.

We’ll walk through methodology, side-by-side results, pros/cons, use-case recommendations, and a verdict. The goal: help Confluence users and decision-makers (especially those evaluating switching or upgrades) choose wisely.

Methodology & Benchmark Criteria

To make this comparison fair and meaningful, we defined the following criteria and approach:

Test setup & process

To ensure a fair and comprehensive evaluation, we created identical test tables and converted or wrapped them within each plugin. We then performed a series of common data-management tasks such as applying multiple filters, sorting by several columns, adding formulas (SUM, IF…), building pivots, exporting to CSV and PDF, and reverting changes. Throughout the process, we recorded errors, and noted points of friction that could impact the user experience.

To validate our findings, we also cross-checked vendor documentation, user reviews, and community feedback. The results below present a detailed comparison of each tool, complete with insights, commentary, and direct links to supporting documentation.

A full comparison: Smart Tables vs Table Filter vs Aura Table Filter

Below is a comparison table summarizing feature support (✓ = supported, ✗ = not supported).

Tables main features

Features	Smart Tables	Table Filter	Aura Table Filter
Live edit in Confluence pages
Consistent filtering
Calculations & excel like functions	Smart Tables supported functions	(Supports only 5 formulas for calculating columns and only 7 formulas for calculating rows)
Charts	(7 chart types, 4 themes, labels)	(15 chart types, Appearance, themes)	(Less configuration and customizations)
Pivot tables
SQL queries	Coming soon
Spreadsheets macro
Collaborative editing in Spreadsheet
Convert Confluence tables into spreadsheet
Sorting
Grouping
Search in the entire table
Sample table
Revert to Confluence table
Export table	(XLSX, CSV, Word, PDF)	(CSV, Word, PDF)	(CSV, Word, PDF)
Import table	(XLSX, CSV)	(CSV, JSON)
Tabs mode
Pagination
Support	(For every subscription)	(Premium support for advanced plans)	(Only for pro plan)

Native Confluence macro support

Macro/App	Smart Tables ( Creativas)	Table Filter & Spreadsheets (Stiltsoft)	Aura (Appanvil)
Support Atlassian smart links (Confluence page, Jira ticket)
Support external smart links
Table respects the Confluence page width and does not exceed it when media files are used
Display attachments and media files in the page viewer
View attached files right from the page viewer
Faithful Confluence page PDF export style		(Wide media files cause the table to be cropped)	(Does not support macros)
Support expand macro			(Macro titles and buttons are not visible)
Support quotes			(Displays only the text)
Support code snippets		(The native line numbering is removed)	(Displays only the text)
Support Decision macro
Clicking the mentioned username directs you to their profile
Interaction with Action item macro			(Cannot be selected)
Support Info panel macro		(Except the note panel)

Keynotes & observations

Each of the evaluated Confluence table apps brings its own strengths and focus areas, offering different approaches to data management and collaboration within Confluence.

• Smart Tables for Confluence delivers a modern experience with strong performance, intuitive design, and advanced features like global search, sorting, grouping, and import/export. Its seamless integration with Smart Links, Live Docs, and mentions makes it a solid choice for teams seeking a complete, collaborative solution.
• Table Filter by Stiltsoft remains a well-established and reliable tool, offering comprehensive filtering and pivot functionality. While its interface feels more traditional, it continues to serve teams that value stability and proven analytical capabilities.
• Aura Table Filter for Confluence focuses on simplicity and visual presentation. It offers core filtering and sorting options, making it a great fit for teams that prioritize page design and readability over advanced data manipulation.
• Support, documentation, and community involvement matter greatly when users bump into issues. Creativas, Stiltsoft, and Appanvil are active on the Atlassian community and provide tutorial resources.

In the end, all three tools address different needs, from analytical power to visual clarity, allowing teams to choose the solution that best aligns with their workflows and goals.

Usecase: Project Management with Confluence

A project management team maintains a quarterly performance report in Confluence. The report includes multiple tables summarizing:

• Project timelines and completion rates
• Team workloads and logged hours
• Budget vs. actual spend per department

The team needs to combine data from several pages, perform calculations, and group information by department to prepare a shareable PDF report for leadership.

However, native Confluence tables make this process time-consuming and inconsistent; formulas aren’t supported, data formatting often breaks during export, and preserving Atlassian’s macro design in exports is unreliable while using some marketplace apps for Confluence tables.

Solution with Smart Tables

Smart Tables allows users to apply advanced formulas to calculate totals, variances, or completion averages directly inside Confluence. The team can then use grouping to organize results by department, sorting to highlight projects with the largest budget gaps or lowest completion rates.

For deeper insights, users can apply filters to focus on specific quarters, departments, or project statuses, for example, isolating only “In Progress” projects or reviewing results from a single department. In addition, Smart Tables supports pivot tables, enabling teams to summarize complex datasets into clear, aggregated views. For example, this allows them to compare total spend versus planned budget across all departments or review average completion rates per quarter. When exporting to PDF, Smart Tables preserves the original Atlassian macro design and table layout, ensuring that charts, panels, and formatting appear consistently. This makes report sharing with leadership smooth, professional, and visually accurate.

Solution with Table Filter

Table Filter by Stiltsoft supports the team’s need for data analysis through its pivot and formula macros, allowing basic calculations for light comparisons. The team can filter by department or project status and generate summarized overviews using the Pivot Table macro. While it does not support inline grouping in the same way as Smart Tables, grouping can be simulated through pivot configuration. PDF export works reliably for table data but may not fully preserve Atlassian macro styling or complex visual layouts, sometimes requiring post-editing. Overall, it enables solid analytical reporting within Confluence but demands slightly more setup and macro configuration.

Solution with Aura Table Filter

Aura Table Filter helps the team display their quarterly report in a clean, visually structured format. It supports basic sorting, grouping and filtering, allowing managers to quickly narrow down data by department, project status, or timeframe. However, it does not support adding formulas for calculations, which limits its analytical capabilities. Additionally, Aura Table Filter is not fully compatible with most native Confluence macros, which can affect how the layout and styling are preserved during PDF export. As a result, exported pages may not fully match the original design. Aura remains a solid choice for teams that value presentation and visual clarity over in-depth data processing.

In 2025, Smart Tables for Confluence offers one of the most substantial balances of interactivity, formula power, usability, and flexibility, particularly for teams that want to work inside Confluence rather than hopping to Excel. Meanwhile, Table Filter & Spreadsheets remains a compelling, macro-rich option for advanced users building dashboards, merging data, or needing deep macro integration. The Aura table filter still may serve in simpler environments where ease and minimality are priorities.

A fresh look for a better experience

The first thing you’ll notice is the redesigned interface. We’ve given Smart Tables a modern, streamlined look with clearer layouts, improved navigation, and editing experience. For teams handling long lists of tasks, budgets, or survey data, the updated design makes it easier to scan and work with information without feeling overwhelmed. It’s a small change with a big impact: instead of wrestling with clutter, you can focus on your data.

Global search: Finding the needle in the haystack

When your table has hundreds of rows, finding one specific piece of information can be frustrating. That’s why we’ve added Global Search. It allows you to search across every column in seconds, with options for case sensitivity and even regular expressions (regex) for advanced filtering. For example, a project manager can instantly find all tasks marked as High Priority, or a team lead can filter rows assigned to a specific colleague.

Grouping and sorting: Organize data the way you want

Tables often aren’t just about storing information; they’re about spotting patterns and drawing insights. With the new Sorting and Grouping features, Smart Tables lets you arrange data in a way that makes the most sense. A project manager can sort tasks by priority to focus on what matters most, while HR teams can group employees by department to review progress at a glance. Instead of exporting data into Excel just to reorganize it, you can now do everything directly in Confluence.

It’s essential to note that sorting and grouping are mutually exclusive options: you can either sort a table or group it, but not both simultaneously.

Import and Export with ease

We know your data doesn’t live in one place. Sometimes it starts in a spreadsheet; sometimes it needs to be shared outside of Confluence. Smart Tables now bridges that gap with easy Import and Export options. You can bring in data from Excel or CSV files in just a few clicks, so your existing spreadsheets are instantly usable inside Confluence. And when it’s time to share, you can export tables to Excel, CSV, Word, or PDF, which is perfect for reports, client updates, or advanced analysis. This flexibility saves hours of copy-pasting and keeps your workflow smooth.

Get started with a Sample Table

You’ll now see a Smart Tables icon in the page byline, right under the page title. From there, you can quickly convert an existing Confluence table into a Smart Table, import data from Excel or CSV, or add a brand-new sample table.

For teams just getting started, the Quick Start option makes it effortless: with one click, you can insert a ready-to-use Smart Table and begin exploring features immediately. Whether you’re testing the app for the first time or setting up a new project, you can get hands-on in seconds.

Enhanced table content

This release also introduces several enhancements that make working with Smart Tables smoother and more collaborative.

You can now use Smart Links to display cleaner, contextual links within your tables.
Even better, both Smart Tables and Live Spreadsheets can now be embedded inside a Live Doc. Collaboration becomes easier with mention macro support, letting you tag teammates directly within tables, while expand macros help keep pages organized by tucking large datasets into collapsible sections.

Built on Forge, built for the future

This release isn’t just about adding new features; it’s about laying a foundation for what’s next. By making Smart Tables fully Forge native, we’ve boosted performance, scalability, and stability. That means faster tables today and more room for innovation tomorrow.

Why it matters

This release transforms Smart Tables from a simple table add-on into a real productivity tool. You’ll spend less time searching, reorganizing, and reformatting and more time analyzing, sharing, and acting on your data. Whether you’re managing projects, running HR processes, or preparing reports for leadership, Smart Tables now adapts to your workflow and removes the friction from working with tables in Confluence.

Stay tuned for the upcoming release!

While Confluence offers a strong structural foundation, it falls short when delivering interactive training, terminology management, and real-time performance tracking all are essential for a successful onboarding program.

Effective onboarding isn’t just about giving new hires access to information it’s about delivering structured learning, ensuring consistent understanding, and measuring progress along the way. That’s where the limitations of static documentation become clear.

• Training matters because employees need to understand not just what to do, but how and why, through engaging, structured experiences.
• Glossaries matter because internal language and acronyms can confuse new hires and slow their integration.
• Data tracking matters because HR teams need to monitor onboarding effectiveness, identify bottlenecks, and report on results.

To address these challenges without leaving Confluence, we created an integrated solution:

• Smart Courses: Build and deliver interactive training modules with quizzes, capsules, and progress tracking.
• Smart Terms: Maintain a dynamic glossary that automatically highlights terminology across Confluence.
• Smart Tables: Track onboarding progress and metrics with live data visualizations and advanced spreadsheets.

Together, these apps transform Confluence into a powerful, all-in-one platform that supports your entire onboarding journey, from the first login to full productivity.

In the sections below, we’ll walk through how this works in practice using a real-world use case: onboarding new employees across departments.

Use case: new employee onboarding program

An HR manager must ensure that every new hire understands the company’s processes, culture, and expectations and becomes productive as quickly as possible. However, achieving this is not easy.

Why does training matter?

Structured training gives new hires the knowledge and confidence they need to succeed. Without it, onboarding becomes inconsistent and slow. Interactive, trackable courses ensure everyone follows the same learning path at their own pace.

1. Smart Courses for Confluence for onboarding training

1.1 Featured Courses

With the Featured Courses option, HR teams can now highlight the most important or time-sensitive training modules directly within the course catalog. By marking a course as “featured” in the catalog configuration, it automatically appears at the top, ensuring that new hires can easily find and access critical content, such as compliance training, company culture introductions, or mandatory onboarding sessions.

1.2 Course editor and learning capsules

Using an intuitive drag-and-drop interface, you can create interactive learning capsules that combine videos, quizzes, documents, and even existing Confluence pages, transforming static content into dynamic onboarding experiences. These capsules support various learning styles while reinforcing knowledge retention through built-in quizzes and assessments. Whether you’re onboarding new hires or delivering compliance training, Smart Courses makes it easy to design structured, multimedia-rich courses that keep learners engaged and on track.

1.3 Course catalog and configuration

Once created, courses are listed in a searchable course catalog, making it easy for new employees to self-enroll in required training. The catalog includes filters and tags to facilitate navigation, enabling users to quickly locate courses relevant to their role, team, or onboarding stage. This ensures a personalized and efficient learning experience.

1.4 Assign Courses and Continuous Assignment

Smart Courses enables automated course assignments, enrolling users as soon as they join specific Confluence groups. With Continuous Assignment, you can set due dates, send reminders on custom schedules, and personalize notification messages, ensuring timely, hands-off delivery of onboarding training.

1.5 Insights and reporting

With Smart Courses, you don’t have to guess how training is going you get real-time insights right within Confluence.
See who’s enrolled, who’s completed what, and how each person performed in quizzes, all from a built-in dashboard.

This helps you quickly identify drop-offs, pinpoint knowledge gaps, and continually improve your content. Whether you’re onboarding 5 or 50 people, you’re always in control and fully informed.

1.6 Multi language

Smart Courses’ muti-language feature empowers global teams by delivering training in over 24 languages, ensuring inclusivity and consistency across diverse workforces. Administrators can set a default language and add additional languages to courses, with the option to utilize the AI Engine for bulk translations of course content.

Why a glossary matters

Every company has its own different cultural and language backgrounds. Without clear definitions, new hires get confused or disengaged. A built-in glossary ensures consistent and accessible terminology across all onboarding materials.

2. Consistent terminology with Smart Terms for Confluence

2.1 Term highlighting

As learners navigate Confluence pages, Smart Terms highlights defined terminology in context, linking directly to glossary entries so users can quickly reference definitions without leaving the course content.

2.2 Multi-language glossary

Even with diverse backgrounds, cultures, and languages, Smart Terms simplifies communication by offering a multi-language glossary. It allows you to create and manage glossaries in over 24 languages, ensuring that each user sees terms in their preferred language, enhancing clarity and inclusivity across your Confluence workspace.

Tracking progress

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Tracking progress, quiz scores, and completion rates helps identify knowledge gaps and optimize onboarding. Filters and charts make it easy to monitor performance by role or department.

3. Real-Time data and visualization with Smart Tables

3.1 Live Spreadsheet macro

Embed fully interactive spreadsheets into Confluence using the Live Spreadsheet macro, allowing HR and managers to update onboarding checklists, forecasts, and training schedules collaboratively.

3.2 Table filters and charts

Apply advanced table filters to slice and dice onboarding data, such as filtering by department or hire date, and generate table charts to visualize completion rates, average time-to-competency, and other key performance indicators (KPIs).

3.3 Pivot tables and supported functions

Use pivot tables to summarize performance metrics across dimensions (e.g., role, location). Leverage Smart Tables’ extensive library of supported functions for calculations SUM, AVERAGE, IF, and more to build dynamic reports that update as source data changes.

Bringing It All Together: One platform for all

Switching between tools wastes time and breaks focus. Keeping training, terminology, and tracking inside Confluence ensures a smoother, distraction-free onboarding experience for both HR teams and new employees.

By combining Smart Courses (LMS) for structured training, Smart Terms for consistent terminology, and Smart Tables for live data visualization, your onboarding program becomes a self-contained ecosystem within Confluence. New hires engage with interactive courses and instantly access glossary definitions. You gain actionable insights through real-time dashboards, ultimately accelerating time-to-productivity and ensuring knowledge retention.

Whether you’re launching a global compliance initiative or scaling technical training, Creativas’ suite of Confluence apps empowers your team to deliver, manage, and measure learning with unprecedented efficiency.

Ready to transform your onboarding experience? Explore our apps from the Atlassian Marketplace:

Where does your HR team currently track employee goals, feedback, and performance updates? If you’re using Confluence, you’re already heading in the right direction. If not, now’s the perfect time to rethink how your team collaborates.

The benefits of using Confluence for centralized HR performance management

Confluence isn’t just a corporate wiki; it’s a powerful hub for HR teams to centralize documentation, streamline feedback, and build a culture of transparency.

From structured data to rich text collaboration, Confluence provides an intuitive workspace where performance conversations are easily documented, updated, and shared across departments.

And here’s where it gets even more powerful: Confluence transforms into a dynamic, data driven HR performance platform when you add Smart Tables into the mix. You can filter, calculate, and visualize performance data all without leaving the page.

With Smart Tables for Confluence, tracking employee performance becomes real-time, automated, and collaborative.

How to track employee performance in real-time using Confluence & Smart Tables

HR teams handle multiple tasks, from recruitment to performance reviews to goal tracking. Smart Tables for Confluence simplify performance management by creating dynamic, real-time tables that track progress, update scores, and centralize feedback all within the same platform.

With Smart Tables for Confluence, HR managers can:

• Centralized performance data: Keep everything in one place, easily accessible to managers and employees.

• Track KPIs in real-time: No more outdated reports; performance data is always current.
• Automate calculations: One click to apply formulas for your table

• Enhance collaboration: Team leads, HR managers, and department Leads can instantly access and update performance data.

Excel-Like Calculations

Performance tracking often requires complex calculations. Instead of using external spreadsheets, Smart Tables bring Excel-like functions (SUM, AVERAGE, IF, COUNTIF) directly into Confluence. HR teams can instantly calculate performance scores, bonus eligibility, and goal achievements, making decisions faster and easier.

With Smart Tables for Confluence, HR managers can perform:

• Performance score calculations: Use SUM, AVERAGE, IF, and COUNTIF to automate employee ratings.
• Bonus & salary adjustments: Instantly calculate bonus eligibility based on performance metrics.
• Team productivity trends: Track and compare performance over time within Confluence.

No need to export data to Excel, Smart Tables allow HR teams to calculate everything inside Confluence, saving hours of work each week.

Advanced filtering

Large organizations generate vast amounts of HR data.

Smart Tables’ advanced filtering helps HR teams drill down into specific metrics by department, role, or performance criteria.

This enables quick identification of top performers, areas for improvement, and emerging trends, ensuring accurate data always backs HR decisions.
HR teams deal with massive amounts of employee performance data. Finding relevant insights in this sea of numbers can be overwhelming.

Smart Tables simplify this by allowing advanced filtering, so HR teams can quickly:

• Filter by department: View performance only for specific teams.
• Sort by time period: Track improvements over months or years.
• Identify top & low performers: Instantly see who’s excelling and who needs coaching.

Instead of digging through endless spreadsheets, HR managers can pinpoint key insights in seconds, leading to faster and more accurate decision-making.

Visualizing employee performance with charts and graphs

Data visualization is crucial for presenting complex performance metrics.

Smart Tables allow HR teams to create automated charts and graphs, bar charts for team performance, line graphs for individual progress, and pie charts for KPI distributions.

These visual insights make trends easy to understand and communicate to leadership.

With Smart Tables for Confluence, HR teams can:

• Create bar charts: Compare performance scores across teams.
• Use line graphs: Track employee progress over time.
• Generate pie charts: Break down performance distribution at a glance.

These visual tools make HR reports more engaging and help leadership make data-driven decisions faster.

Transform HR performance tracking with Smart Tables for Confluence

HR teams need smarter, faster, and more collaborative ways to track performance. Smart Tables and Confluence provide the perfect solution, offering:

• Real-time performance tracking
• Automated calculations & data filtering
• Interactive charts & visual reports
• Seamless collaboration across HR teams

By converting Confluence tables into dynamic Smart Tables, HR managers can save time, eliminate errors, and make performance tracking effortless.

This is where Smart Tables for Confluence comes in! It is a fantastic solution that brings Excel-like functionalities directly into Confluence, enabling teams to efficiently manage projects and generate reports without switching between multiple tools or apps.

Confluence provides a powerful foundation for knowledge sharing and collaboration, and its flexibility allows Atlassian Marketplace partners to develop innovative tools that enhance the experience: expanding table calculations, improving data visualization, and adding even more functionality!

Transforming Confluence into a project management and reporting hub

Confluence built-in project management features

Confluence provides a set of features that allows users to enhance project planning and execution, such as :

Despite these strengths, project managers often need enhanced table functionalities to track progress, analyze data, and generate reports within Confluence.

Confluence for project management made easy with Smart Tables

Many project managers use tables and spreadsheets to track progress, analyze budgets, and manage resources. These traditional spreadsheets require switching between applications, leading to certain inefficiencies and version control issues.

Incorporating Smart Tables eliminates the need for external tools by simplifying processes and maintaining data security and consistency.

Smart Tables for Confluence removes this gap by offering :

A centralized project dashboard within the same Confluence space is crucial for mentoring deadlines, responsibilities, and overall progress. With Smart Tables, teams can:

Step 3: Real-time collaboration within :

live SpreadSheet

Live Spreadsheet makes sure that anyone can edit, review, and analyze data in real time at the same time, live, without the need for live calls or meetings.

Smart Tables

With concurrent editing, teams can collaborate simultaneously, while managers can monitor changes as they are made, preventing unnecessary edits.

Step 4: Data visualization

With built-in chart tools, teams can transform tables into interactive visual reports, making it easier to track trends, KPIs…

Why choose Smart Tables over external Spreadsheets?

• security risks: sensitive data leaks
• manager’s confusion: missed the updates, buried in threads

Using Excel alongside Confluence can create several inefficiencies, such as frequent tool switching, which slows down workflows, version control might lead to outdated or even duplicated data, and scattered files make collaboration difficult

How to start in 5 minutes

1. Install the Smart Tables From Atlassian Marketplace
2. Convert existing tables to Smart Tables
3. Add formulas, chart or pivot tables

Smart Tables isn’t about replacing Excel; it’s about making Confluence the reference your team needs. Fewer tabs, fewer mistakes, faster decisions.

As a marketer, tracking your numbers is essential. It’s how you decide what to do and when to do it. Data is what separates guesswork from strategy, and without it, marketing efforts risk falling flat. The good news? You don’t need to start from scratch or hunt for fancy tools. If your team already uses Confluence, you’ve got a solid foundation to build on. With its ability to centralize information and foster collaboration, Confluence is a great place to start consolidating your data and setting the stage for smarter decisions.

In this blog, we’re diving into why data analysis is a non-negotiable part of modern marketing and how Smart Tables for Confluence can help marketers analyze and collaborate on data.

Why marketing data analysis matters

Marketing has come a long way from the old days of flashy and pushy tactics, especially digital marketing. Remember pop-up ads and mass email blasts sent to anyone and everyone? Back then, the strategy was more like throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. This means that marketers used to work on reaching as many people as possible so some would notice the product and buy it. Therefore, the wider the audience you reach, the higher your chances of selling are.

However, today, the game has changed entirely. Marketing is now about precision, personalization, and making meaningful connections. This means that the more precise your aim is, the higher your chances of selling are. Marketing now thrives on careful segmentation and automation. Drip campaigns triggered by user actions are a great example of ensuring every message feels relevant and well-timed, boosting engagement and driving results.

With better access to customer data, marketers can craft campaigns that resonate deeply with specific audience segments. It’s no longer about the volume but about delivering quality content that connects. This focus on personalization isn’t just more effective; it also creates a better customer experience, fostering trust and loyalty and more sales eventually.

To sum it all up, today, every decision relies on numbers. Marketing data analysis is crucial for many reasons, especially to:

• Justify budgets and strategies: Clear, quantifiable results make it easier to pitch ideas or secure funding for campaigns.
• Measure campaign performance: Track which channels deliver the best ROI, from social media ads to email marketing.
• Understand your audience: Analytics reveals what your audience responds to and helps you tailor your messaging.

How Smart Tables for Confluence makes marketing data analysis easier

Honestly, we know words like analytics, data, and precision can sound intimidating. You might picture something straight out of a sci-fi movie: multiple screens, endless rows of numbers, and a sea of complex charts. But here’s the good thing: it doesn’t have to be that overwhelming. You can start simple. In fact, you can start with tools your team is already using, like Confluence, where you’re probably already collaborating on reports and other projects.

Confluence tables are already helpful for tracking numbers, but they can do so much more with a small yet powerful upgrade. Smart Tables for Confluence turns your basic tables into dynamic workspaces. It adds features like filtering, Excel functions, and reporting tools, all smoothly integrated into Confluence. This means you can skip juggling multiple platforms or exporting data back and forth. Everything happens right where your team is already working, making it easier to dive into analysis.

For marketing teams, using Smart Tables for Confluence can simplify the way campaign metrics, web traffic data, or ad performance numbers are managed. Need to filter your data to focus on key metrics? Done. Want to calculate conversion rates or engagement percentages without leaving the page? Easy. Prefer visuals? Create charts or pivot tables to present your findings in a way that stands out.

And it’s not just about the marketing team. Collaboration is key in marketing, and Smart Tables makes it effortless. Your team can edit, analyze, and update data together in real time. So, no more messy version control or freaking-out “Did anyone save the latest file?” emails.

Analyzing campaign performance with Smart Tables

Let’s say your team just wrapped up a social media campaign across multiple platforms. Now it’s time to report, figure out which posts did best, and define where to focus your ad dollars for the next round.

On your Confluence page, add a table with all your important metrics, like reach, impressions, clicks, and conversions, directly into a Smart Table in Confluence. And if you forgot to insert the Smart Tables macro from the beginning and have already started filling out your Confluence table, you can easily convert it to Smart Tables from the page view. To further smooth your operations, you now have the option to enable the tab mode and have all items belonging to one table arranged in different tabs that you can switch between. The tabs contain the Smart Table alongside any charts and pivot tables that were created based on its data.

Next, let the numbers do the talking. Apply formulas to calculate key performance indicators (KPIs) like click-through rates (CTR), engagement rates, or cost per conversion. No manual math, no hassle, and all on the same page as your report.

Now, this is the most important part: figure out the story your data is telling. Turn your results into visually engaging charts or pivot tables that would help you spotlight trends, like which platforms had the highest engagement or where your ads performed best.

Since confluence and collaboration go hand in hand, share the table and insights with your team right there. Everyone can contribute feedback, suggest tweaks, or discuss the next steps without juggling multiple file versions.
And there you go. No more scrambling to piece together numbers or worrying about errors slipping through the cracks. Instead, you and your team can focus on what really matters: refining your strategy, investing in the right platforms, and driving better results next time.

Smart Tables is a versatile tool that every team in the company can use, from the marketing team to the sales team, the support team, and anyone who needs to crunch some numbers. So, by integrating it into your Confluence workflow, you can make data analysis approachable, efficient, and impactful.

Learn more about our other Smart Apps for marketing teams and how they can elevate your Confluence experience. Do you still have any questions regarding Smart Tables for Confluence? Book a demo and let us get to know you and answer your questions!

Without the right tools, you can’t expect your team to be highly responsive and efficient. Providing good tools allows your support team to resolve support tickets efficiently and provide insights that drive product improvement. It might not be an issue for you if you already have an extensive support team managing customers’ queries. But if you have just launched your product and started growing your team, getting an excellent tool for your team doesn’t have to drain your account.

In fact, Jira Service Management (JSM) is excellent at helping your support team track ticket resolution, especially in the software development industry. Integrating Confluence with JSM allows you to organize all the documentation, content, and files your team needs to deliver high-quality service every time.

But it doesn’t stop there. Adding Smart Tables to your Confluence pages will elevate your team’s experience, streamline their process, and, hence, increase their productivity.

So, if you’re managing a small support team or thinking about starting a support team, this article is for you. We will discuss some of the best practices of using Confluence and Smart Tables for Confluence, discover a few of the cool features of Atlassian Intelligence, and, last but not least, share our favorite reporting tips using Smart Tables.

Understanding customer support and ticket volume

Let’s start by understanding a few related concepts. First, we have customer support. It is one of the most crucial teams, whether your product has recently been launched or has already reached maturity. Customer support teams are the people who help customers when they encounter trouble with a company’s products or services. Their ultimate goal is to ensure that customers successfully solve any issues they face with the company’s product and that they continue to happily use your product to solve the main issue they chose it for, aka the job the product was hired for in the first place.

Next, let’s look into customer support tickets and customer support ticket volume. Customer support tickets are raised by customers who have a query or problem related to the product or service they are using. These problems can be classified to:

• Technical Issues
• Billing and Payments
• Product Inquiries
• Complaints and Feedback
• Account Management
• Policy Questions
• Other categories, depending on product specifications

Customer support ticket volume is the number of tickets or queries received by a customer support team from the customers. Tickets can come through different channels, such as:

• Emails
• Phone calls
• Social media messages
• Live chat queries

However, ticket volume is volatile. It can change with product complexity, number of customers, or even seasonal demand. Ticket volume may give information on how many issues or requests customers raise, but it doesn’t always show the support quality.
A high number of tickets means customers are engaged and your product is in demand, but it might also point to problems with the product or communication. The real focus should be not only on handling the volume but also on understanding the types of issues and solving them effectively to keep support quality high. For that, you need organized documentation that is easily accessible to the support team for effective problem-solving.

Efficient documents with Smart Tables

To ensure every customer gets the best support, you need consistent messaging across all platforms. This means all customers should get a message that matches the brand’s voice at every touch point. Also, one issue should be explained and solved the same way every time and with every customer. Businesses must consistently deliver the same value, messaging, quality, and services to customers from the first interaction to the post-purchase support to ensure they will stick around.

However, that is easier said than done. You can’t expect consistency and productivity from your support team if you don’t provide the right tools and guidelines. Confluence can be your team’s go-to wiki. It is the perfect tool to create your knowledge base, centralize potential customer issues, and share best practices. This way, you can guarantee your customers get an excellent, consistent experience and have their issues fixed faster. And, of course, you also guarantee that your team’s working process is seamless.

Stating information in big blocks of words is difficult for readers to navigate, but having it in a table form makes it easier and faster to find the correct information. But not just any table can do that; you need a Smart Table that adds filtering, Excel functions, and reporting features to native Confluence Tables.

It’s simple. Here is how it works: Once you have enabled your Smart Tables for Confluence, you can insert a Smart Table macro from the macro list or through the shortcut “/ Smart Table”.

And if you forgot to start with that and have already started writing your documentation on a native Confluence table, you can easily convert it to Smart Tables from the page view.

Once the table is set up and documentation pages are published, your support team can use the Smart Tables filtering option directly from the Confluence page view by selecting only the needed categories. This will help them quickly identify the specific issue the customer is facing and how to solve it.

You can include in your table as many details as you want to help them filter between the different options faster.

Atlassian Intelligence to summarize your Confluence page and more

We have seen the importance of well-detailed and organized documentation in supporting your team. But let’s be honest: no one likes to read a long document if they don’t really need it. So why not do your team one more favor and generate AI summaries using “Summarize writing” by Atlassian Intelligence to include a page summary that will help your team quickly find any needed details and save time, which they will surely appreciate.

This is not the only feature that Atlassian Intelligence provides; you can basically use it as your personal writing assistant to help you create the content you need. Find out all about it here.

Support tickets: your wealth of hidden insights

Finding efficient ways to manage support tickets is a challenge all businesses face. As previously mentioned, simply responding to customer inquiries and managing ticket volume will not give you a competitive advantage. In fact, along with ticket resolution, continuous team training, and performance monitoring, you should also analyze tickets to find valuable and relevant business insights brought to you directly by customers. Therefore, customer support tickets are not just routine tasks; they actually can enhance your approach to customer satisfaction and product improvement. Hence driving your company’s growth. And don’t worry; we’re not scaring you off from going through the adventure of building your digital product; we’re just giving you a heads-up.

So, let’s take an example for our case: a few-year-old tech startup providing a digital product. This startup is having moderate growth with an increasing adoption of its solution. Therefore, this company is likely in the scaling phase. It is seeing steady growth in sales and installs but is also dealing with some challenges, such as user churn, support issues, and product improvement.

Here, we have a sample of historical data from a one-year period of support tickets and some key metrics such as sales, app installs, uninstalls, and support costs.

Once you convert your native Confluence table to a Smart Table, you can add different Excel functions to perform any necessary calculations.

Another cool thing about the Smart Tables app is that it is also very practical for data visualization. Because we sure know that well-represented information helps any decision-maker see the bigger picture when making strategic decisions.

In this example, various charts were created to analyze business performance and find correlations between the different metrics. Those charts helped to highlight business trends and drive insights into customer behaviors and opportunities for improvement. In fact, when comparing the trends of support tickets and sales, we can find that a peak in support tickets corresponds with lower sales in the same month. This could indicate that unresolved technical problems impacted the customer journey, reduced conversions, or caused potential customers to churn. In addition, we observe during another month that sales increase corresponds with high product inquiries, which could suggest that there is a growing number of users interested in learning about the product.

Another helpful feature in Smart Tables for Confluence is choosing what data to represent by selecting and unselecting the data range from the chart legend. You can also customize the chart type based on your needs and what best fits your data. Hence, you can focus your analysis only on relevant elements for your decision-making.

Of course, the correlations between all metrics will differ from one business to another and will also depend on your industry or niche. However, your business can’t achieve sustainable growth unless you understand how all its aspects are connected and affect each other.

If you found these different Smart Tables features interesting, check out how you can also use Smart Tables for Confluence to revolutionize sales tracking and help you create data reporting all in one place.

Do you still have any questions regarding Smart Tables for Confluence? Book a demo and let us get to know you and answer your questions!