Most teams start using Confluence tables with high hopes. They create pages to track KPIs, monitor performance, and share updates across teams. At first, it works.

But over time, things break down.

Data gets outdated, pages get duplicated, and metrics such as KPI lose consistency. Eventually, teams move their tracking back to spreadsheets.

This isn’t a team problem. It’s a tooling gap.

And it becomes especially visible as organizations try to scale Confluence KPI tracking and project management in Confluence.

The problem with native Confluence Tables

For some teams, a typical KPI table in Confluence looks like this: rows for campaigns or initiatives, columns for owners, deadlines, statuses, and metrics. It’s a reasonable starting structure. But the moment the dataset grows, the cracks appear fast.

Native Confluence tables offer limited filtering and grouping capabilities. You can’t easily filter by owner or status, group by team or priority, or dynamically sort large datasets. Updates rely entirely on people remembering to come back and edit the page.

So teams compensate in predictable ways, duplicating pages for different views, exporting to spreadsheets, and maintaining multiple versions of the same dataset just to answer simple questions.

Smart Tables: a structured layer inside Confluence

Smart Tables addresses the root limitation directly. Rather than treating Confluence pages as documents with embedded tables, Smart Tables turns those tables into interactive, structured datasets without requiring teams to leave the workspace.

The shift sounds subtle. Its effects are not.

• Filtering
  Each stakeholder sees only their slice of data, by team, status, quarter, or priority. What makes this powerful is that filters are persistent, reusable views built on top of a consistent schema, so they never break and always reflect live data. One table replaces what used to require multiple duplicated pages, each drifting out of sync.

• Grouping
  As KPI data grows, a long flat list of metrics becomes impossible to scan for different teams, statuses, and priorities all mixed together with no visual hierarchy. Grouping solves this by organizing data into meaningful categories on the fly. Group by team to see how each department is performing at a glance. Group by status to instantly separate what’s on track from what’s at risk. The data doesn’t change just how you navigate it.

• Sorting
  Without sorting, the answers to the most critical questions, which KPIs are underperforming, which campaigns are delivering, and what needs immediate attention, are buried inside the data. Sorting brings them to the surface instantly. Sort by lowest performance to identify risks before they escalate. Sort by highest impact to highlight wins worth sharing. Sort by deadline to stay ahead of what’s coming. Any field, any direction, actionable in seconds.

The foundation of effective Smart Tables tracking is a consistent data structure. Each row represents a single unit of measurement: a campaign, a sprint, or a product initiative. Each column is a defined, standardized field: metric name, owner, team, status, priority, reporting period, performance value.

When every row follows the same schema, the entire table becomes a queryable dataset; that consistency is what transforms a table from a formatted list into a system.

The Atlassian Teamwork Collection: tools becoming a system

With the Atlassian Teamwork Collection, the company is making a deliberate architectural shift: away from individual apps used side by side toward a unified system where planning, documentation, and execution are deeply connected.

This reflects something real about how work actually happens. A decision made in a Confluence page triggers a project tracked in Jira. A sprint outcome updates a KPI that lives in a doc. When tools are isolated, context is lost at every handoff. The Teamwork model is designed to close those gaps.

Even within a better-connected Atlassian ecosystem, Confluence had a specific problem: the moment documentation became operational, tracking deliverables, monitoring KPIs, and managing live project data, its tables became a liability. Static by default, prone to drift, dependent on manual exports. The Teamwork vision needed Confluence to do more.

The bigger shift: from documentation to operations

Together, Smart Tables and the Teamwork Collection represent a broader transformation in how teams manage work.

Reporting consistency, one of the most persistent pain points in project management, gets addressed at the source. KPIs are defined once in a structured format in Confluence. Every stakeholder sees the same data in the same format. Reports are generated from the live source, not assembled from exported fragments.

Just as importantly, this shift doesn’t require teams to change how they work inside Confluence.

Smart Tables works effectively with native Confluence macros and elements, including smart links, attachments, code snippets, decision macros, and user mentions. Tables remain fully integrated with the rest of the page, whether it’s linking to a Jira issue, displaying media, or exporting to PDF.

What this means in practice

A team lead filters the KPI table in Confluence to view only their team’s metrics. A manager groups data by status to spot risks, while an executive sorts by performance to identify priorities before a review. No exports, no duplicate reports, no need to search for the latest version.

This is the experience that Smart Tables enables and that the Atlassian Teamwork Collection is designed to support.

Confluence KPI tracking isn’t about adding more tools or pages. It’s about making existing data structured, consistent, and interactive, with Smart Tables providing the foundation and Atlassian delivering the system that connects it all.

What really sets Smart Terms Apart is its precision and customization. Instead of relying on automatic guesses or generic suggestions, every definition, highlight rule, and translation is intentional and admin-controlled. It doesn’t try to infer meaning it enforces the correct one. Smart Terms gives teams the power to define terms once and apply them consistently everywhere, with complete flexibility over how they appear, who sees them, and how they behave on Confluence pages.

From fine-grained highlight rules to space-level overrides, multilingual glossaries, logographic indexing, and rich definition pop-ups with media, Smart Terms is built for organizations that want reliability and customization, not shortcuts.

Highlighting Engine & Customization

Smart Terms’ highlight engine is highly flexible. You can fine-tune exactly how and where terms are highlighted:

• Auto-highlight or manual: Choose to automatically mark all terms when a page loads, or not. A toggle button on each page lets users turn highlights on or off (If disabled by space/global settings).

• Visual style: Pick your highlight colors and style, set the background color, text color, and underline/bold/italic style.
  You can even add custom CSS for special styling.

• Hover vs click: Control interaction by enabling “highlight on hover” or forcing users to click a word to see definitions. (We’ve seen product teams disable hover so users must click, while support teams keep hover on.)

• First vs all occurrences: Choose whether to highlight only the first occurrence of a term per page, or every occurrence. This avoids overwhelming pages with repeated highlights if desired.

• Substring & sensitivity: Turn on/off substring matching (e.g. highlight “mar” inside “Smart”). Toggle case-sensitive and diacritics-sensitive matching to prevent unintended highlights (e.g. treating “API” differently from “api” or handling accented characters).

• Content targeting: Enable or disable highlighting in specific parts of pages, headings, page titles, links, code blocks, and even blog posts can all be individually toggled.

When you hover or click a highlighted term, a definition pop-up appears with all details (term title, definition text, media, related terms, etc.). If a term has multiple definitions (e.g. an acronym vs. a full phrase), users can slide between them in the pop-up. Related terms or synonyms flash briefly to draw attention, helping users explore your custom glossary easily.

Smart Terms supports space-level and user-level rules. Admins can disable highlighting globally or for specific glossaries.

Likewise, each space can override settings: in one real-world example, an “Accounting” space simply turned off all highlighting, while a “Product” space enabled highlighting with a yellow, bold style and disabled hover. Individual users can even disable Smart Terms on their profile if they prefer. This per-space/user flexibility means you can highlight terms differently for each team without affecting others.

Multi-Language & Logographic Support

Smart Terms is built for global teams. You define terms in a default language, then add translations as needed. You can create a new term and immediately choose multiple languages, or add translations later via the term editor. Bulk import of multi-language terms from Excel is also supported for fast setup.

When highlighting, Smart Terms can mark up all translations at once or just the user’s language. For example, if your Confluence pages have content in English and German, you can highlight both English and German terms for a mixed audience.
Or you can choose “only user language” mode: a German user will see only German-term highlights, while an English user sees only English terms.
This is ideal when different groups share pages (e.g. an external audience of mixed nationalities sees all translations, or a multicultural team each sees terms in their own language).

Smart Terms even handles logographic languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean). It applies language-specific indexing so those terms sort sensibly in glossaries.
For instance, Japanese terms are indexed by gojūon order, Chinese by character stroke count or Pinyin, and Korean by the initial Hangul consonant.
If the app misdetects a language, you can manually fix the index letters. This support means you can build a truly multi-language glossary in Confluence – even for CJK (Chinese/Japanese/Korean) text without hassle.

In addition to translations, Smart Terms supports alternate terms and meanings. Each term can have multiple definitions, synonyms, or related terms. For example, the term Item might have two meanings (“Incident” vs “Ticket” in one example) that users can toggle between.
Related terms link together as a “vocabulary,” so clicking one can flash others. You can attach images, videos, or diagrams to any term, too. In short, Smart Terms becomes your central terminology library: a terminology management for Confluence that covers all languages and complexities.

Use Cases and Benefits

Smart Terms helps teams maintain a single, unified vocabulary across the company while still allowing each department to manage its own terminology. A global glossary can hold the official definitions everyone agrees on, while teams like Product, Support, or Marketing keep space-level glossaries for internal jargon. This setup gives every group the flexibility they need without losing a shared source of truth, maintaining communication clean, and avoiding conflicting definitions.

Highlighted terms also make documentation easier to understand. When someone reads a Confluence page, they can hover over or click a term to instantly see its definition, synonyms, related terms, and even rich media. This reduces confusion during everyday reading and helps new hires settle in faster by allowing them to immediately grasp the meaning of acronyms and technical phrases without leaving the page.

Because every team works differently, Smart Terms adapts to each documentation style. Support teams can use hover highlights with a blue underline and strict case sensitivity, while Product teams prefer bold yellow highlights on click. Accounting might disable highlights entirely. This flexibility ensures each department presents terminology in a way that fits its workflow and audience, all without affecting other spaces.

Centralizing terminology also reduces redundant work. When a team updates a term, whether the meaning shifts, a new synonym is added, or an acronym needs clarification, the change is automatically applied everywhere. Teams no longer lose time re-explaining definitions or correcting misunderstandings. Everyone stays aligned with less back-and-forth, fewer errors, and far more consistency across documents.

Smart Terms also supports multilingual documentation, which is especially helpful for international teams or client-facing spaces. Terms can be translated into multiple languages and highlighted based on the reader’s preferences, or highlighted in all available languages at once. This makes joint work across regions far smoother by removing language barriers and ensuring everyone understands terminology in their own language.

In environments where documentation is central, like engineering wikis, support knowledge bases, product manuals, and onboarding guides, Smart Terms enhances how teams consume information. Readers get definitions right in the flow of the page, authors avoid cluttering documents with extra explanations, and admins maintain terminology centrally. By combining rich definitions, customizable highlighting, and multilingual support, Smart Terms turns Confluence into a clearer, more aligned workspace where terminology confusion disappears.

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!

The timeline has been designed to give organizations time to plan. Key milestones include 2026, when new customers will no longer be able to purchase DC subscriptions; 2028, when existing customers will lose the option to expand their licenses; and finally, 2029, when support and updates will officially end. Until then, customers can continue using their DC environments while preparing for the future.

What This Means for Our DC Customers

For teams currently running on Data Center, this announcement may raise understandable questions: What will happen to my existing setup? How will this impact my daily operations? When do I need to act?

In simple terms, you can continue using your DC apps for now. However, over the next few years, you will need to plan your path to the Cloud. After March 2029, your DC environment will no longer allow edits, updates, or expansions; only viewing will remain possible. Atlassian’s intention is to give every customer sufficient time to evaluate their options, design a migration plan, and make the move without unnecessary disruption.

What You Need to Know About Our Apps

At Creativas, we want to assure you that you are not alone in this transition. All our apps are already available on Atlassian Cloud, ensuring continuity for your teams when the time comes to migrate. Our portfolio is not only Cloud-ready but also Cloud Fortified and backed by SOC 2 Type II certification, which means you can trust our solutions to meet the highest standards of performance, reliability, and compliance.

As an Atlassian Gold Marketplace Partner, we are deeply committed to supporting our customers through this change. We provide clear migration pathways and hands-on assistance, from evaluating your current setup to mapping out the steps needed for a smooth migration. For customers who want more tailored guidance, we also offer one-to-one meetings to discuss specific requirements, and we provide live demos so you can see exactly how our apps perform in the Cloud environment before making the switch.

Moving Forward with Confidence

Atlassian has confirmed that future development will focus on Cloud, while support for Data Center will be gradually phased out. Over the coming years, DC products will no longer receive new features, and customers will need to plan when and how to migrate.

With our apps already in place and our support services designed to ease the journey, you can be confident that your organization will make this transition smoothly and successfully.

If you would like to explore what this means for your team, visit our profile on the Atlassian Marketplace or get in touch with us directly. We will work with you to ensure that your transition to Cloud is carried out in a structured and well-supported way, aligned with your organization’s requirements and timeline.

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.

Why does great documentation often fall short?

Even the most well-written Confluence pages can leave readers confused or disengaged. Common challenges include:

• Inconsistent terminology: Different authors may use different terms for the same thing, making content more challenging to follow.
• Language barriers: Teams spread across countries often need documentation in more than one language.
• Lack of visuals: Complex processes are hard to understand without visuals.

Creating well-structured documentation in Confluence

To document effectively in Confluence, start by organizing your content in a dedicated space. For example, create a Knowledge Base space to get a workspace with built-in article templates and a homepage that uses search and label macros. Within the space, maintain a clear hierarchy and tagging: label each page with descriptive topics so the homepage and macros can automatically group related content. Also, define page templates so every documentation page follows a consistent layout (sections, headings, formatting).

Use Confluence’s formatting and macros.

Write your pages using Confluence’s native formatting tools. For clarity, break content into headings, bullet or numbered lists, and sections. Then add built-in macros to aid navigation.
For example, insert a Table of Contents macro at the top of any long page, and it will automatically list links to all the headings on that page.
Use Info, Tip, or Warning panels to highlight key notes or cautions within your text. You can also use the Anchor macro to create named bookmarks (e.g. a “Back to top” link) that you can link to from anywhere in the document. These built-in features make your documentation more user-friendly and easy to scan.

Collaborate on drafts

Use Confluence’s draft-and-review workflow to polish content before publishing. When you create a new page, immediately restrict its permissions (e.g., visible only to your team) to keep it private while drafting. Then write your documentation and share the page with colleagues for feedback: reviewers can leave inline comments (by highlighting text) or suggest edits directly on the page. This keeps feedback tied to the correct context. After revisions, remove restrictions and delete any placeholder comments so the final version is visible to all intended readers.

Track versions and updates

Confluence automatically versions every saved change. Encourage team members to watch key pages or the entire documentation space. Confluence will then notify them whenever those pages are edited. To see exactly what changed, use the Page History feature. The history view lists all past versions with dates and authors; you can compare any two versions or restore an older version if needed. This ensures you can track edits or recover content if something was changed incorrectly.

• Watch pages/spaces for change notifications.
• Use Page History to compare or revert versions.

Smart Terms vs Atlassian AI definitions

When it comes to defining unfamiliar terms, Confluence offers two approaches. Atlassian Intelligence’s “Define” feature lets you highlight a word on any page and click Define to get an AI-generated explanation right there. This provides instant, context-based definitions without any setup.

By contrast, Smart Terms is a glossary app: admins create and manage a permanent list of term definitions (with synonyms, images, translations, etc.), and the app automatically highlights those terms across your Confluence pages. Smart Terms also allows control over where and when to highlight terms, and provides a centralized glossary your team can search and explore.

How Smart Terms and Smart Images work together in Confluence?

Define and standardize your terminology with Smart Terms

Smart Terms allows you to build and maintain a glossary inside Confluence. Once a term is added, it can automatically appear highlighted across your pages, with definitions and translations available in a highlight popup.

Key features that make it essential for documentation:

• Auto-highlighting: Your terms are automatically detected and highlighted across Confluence pages. You can also enrich them with related vocabulary. For example, if you add Artificial Intelligence (AI) to your glossary, both “AI” and “Artificial Intelligence” will be highlighted and linked back to the exact definition, ensuring no one gets lost in acronyms.

• Highlight popup: Hover over (click on) a term to instantly see its definition without leaving the page. Unlike Atlassian’s built-in Smart Definitions, Smart Terms tooltips can include rich details: a short description, synonyms, and translations, giving your readers real context instead of just a simple dictionary-like definition.

• Multilingual support: Provide translations so every team member can read in their preferred language.

• Centralized glossary: Update once, and changes appear everywhere. Even better, Smart Terms gives you complete control over where and when terms are highlighted. You can choose to highlight terms globally across your workspace, or limit them to specific spaces, pages, or even sections, making the highlight engine both powerful and flexible.

Make visuals better with Smart Images.

Smart Images lets you add interactive elements to images, diagrams, and mockups inside Confluence. You can guide readers through complex visuals without needing long paragraphs of explanation.

Key features that improve documentation:

• Image maps: Clickable points on images that display text, links, or media.
• Image annotations: Label different areas for clarity.
• Multiple image layouts: Showcase your visuals in different ways, such as image sliders for step-by-step walkthroughs or galleries to group related diagrams and screenshots. You can also create clickable image maps, where product mockups or diagrams become interactive and guide readers through each component.

Steps to use both apps

Here’s how to combine the two apps effectively in your documentation workflow:

1. Identify key concepts & visuals
   • List essential terms, acronyms, and process names.
   • Select diagrams, UI screenshots, or workflow charts that support your content.
2. Build your glossary in Smart Terms
   • Add definitions, synonyms, and translations.
   • Enable auto-highlighting for instant in-page tooltips.
3. Upload and annotate images in Smart Images
   • Place hotspots to explain each part of your diagram.
   • Link hotspots to glossary terms, related pages, or additional resources.
4. Embed both in your Confluence page
   • Glossary terms appear naturally in your text.
   • Annotated visuals break up content and make it interactive.

Use Case: Sofia’s global team

Sofia is a team lead at a multinational tech company. Her Confluence workspace is full of documentation for product development, onboarding, and support. But her team faces three challenges:

1. Diverse languages: Some members prefer English, others work in French, Spanish, or Japanese.
2. Different learning styles: Developers want detailed technical definitions, while designers prefer diagrams and visuals.
3. Inconsistent terms: New hires keep asking what internal acronyms mean.

Here’s how Sofia solved it with Smart Terms and Smart Images:

• She created a central glossary in Smart Terms with translations for each key product term. Now, when anyone hovers over a term, they instantly see its definition in their preferred language and even some visuals.
• She replaced static diagrams with Smart Images. For example, her product architecture diagram now has clickable hotspots showing component details and linking to relevant Confluence pages.
• When onboarding new hires, they can explore documentation without needing to ask. Sofia tooltips and annotated visuals explain everything in context.

The result?

Faster onboarding, fewer repeated questions, and higher documentation adoption across her global team.

中国  |  日本  |  한국

“Hello” doesn’t always look like hello.
It could be こんにちは, 안녕하세요, or 你好, and if your team operates across Asia, you’re seeing all of them in your Confluence pages.

But can your Confluence Glossary keep up?

Global companies require more effective ways to manage knowledge and collaborate across languages and cultures. Confluence is already one of the most powerful platforms for organizing information, building company knowledge bases, and improving teamwork.

However, for companies operating across Asia and using logographic languages like Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (CJK), maintaining consistent terminology becomes particularly challenging.
That’s where Smart Terms for Confluence comes in. It refines glossary management, solves multilingual search challenges, and makes Confluence an even stronger tool for global businesses.
On the other hand, if inconsistent terms, buried multilingual content, and frustrating search experiences are slowing down your global teams, you need to discover how Smart Terms transforms your Confluence into a unified, searchable knowledge hub across all CJK languages.

Why do global companies choose Confluence?

Confluence is used by thousands of teams worldwide for one reason: it simplifies knowledge sharing.

With Confluence, you get:

• Centralized documentation for everything from project plans to technical guides.
• Real-time collaboration with comments, inline feedback, and document version history.
• Powerful search features to find what you need quickly.
• Global accessibility from any location or device.

It’s flexible, powerful, and customizable. However, global teams often face one persistent problem: maintaining multilingual consistency.

Confluence: the foundation for global collaboration

For multinational teams operating across East Asia, Confluence provides essential infrastructure through space management and robust integrations.

Its knowledge management core acts as a centralized repository, while collaboration tools, such as real-time editing and commenting, are available.
In addition, documentation templates maintain terminology consistency, and global accessibility ensures 24/7 availability across time zones.
But while Confluence lays a solid foundation for collaboration, one critical piece remains complex for multinational teams: managing terminology across languages.
Without a structured, multilingual glossary, even the most organized Confluence spaces can fall into confusion, especially when dealing with East Asian languages like Japanese, Korean, or Chinese.

However, without a structured glossary in Coufluence, this can cause:

• Misunderstandings between teams
• Inconsistent terminology in customer communication
• Wasted time searching for the right content

Why do multilingual glossaries matter for multinational enterprises?

Unified knowledge across borders

Companies operating in China, Japan, Korea, and beyond often face the challenge of maintaining consistent terminology across different languages and scripts. A term like “User Guide” may appear in Confluence as 用户指南 (Chinese), ユーザーガイド (Japanese), or 사용자 가이드 (Korean).

Smart Terms for Confluence ensures that these variants are centralized, searchable, and properly indexed.

Enhancing knowledge retrieval

When employees search for terms within a glossary, the indexing system matters. Poor indexing of logographic languages leads to inefficiencies, misunderstandings, and inconsistent usage. Smart Terms addresses this by introducing intelligent, language-aware indexing, which enables smoother access to information.

New feature spotlight:

Smart Terms for Confluence: logographic language indexing (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) support

Smart Terms for Confluence now includes advanced indexing:

• Simplified Chinese (简体中文): Indexed using Pinyin transliteration. Terms like “学生 (xuésheng)” are automatically sorted under “X,” while “苹果 (píngguǒ)” falls under “P.”
• Traditional Chinese (繁體中文): Organized by stroke count, allowing terms like 第一章 to be found systematically based on character structure.
• Japanese (日本語): Sorted using Gojūuon order based on Hiragana/Katakana. If a term is Kanji-only (e.g., 学生), Smart Terms defaults to Chinese rules unless Hiragana is appended in brackets, such as 学生 (がくせい).
• Korean (한국어): Indexing follows the initial consonant rule based on Hangul structure. For example, 가 (ᄀ) is filed under “ᄀ” (Giyeok), 나 (ᄂ) under “ᄂ” (Nieun).

Page definitions macro & custom indexing

In addition to multilingual indexing, Smart Terms introduces the Page Definitions macro. This feature scans a Confluence page and displays all highlightable glossary terms used within it, complete with their definitions. This provides readers with instant context, helps new team members learn company terminology more quickly, and ensures that no important definition goes unnoticed during reviews. Additionally, when exporting to a PDF file, you can view all the terms within the exported page.

For greater flexibility, Smart Terms for Confluence provides custom indexing. If automated language detection encounters mixed scripts or rare characters, users can manually assign the correct index letter to ensure every term is perfectly organized.

Glossary re-indexing: update pre-existing glossaries

Need to apply the new intelligent indexing to an existing glossary?
Smart Terms for Confluence supports bulk re-indexing. Here is how you can do this:

1. Export the existing space glossary.
2. Re-import it into the same space with “Update existing terms” enabled.
3. Preserve attached images or files by disabling “Reset existing terms media.”
   This allows legacy glossaries to be upgraded to the new, powerful indexing rules without losing valuable assets.

Use case: a global software company operating in APAC

Company: A global software company with HQ in the US, R&D in Seoul, customer support in Tokyo, and marketing in Shanghai. All teams collaborate via a centralized Confluence knowledge base in their native languages, but apparently it’s not enough!

Challenge: Inconsistent glossary terms caused confusion and slowed workflows. Japanese support agents were unable to locate key Korean or Chinese documents.

Solution: Smart Terms for Confluence:

• Shanghai Marketing: Used Pinyin-based sorting.
• Tokyo Support: Adopted Gojūuon indexing.
• Seoul R&D: Implemented Hangul consonant rules.

Result: The entire multilingual glossary became interlinked, instantly searchable across all teams, and correctly indexed for each CJK script. Confusion dropped, and finding critical information became easier.

Try Smart Terms for Confluence today and empower your global teams!

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.

What are the best features of Confluence for Onboarding?

Confluence offers several features that make it ideal for onboarding:

Confluence streamlines the onboarding process by providing a centralized knowledge base, ensuring all new hires can access essential information without searching through scattered sources. With real-time editing and commenting, teams can collaborate on onboarding materials, fostering continuous improvement. (Read More)

Integration with Jira connects project documentation with task tracking, clarifying responsibilities and project statuses for new employees. Customizable templates standardize the onboarding process, while interactive checklists help new hires track their progress. (Read More)

By leveraging these features, organizations ensure a structured, efficient, and engaging onboarding experience that helps new team members integrate smoothly and contribute faster.

The Future of onboarding: Confluence and Smart Terms in action

Smart Terms for Confluence and Jira is a glossary and definition engine designed to enhance communication across teams. It bridges communication gaps by:

• Auto-highlighting Confluence terms like “BoC” or “IP” across Confluence pages and Jira tickets.

• Providing contextual definitions in Confluence with hover-over popups for extended explanations.

• Syncing updates globally: Change a definition once, and it updates everywhere.

Smart Terms for onboarding helps new employees quickly grasp essential concepts, minimizing confusion and speeding up their integration into the team.

How does Smart Terms enhance onboarding:

How to Start in 5 Minutes

1. Install Smart Terms from the Atlassian Marketplace.
2. Create a Glossary: Define key terms and organize them by category.
3. Enable Live-Highlighting: Customize how terms are highlighted in Confluence and Jira.
4. Train Your Team: Show new hires how to use itduring onboarding.
5. Iterate and Improve: Use AI insights to refine your glossary over time.