Project management | Creativas

Confluence for project management made easy with Smart Tables

Hedi Chouayakh — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 11:50:18 +0000

With automation and AI, teams now require more dynamic tools that enhance collaboration, streamline workflows, and improve data Analysis.

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 :

Content creation and collaboration where teams can create and share structured pages, brainstorm with whiteboards, and centralize all documentation within one place.
Organizational capabilities through spaces and pages: teams can structure project resources effectively, ensuring all stakeholders have access to the latest updates
Integration with project management tools such as Jira and other apps that ensures teams track issues, automate workflows, and maintain alignment across platforms

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 :

Live table editing for quick updates.
Persistent filtering to sort and analyze project data.
Live collaboration that allows teams to work on Live Spreadsheets within Confluence.
Excel-like formulas and functions to automate calculations and enhance decision-making.
Charts and pivot tables: to visualize data much more effectively.

This integration removes the need for external spreadsheets, keeping everything in one centralized Confluence page, and employee development.

Usecase: Enhancing project management with Smart Tables

Step 1: Establishing a project dashboard

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

Apply filters: quickly identify high-priority or overdue tasks by using filtering options
Create advanced tables by inserting Smart Tables macros or converting existing Confluence tables into Smart Tables
Customize columns: defining them for tasks assignees, deadlines, priorities, and statuses

Step 2: Monitoring budgets and expenses

Tracking financials is vital for project success, which Smart Tables enables by:

Automating calculations: utilizing functions like sum and average … to compute expenses directly within Confluence
Categorize expenses: by implementing texts and selecting filters to organize expenses by category
Generate pivot tables to summarize spending across different project phases for comprehensive financial oversight.

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

Install the Smart Tables From Atlassian Marketplace
Convert existing tables to Smart Tables
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.

If you want to learn more about Smart Tables,

Book a demo, and let us get to know you and answer your questions!

Try Smart Tables for Confluence

The post Confluence for project management made easy with Smart Tables first appeared on Creativas.

Tips & tricks for your Confluence documentation

Amel Aloulou — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 11:27:58 +0000

Writing clear and compelling product documentation can be challenging, especially when working with complex tools or detailed technical topics. For technical writers and product teams, using Confluence as a knowledge management system simplifies this process and makes it easy to organize and share information. Adding apps like Smart Images and Smart Terms in Confluence can take your Confluence documentation to the next level, making it more accessible, visually engaging, and easier for teams to navigate and understand. This guide covers the essential tips and tricks to help you craft exceptional documentation.

1. Define your documentation scope and audience

First things first, before starting, you need to define precisely what you are writing and who you are writing it for. Different types of technical documentation serve different purposes and have specific requirements, from user guides and API documentation to troubleshooting resources. Identifying the document type will help you structure the content accordingly and cater to your readers’ needs, whether they are end-users, developers, or internal team members.

User guides: for end-users seeking clear, practical instructions.
API or developer documentation: technical and detail-oriented, targeting developers.
Troubleshooting guides: focused on common problems, ideal for support teams.

Understanding who your readers are helps you set the tone and depth of information for each document, ensuring your content is relevant and engaging.

2. Select a knowledge management platform

Documentation is made to be shared, so you need to use a knowledge management system to help you create, curate, share, use, and manage knowledge. Many tools serve this purpose, but our favorite is definitely Confluence. Confluence is an excellent choice because it offers a centralized space to store and organize your team’s knowledge. Its user-friendly interface makes documentation easy to create and manage, even for those new to the platform. With its native various macros, templates, and formatting options, Confluence enhances usability and supports collaboration across departments. Integrating Confluence with project management tools like Trello and Jira, as well as any other add-on apps, can further improve productivity by streamlining workflows. Additionally, it’s highly secure, making it suitable for managing sensitive data as well, and team admins can control access tightly, ensuring only authorized users can view sensitive information.

3. Plan your document structure

Once you know what documentation you are writing, who you are writing it for, and where you are writing it, you need to prepare your document outline. A well-organized document structure helps readers navigate information easily. Start with a broad outline, organizing the main sections and adding subtitles where needed. This hierarchical approach is especially useful for longer guides, making it easier for readers to find what they need quickly.

Another helpful tip for organizing your Confluence documentation is to include a glossary that explains key terms and concepts related to your documentation. Smart Terms for Confluence is an excellent app for terminology management. It helps to keep your terminology consistent and accessible so readers can easily understand even the more complex aspects of your documentation.

4. Prioritize clarity and accessibility

Documentation is made to be shared and also understood. This means readers need to understand the content easily. Otherwise, the document will not serve its primary purpose. So, make it as straightforward as possible by avoiding complicated jargon and using easy language wherever possible. For example, as a part of a previous blog, we mentioned the case of troubleshooting documentation for support teams and had the case of an AI Meeting Summarizer tool, so let’s keep using that same example. When explaining how this tool works and its features, we should opt for simple phrases like, “We use meeting data to create summaries that capture key points, so you don’t have to” instead of overly technical explanations. A great option about Confluence is that you can share your content with external users even if they don’t use Confluence, so all the effort you put into writing your Confluence documentation won’t go to waste.

Confluence documentation can be made for internal and external users, so remember to cover all essential information and explain details. If your readers include people with varied levels of expertise, don’t assume prior knowledge. Walk them through each step or concept, adding relatable examples for clarity. Break down every concept into simple terms and provide examples to ensure clarity. In the case of internal Confluence documentation, you can use Smart Terms for Confluence to help you clarify any concepts that may confuse readers with different backgrounds. Let me show you how it works. Keeping the same example we just mentioned, words like “summary” and “data” have a broad meaning, but whenever they’re mentioned in this documentation, they mean “meeting summary” and “meeting data.” Therefore, creating definitions for these terms with labels and relations will eliminate possible confusion.

If you added a recurrent term to your Smart Terms glossary and don’t want it to be highlighted every time it’s mentioned, you can enable the option to highlight the first term only in the highlight engine settings.

5. Enhance understanding with visuals

Your documentation will certainly have a lot of text. But, integrating visuals like images, videos, and infographics can significantly boost understanding and engagement. In fact, many people are visual learners, and visuals help to break down complex concepts, making content more digestible for readers and enhancing information retention. With Smart Images for Confluence, you can make your visuals dynamic and highly customized to fit your documentation needs. It provides an image editor that lets you add shapes, text, annotations, and more to highlight essential information in your images. You can also resize, crop, and adjust colors and opacity, making it easier for readers to follow along and grasp essential points.

Let’s continue with the same example we previously mentioned. The troubleshooting documentation helps the support team navigate the different scenarios to solve issues, so providing them with an escalation matrix helps to speed up the process and decide on the needed next step. This is where Smart Images comes in handy and allows you to add an image slider explaining all situations.

6. Gather feedback and track engagement

To keep improving your documentation in Confluence, gather user feedback and track engagement. Confluence allows users to add comments and share their insights directly. Their feedback will highlight areas needing revision or clarification, helping you prioritize future updates. Use analytics to monitor your Confluence documentation metrics, such as view counts and reading times, which indicate how helpful readers find this documentation. Tracking these insights can reveal which parts are the most useful and which might need further refinement, ensuring your documentation remains valuable and relevant.

Writing Down GIFfrom Writing GIFs

Good documentation requires careful planning, clear communication, and continuous improvement. With Confluence as your knowledge management platform and tools like Smart Images and Smart Terms, you have the resources to create documentation that’s informative, visually engaging, and accessible to a broad audience. These tips and tricks for your Confluence documentation will definitely help you create a resource that supports and empowers your team.

Do you still have any questions regarding Smart Terms for Confluence and Smart Images for Confluence? Don’t hesitate to book a demo. Let us get to know you and answer your questions.

Smart Terms for Confluence Smart Images for Confluence Learn more about Smart Terms Learn more about Smart Images

The post Tips & tricks for your Confluence documentation first appeared on Creativas.

Reinforcing cross-functional collaboration in Confluence and Jira with Smart Terms

Amel Aloulou — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 07:54:11 +0000

All successful projects come from the strength of the team behind them. Shared goals, careful planning, on-time execution, and precise alignment. This makes cross-functional collaboration one of the keys to success and impactful results in the current business environment.

Some teams’ functions are highly interlocked with other teams, such as marketing, sales, and product teams, and they must work together on shared goals and processes. Using collaborative tools like Atlassian’s Confluence and Jira significantly improves these teams’ knowledge sharing, progress tracking, and overall project flow. However, it can also expose a deeper issue: confusion due to differing terminology.

In fact, marketing, sales, and product teams often encounter misunderstandings simply because they have different uses of one word, which might lead to confusion, misalignment, and delays. When using collaborative tools in cross-functional collaboration, where multiple departments work together, having a shared understanding is essential to ensure good communication and project execution. This is where a comprehensive shared glossary for Confluence and Jira becomes an invaluable asset to ensure that everyone is on the same page.

In this blog, we will go over how combining Confluence and Jira together supports business teams and cross-functional collaboration. Most importantly, we will also explore how using Smart Terms as your glossary for Confluence and Jira to clarify key terms makes cross-departmental workflows more efficient.

Cross-Functional Collaboration in Confluence and Jira

A typical cross-functional business team could include a product leader, someone from marketing, along with a representative from sales, and possibly other functions, depending on the industry. Of course, Atlassian’s collaborative tools are essential here. Not only Confluence and Jira but all of Atlassian’s products are built to enhance teamwork by connecting all departments through shared documentation and project management systems. Now, it is common for each one of these departments to operate within their own silos, with their own specific goals, data, documentation, and processes. So, even if all departments are using the same tools, Confluence and Jira, in this case, it’s most likely that they are using them in different ways and for different purposes.

In marketing, Confluence and Jira work hand-in-hand to support project organization and communication. For example, marketing teams use Confluence to plan campaigns, share creative assets, document strategies, and centralize resources. By organizing content in Confluence, marketing teams ensure that all documentation is accessible to everyone whenever needed. Hence, it’s easier for everyone, from content creators to strategists, to stay on the same page. Then, they rely on Jira Work Management to break down plans into actionable tasks, set timelines, assign responsibilities, and track the progress of each campaign component from content creation to launch. With Jira, marketing teams manage the real-time execution of different plans, maintaining clear deadlines, workflows, and status updates across projects. Therefore, these two tools provide a synchronized workflow when combined together. In this case, adding a synchronized glossary for Confluence and Jira ensures that every member of this marketing team operates from the same definitions, promoting a clear understanding within one team.

But it’s not only the marketing team that can combine Confluence and Jira to manage their work. In fact, sales, product, or any other teams can use Confluence for information-sharing and Jira to monitor updates or insights depending on their workflow. Hence, when we’re in a case of cross-functional collaboration, having consistent terminology across Confluence and Jira is crucial to avoid terminology confusion across departments.

Smart Terms: one glossary for Confluence and Jira

Smart Terms is a glossary for Confluence and Jira that further enhances teams’ workflow, solidifies alignment, clarifies goals, and strengthens collaboration within the same team or in cross-functional teams by allowing them to access and update a shared vocabulary. So, in cross-functional collaboration, all team members can contribute to the definitions that matter most for the project, ensuring everyone is on the same page.

A cross-functional collaboration between sales, marketing, and product teams is essential to maximize efficiency, better understand customer needs, and align goals. When these teams work in sync, a company can gain a strategic advantage. For example, Insights from sales can inform marketing approaches, refine product development, and ultimately create a better customer experience. When these teams work together in Confluence and Jira, each department can quickly view others’ progress, access updates, and avoid redundant efforts. Our team recognizes Confluence and Jira’s complementarity, so we made sure to integrate Smart Terms with both tools to bridge the terminology gap between department-specific jargon.

Princess Bride You Keep Using That Word GIFfrom Princess Bride GIFs

If you have been a part of one of these departments, you know that there are many common terms that hold small but also significant differences depending on their context. For example, a term like “lead” usually means a marketing-qualified lead to the marketing team, a lead who has indicated their interest in what a brand has to offer. However, to sales, it could refer to a sales-qualified lead, a lead that has a high probability of converting into a customer. Another example is that product teams might use the word “feature” to describe an internal project component, while marketing interprets it as a customer-facing capability ready to be promoted. This is where Smart Terms comes in handy and ensures that all teams are aligned on the exact meaning of critical terms.

This is why including Smart Terms for both Confluence and Jira isn’t just a nice-to-have for your team but instead a powerful tool to:

Ensure consistency across teams by avoiding differing interpretations of terms.
Enhance efficiency by providing accessible definitions wherever they are mentioned on both platforms and reducing time lost to clarify terms.
Promote cross-functional understanding by bridging gaps between department-specific jargon.
Support scaling knowledge by keeping track of all essential knowledge as teams grow or change.

Bridging the gap with Smart Terms

To better illustrate how this works in practice, let’s take an example of a SaaS company with active marketing, sales, and product departments that are struggling to keep their teams aligned. Marketing is running campaigns and using terms like “pipeline acceleration” and “conversion rates” in the different reports shared across the platforms. On the other hand, the product team strictly used “pipeline” to refer to development work. Sales, meanwhile, had a completely different interpretation of “conversion” than marketing, as they associated that term with the late-stage deal process.

To avoid confusion, delays, and misunderstanding of deliverables and priorities, this team uses Smart Terms to standardize terminology across the board. Adding key terms such as “pipeline,” “conversion,” and “lead” ensured that every team member could instantly access the definitions whenever they encountered those words in Jira or Confluence.

So, to get your glossary for Confluence and Jira, start by installing Smart Terms for Confluence and Smart Terms for Jira from the Atlassian marketplace. Here, both apps must be installed on the same organization’s cloud-based URL. You will also need to install Smart Terms for Confluence and Jira browser extension to allow terms to be highlighted. And if you’re still hesitating, Smart Terms for Jira is free for all Smart Terms for Confluence users. So you only buy one and get the other for free, it’s great, isn’t it? (you can also use this as an argument in case you have to get any purchase approval first )

Once your app is all installed and running, you can go ahead and create your glossary by adding terms to different Confluence spaces.

To highlight your terms in Jira, go to Jira settings, toggle the Sync available Confluence glossaries to automatically highlight the space glossaries set in Confluence, or select the space glossaries from which terms can be highlighted in Jira. And, of course, you can add more customization and configure the appearance of terms per project from the Project settings.

And that’s it; you’re all set. Now, teams no longer have to guess. A quick hover-over or a click-on of the highlighted word mentioned in Confluence or Jira displays the term definition, media, and related terms. It helps your team to get the correct, context-specific definition that everyone can refer to, keeping everyone in this cross-functional collaboration aligned without needing clarification emails or follow-ups.

And to further improve understanding, you can create related terms in Smart Terms for Confluence to better illustrate how some terms are connected. Having related terms helps clarify complex concepts in your glossary for Confluence and Jira and makes it easy to navigate with direct links between related terms.

So there you go; using Smart Terms for both Confluence and Jira doesn’t just prevent miscommunication, it also empowers teams to move faster and with greater confidence. And if you want to know more about Smart Terms, here are 5 essential features you need to know about Smart Terms for Confluence, and how AI can help you set your glossary for Confluence with Smart Terms.

Do you still have any questions regarding Smart Terms for Confluence and Jira? Don’t hesitate to book a demo. Let us get to know you and answer your questions!

Learn more about Smart Terms Try Smart Terms for Confluence

The post Reinforcing cross-functional collaboration in Confluence and Jira with Smart Terms first appeared on Creativas.

Revolutionize your sales tracking in Confluence with Smart Tables for Confluence

Salma Sahnoun — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 16:26:15 +0000

In today’s fast-paced business environment, efficient sales tracking is essential for success. Whether you’re managing a small team or overseeing a large sales force, having the right tools can make all the difference, especially given the challenges sales teams can face. Smart Tables for Confluence offers a solution for various challenges, like data fragmentation, collaboration across departments, real-time data access, and data integrity. It transforms your basic tables into dynamic dashboards, enhancing your sales tracking capabilities.

1. From Native Confluence tables to Smart and vice versa

Smart Tables revolutionizes the way you view and analyze sales data. Here’s how.

It has an intuitive and user-friendly interface that everyone with varying levels of expertise can use. The Smart Tables view allows sales teams to interact with data quickly, like sorting, grouping, and filtering, directly within the view mode, eventually leading to more dynamic data analysis. Also, with the view mode capabilities, making timely decisions while in a meeting or when urgent data analysis is required is no longer a challenge.

What’s even greater is how simple it is for teams to switch between the native Confluence table and Smart tables without losing context or data, ensuring they can adapt to whichever view best suits their current task.

Generally, Smart Tables’ flexibility can eliminate the need to export data to other programs for different views or analyses.

2. Excel functions grid

Excel functions are no longer confined to spreadsheets. Smart Tables brings them right into your Confluence pages by integrating advanced Excel functions directly into a familiar workspace, making them more accessible to all team members. VLOOKUPs, SUMIFs, AVERAGEs, and even complex nested IF statements are all at your fingertips.

Ultimately, performing real-time data calculations helps make immediate data-driven decisions without leaving the Confluence page.

3. Improving collaboration

That’s not it! Smart Tables doesn’t exclude the spreadsheet functionality and offers an extra macro for free, called a “Live spreadsheet.” This macro acts as a real-time collaboration and data manipulation tool, similar to spreadsheet software, but integrated into the Confluence page.

You can simultaneously make changes with your sales team members on the spreadsheet without sending back-and-forth emails to share data updates. This can be crucial in fast-paced environments where data needs to be current and universally accessible.

Live Spreadsheet real-time collaboration in Confluence

4. Effortless editing for sales data and filter views

Sales teams can quickly make inline edits to sales entries or deal statuses which favors quick adjustments during sales meetings or reviews and ensures data remains current without stepping into the Confluence page edit mode.

That could never be enough without filtering options that help data meet specific criteria. Sales, marketing, CS, and project management teams all benefit from the combined filters. For instance, a sales team could quickly pull up figures to identify top-performing regions, apply filters to check underperforming products, and make decisions on sales strategies for the next quarter.

If you’re looking for a persistent filter custom view, Smart Tables can do it, too. For regular needs, such as weekly sales progress, monthly regional sales, or annual comparisons, this customization allows for quick access to relevant data without repetitive setup.

These custom filters can be shared with other parties, whether Confluence users or external parties, using public link sharing to promote transparency while remaining confident that the filters will stay persistent.

Smart Tables Use Case (PDF) Learn more about Smart Tables Smart Tables for Confluence Cloud

The post Revolutionize your sales tracking in Confluence with Smart Tables for Confluence first appeared on Creativas.

New app launch: Smart Tables for Confluence Cloud

Salma Sahnoun — Tue, 09 May 2023 10:22:03 +0000

Smart Tables is a data management tool for Confluence that’s been released on SERVER and Data Center a few years ago.Today, we are thrilled to inform you that we launched a Cloud version of Smart Tables, offering an advanced and powerful way to manage data in Confluence, making it easy to work with tabular data right within Confluence.In this blog post, we’ll take you through the exciting new features of the Smart Tables Cloud version. From converting your old Confluence tables to Smart Tables to advanced filtering options and various Excel-like functions, you won’t want to miss what’s in store.So, buckle up and get ready for a data management experience like no other!1/ Adding Smart TablesIf you have many old native Confluence tables, you don’t have to worry about them. Enjoy the full data management experience and benefit from the convert feature to switch native Confluence tables to Smart Tables.You can use the “Add macro” or the slash command keyboard shortcut to insert a Smart Table or convert a native table with just a few clicks from the “more actions” section on the Confluence page.With a few simple clicks, you can convert your previously built Confluence tables into Smart Tables for more flexibility with data management.

Convert native Confluence tables into Smart Tables with a simple click

2/ Viewing and Editing Smart TablesSmart Tables for Confluence brings an advanced way of editing data. With this new Cloud version, it is possible to edit Confluence tables and Smart Tables in the view mode of the Confluence page. How cool, right?On each cell, the app provides a mini Confluence editor in the view mode that allows you to add some of the Confluence macros and formatting options and perform functions and calculations.

Edit Smart Tables in the Confluence page view mode

3/ FilteringIf you are looking for advanced filtering, this app is THE address.Smart Tables Cloud supports text filtering by using conditions and filter values such as “Contains”, “Equals”, “Starts with”, and much more or by keywords.To precise your filtering, you can opt for combined filtering.For example, you have a large project management table, including developers’ names, tasks, deadlines, task status, and many other columns. If you want to filter the table to show only completed tasks for a specific developer, a single filter may not be sufficient. In this case, you can use two different filters – the “selection filter” for the name and the “text filter” for the task status.This saves you time and allows you to work more efficiently with the data.One more thing, don’t worry about losing the filters when you refresh the page. It’s persistent unless you remove them.

Filtering options in Smart Tables Cloud

4/ Formulas & functionsSmart Tables for Confluence Cloud includes 390+ Excel-like functions that you can use to perform from simple to complex calculations on the Smart Table. And the best part? The data changes automatically in affected cells whenever there are formulas, and you can even use the spreading feature to spread formulas to nearby cells.

Spread formulas with Smart Tables Cloud

5/ Live Spreadsheets MacroThe coolest part about Smart Tables is the “Live Spreadsheets” macro that comes with the app.Our team made sure to cover every use case you have in a 2in1 app, so once you download Smart Tables Cloud, you’ll have access to the “Live Spreadsheets” macro.You know what else is exciting? The seamless real-time collaboration feature in the Spreadsheet that allows you to make live changes with your team effortlessly.The “Live Spreadsheets” macro also works as an Excel connector with the import & export feature it has.So whether you’re going to collaborate on tables, perform advanced calculations or visualize data with charts and graphs, “Live Spreadsheets” is your new best friend.

Real-time collaboration in Live Spreadsheets in Confluence

6/ MigrationAs an existing Smart Tables user, migrating to the Cloud version is hassle-free. We offer a comprehensive migration path from Server and Data Center to Cloud and provide step-by-step guidance for a seamless transition.

Smart Tables is a data management tool for Confluence that’s been released on SERVER and Data Center a few years ago.

Today, we are thrilled to inform you that we launched a Cloud version of Smart Tables, offering an advanced and powerful way to manage data in Confluence, making it easy to work with tabular data right within Confluence.

In this blog post, we’ll take you through the exciting new features of the Smart Tables Cloud version. From converting your old Confluence tables to Smart Tables to advanced filtering options and various Excel-like functions, you won’t want to miss what’s in store.

So, buckle up and get ready for a data management experience like no other!

1/ Adding Smart Tables

If you have many old native Confluence tables, you don’t have to worry about them. Enjoy the full data management experience and benefit from the convert feature to switch native Confluence tables to Smart Tables.

You can use the “Add macro” or the slash command keyboard shortcut to insert a Smart Table or convert a native table with just a few clicks from the “more actions” section on the Confluence page.

With a few simple clicks, you can convert your previously built Confluence tables into Smart Tables for more flexibility with data management.

Convert native Confluence tables into Smart Tables with a simple click

2/ Viewing and Editing Smart Tables

Smart Tables for Confluence brings an advanced way of editing data. With this new Cloud version, it is possible to edit Confluence tables and Smart Tables in the view mode of the Confluence page. How cool, right?

On each cell, the app provides a mini Confluence editor in the view mode that allows you to add some of the Confluence macros and formatting options and perform functions and calculations.

Edit Smart Tables in the Confluence page view mode

3/ Filtering

If you are looking for advanced filtering, this app is THE address.

Smart Tables Cloud supports text filtering by using conditions and filter values such as “Contains”, “Equals”, “Starts with”, and much more or by keywords.

To precise your filtering, you can opt for combined filtering.

For example, you have a large project management table, including developers’ names, tasks, deadlines, task status, and many other columns. If you want to filter the table to show only completed tasks for a specific developer, a single filter may not be sufficient. In this case, you can use two different filters – the “selection filter” for the name and the “text filter” for the task status.

This saves you time and allows you to work more efficiently with the data.

One more thing, don’t worry about losing the filters when you refresh the page. It’s persistent unless you remove them.

Filtering options in Smart Tables Cloud

4/ Formulas & functions

Smart Tables for Confluence Cloud includes 390+ Excel-like functions that you can use to perform from simple to complex calculations on the Smart Table. And the best part? The data changes automatically in affected cells whenever there are formulas, and you can even use the spreading feature to spread formulas to nearby cells.

Spread formulas with Smart Tables Cloud

5/ Live Spreadsheets Macro

The coolest part about Smart Tables is the “Live Spreadsheets” macro that comes with the app.

Our team made sure to cover every use case you have in a 2in1 app, so once you download Smart Tables Cloud, you’ll have access to the “Live Spreadsheets” macro.

You know what else is exciting? The seamless real-time collaboration feature in the Spreadsheet that allows you to make live changes with your team effortlessly.

The “Live Spreadsheets” macro also works as an Excel connector with the import & export feature it has.

So whether you’re going to collaborate on tables, perform advanced calculations or visualize data with charts and graphs, “Live Spreadsheets” is your new best friend.

Real-time collaboration in Live Spreadsheets in Confluence

6/ Migration

As an existing Smart Tables user, migrating to the Cloud version is hassle-free. We offer a comprehensive migration path from Server and Data Center to Cloud and provide step-by-step guidance for a seamless transition.

Watch our Youtube Video Try Smart Tables for Confluence Cloud Learn more about Smart Tables Cloud

The post New app launch: Smart Tables for Confluence Cloud first appeared on Creativas.

The remote onboarding in the era of COVID-19: for Confluence users only

Khawla Issaoui — Thu, 21 Jan 2021 16:58:41 +0000

Paris, 13 March:

After a long selection process, we finally found a suitable candidate for the vacant job position in Creativas: young, active, motivated with the requested knowledge and skills; just the perfect match.
The new hire was overwhelmed to meet the rest of the team, join our Paris office, and start his new journey.

However, things didn’t go as expected, COVID-19 spread widely in France, and the government announced a country lockdown.

Remote work was an easy-to-go option for our team, as we were already familiar with online collaboration and project management tools such as Confluence, Trello, Jira…
But what about our new hire, doesn’t seem to be an excellent start for him, right?
The same situation encountered by many businesses across the world where many leading tech companies in Silicon Valley, like Microsoft, Facebook, Apple… considered remote and flexible work as the new standard.

Here are some tips on how we used Confluence and other Atlassian apps to successfully onboard our new collaborator:

Tip 1: One is enough, don’t get lost between spaces

Create just one onboarding space in Confluence: Centralize all the resources in one space by creating different pages for each phase of your remote onboarding. This helps new hires to get back always to the same references whenever they feel lost. Gather all your docs and links in just one place…everything you need in the same space!
You can start by using the 90-day plan template for Confluence. Atlassian recommends dividing the page into two sections: one at the top for quick links and one at the bottom for internal glossaries and resources.

Check out pages templates for Confluence by Atlassian

Tip 2: Set up an onboarding process board

With the help of Trello or any similar tool, create a board mentioning pre-boarding and onboarding steps, tasks, and actions assigned to specific team members with deadlines, checklists…

Check out the New Hire Onboarding board sample by Trello

Tip 3: Meet the squad and virtual office tours

There are two ways to present the team members to the new hires: ask them to make short funny videos to introduce themselves individually.
Or, you can schedule a virtual get-together using Zoom, Slack, Google meet, or any other video conferencing tools.

Share with them some pictures of your old team building activities, events, office parties…

Tip 4: Introduce all the tools you use in your company

While remote onboarding, gather all the tools your organization frequently uses; provide a detailed introduction or a demonstration about how each tool works and which parts are more relevant to your context.

In our case, we built an interactive course for each tool using Smart Courses. We categorized these courses into the onboarding category within the “Remote Onboarding” space.

Course to introduce Confluence using Smart Courses

Check these Atlassian tools for stronger remote teamwork collaboration.

Tip 5: Build your organization glossary

Make a glossary with the frequently used terms in your organization to familiarize the newbies with your company jargon.
Check Smart Terms to know how to build a glossary within Confluence with enriched media assets.

Check out Smart Terms

Tip 6: Learn about the organization

Build informative courses about your organization’s culture, products, and services using a dash of media types with a powerful and rich course editor supporting images, videos, audio, Slideshare, PDFs, webpages…

Tip 7: Add the new hire to your social groups

In the absence of team buildings and coffee breaks, making the newbie feel welcomed is still possible. Make the new hire feel like a part of the family: share some fun via your social media groups, or enjoy remote after work( video games, movies…)

Tip 8: A bit of fun never hurts

Gamification can help new hires to familiarize themselves with the organization culture.
Get inspired and know how Atlassian teams are doing virtual team building activities.

Tip 9: Ask your buddy anything:

Assign a buddy ( teammate) to guide the newbies in their first steps.

Tip 10: Check newbies “go with the flow”

How is that? By verifying course progress for each newbie or quiz results, you can evaluate your remote onboarding’s success rate.

After providing all necessary resources to the newbies, the department manager, or the ones in charge, need to track their progress. As we are using Smart Courses, we used the exam mode option and the metrics module. Later on, we assigned other courses to the newbies depending on their progress rates.

Try Smart Courses for Confluence

The post The remote onboarding in the era of COVID-19: for Confluence users only first appeared on Creativas.