It can be challenging to keep the whole team in the loop when multiple projects are ongoing. Deadlines pop up out of the blue, messages are missed, and it becomes impossible to streamline workflows. Confluence, a work management platform developed by the Australian company Atlassian, puts a stop to this chaos.
The software helps to bring the whole company together in a single platform and provides a virtual workspace for each department. In fact, Confluence serves a wide variety of businesses with its well-structured design and many forms of communication, such as blog articles. If that’s not enough, workflows become faster with numerous project-specific templates.
To top it off, Confluence can be used for free forever. But if you’re looking for additional collaboration tools, it’s possible to try out Confluence’s paid subscriptions for up to 30 days without paying a dime.
Confluence provides unlimited workspaces for all types of industries, be it marketing, finance, software development, or anything in the between. Branching away from typical project management platforms, these spaces keep teams informed about projects through customizable blog posts and pages, as opposed to more traditional boards with tasks and subtasks.
As a result, it takes a little while to get to grips with the platform. Nevertheless, once you’ve taken the initial steps, working with Confluence becomes much smoother. Team members can be invited via email and additional workspaces made at the drop of a hat.
Once everyone’s on board, systems are made infinitely more streamlined as workflows are centralized. This way, the team can have a better idea about the projects assigned to them and easily follow up on updates.
An important aspect of Confluence that all files and projects are protected by military-grade encryption. By integrating Atlassian Access, you’re also safe from malware, ransomware, phishing, and more.
Entry to workspaces happens via invitation, which also means that only the account holder has access to each department’s dashboard. However, it’s possible to give permission to any employee if they need to access files shared in a different workspace.
Although Confluence is not a communication platform per se, its main function is business collaboration. That is, team members can create posts within their respective workspaces. There are two types of updates: blog entries and pages. The former informs the team about daily news relating to the business and the latter is for ongoing projects.
Essentially, the main difference is that there are templates for pages only. Whether you’re writing a page or a blog post, there are dedicated fields for its title and copy, plus various ways to customize the text. For example, it’s possible to create checklists, tables, code snippets, and info panels.
The software offers color-coded fields for status updates. This way, it’s easy to understand when a project has not been started yet or is in progress, for example. In addition to all that, Confluence lets you import external document files and turn them into posts.
When published, the software lets employees comment under posts and tag each other. Depending on the permissions set by the creator, team members can also do some finetuning and edit the posts. All modifications are tracked and Confluence follows up on every post’s history and restores previous versions if necessary.
To make page creation as seamless as possible, Confluence provides a vast library of editable templates to make users’ lives easier. One option is to start a new page and import a template. At the same time, it’s also possible to browse through Confluence’s website, find the document type needed, and start working on it directly.
Confluence has project management, strategic planning, and product management templates. Project management templates include project plans, letting you decide a project’s scope, milestones, and more. Another example is a DACI document template, which lets everyone follow up on decisions made concerning a project, such as who contributed to it and its possible impact on the company.
The strategic planning templates allow users to lay out business expectations in a well-documented fashion. When a project is complete, another template called ‘Retrospective’ can be used to analyze what went well during a campaign and what needs improvement.
Finally, product management templates are used for planning how a product or service is launched through a product roadmap. Here, the product strategy can be described in detail, including estimates for when the product or service should be launched and updated.
When your product is already out in the world, another template can be used for summarizing its requirements. Afterward, this page can be updated according to customers’ feedback or information on a new release date.
Confluence offers a mobile app for Android and iOS for editing posts, writing comments, and following up on tasks. The app also sends push notifications when someone tags you in a project or edits a post you created.
While many of the text editing functions are missing, Confluence Mobile does offer extra tools. For example, it’s possible to take photos and record videos and insert them into posts. In fact, existing posts can also be updated with images and recordings.
Although there’s no way to import a template while using the app, it’s easy to edit one that’s already been imported using the web app. The cherry on top is that Confluence’s mobile app comes with additional cybersecurity tools. For example, it can close automatically after two minutes of idle time. Moreover, the app supports biometric authentication, ensuring that only authorized users can access their account.
One of Confluence’s biggest selling points is its connection to the Atlassian Marketplace, which is brimming with thousands of apps that can be integrated with the software. By doing so, centralizing and streamlining systems becomes even easier. For example, Microsoft Teams can be used for web conferencing while working on a project together.
It’s also possible to merge workspaces with Slack and use Lorem Ipsum to create customized placeholders in Confluence posts. What’s more, it pairs seamlessly with other Atlassian software, including Jira Software and Jira Service Management. This is useful for importing tasks to Confluence and embed them into posts, so that the team can follow projects in detail.
The best part is that every integration comes with a 30-day free trial, even if the respective platform has a different pricing policy when used separately.
Confluence is fairly priced, although its exact pricing structure is overwhelming. The company follows a user-based pricing, but the policies behind it change depending on the billing cycle that you opt for.
For monthly plans, prices per user stay the same until the 100th seat ($5.75 for Standard and $11 for Premium). Additional seats decrease the cost per user, which can be as low as $1.86 per month for Standard and $3.30 for Premium. Meanwhile, annual billing breaks down the pricing into user tiers, where Atlassian charges fixed fees for a certain range of users. For example, the annual price for both 16 and 25 users is the same ($1,450). This means that, while it’s possible to get a discount of up to 16% with yearly billing, this only happens when the account seats’ number is at the end of the user tier.
Alternatively, the platform can be used for free for a maximum of ten users. Generously, this plan provides unlimited workspaces and 2GB of storage space for files, making it fitting for small teams. In the meantime, paid plans support up to 50,000 seats.
In addition to 250GB of storage, the Standard plan offers administrators more control over permissions regarding workspaces and files.
On the other hand, subscribers of Confluence Premium receive unlimited storage space. They also benefit from employee calendars so team members can insert their availability and holidays.
Regardless of the subscription you opt for, the company offers a full refund in the first 30 days of purchase. Moreover, all paid plans can be used for free for up to 30 days with the free trial.
It’s always reassuring to know that help is there when you need it, and that’s certainly the case with Confluence. With the various support channels to choose from, such as email, phone, and a ticket system, it’s unlikely that your question will go unanswered.
Help is also available via the company’s detailed FAQ sections and user guides. But that’s not all, as you can always watch one of the many getting started videos.
What really sets Confluence apart from the competition is that it doesn’t hide its system status, letting you check the most recent incident reports. As a result, you may learn whether anyone else has experienced an error and can expect a solution without contacting customer support. Last but not least, those able to detect a software loophole can send bug reports to the developers to help their work in solving any system errors.
If you have a hard time coordinating the whole team and keeping everyone on track, Confluence may just be the solution. Although the platform can be overwhelming at first, you’ll save time and effort down the line by bringing all business processes into one place.
With a handy way to create updates as posts and pages, there’s virtually nothing that goes under the radar regarding to-dos and project milestones. Also, Confluence ensures that you always have a ready-made template for everything, be it a marketing campaign or an annual business report.
If Confluence has caught your interest, you’ll be happy to know that there’s a limited free version available for up to ten users. But if you’re ready for additional collaboration tools, the software’s paid plans can be tried out for free for up to 30 days. Last but not least, a 30-day money-back guarantee extends this risk-free period.
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