Learn less, do more & Confluence 5 review

Confluence 5 has been released and understandably there's a lot of excitement. What's interesting about this new version of Confluence is that Atlassian have focused on upgrading the user experience of Confluence as opposed its features and functionality.

Having been exposed to Confluence 5 as part of the beta programme, we have to say that it's a real success, allowing you do Learn less, do more. What do we mean by that? Well, it's usually the case that new versions require a period of adjustment as existing users have to reacquaint themselves with once-familiar software. Confluence 5 uses familiar conventions from Facebook (and other social media platforms) to be intuitive and proactive in helping you just get stuff done.

Some of the key changes in Confluence 5

Atlassian's team gave themselves the goal of bringing speed, clarity and discoverability to every aspect of Confluence. This rationale led to some key changes.

New Global Header:

It's fair to say that the top bar of Confluence is a Facebook-style header, providing speedy access to your other Atlassian apps, spaces, people, calendars, settings and admin.

The Create experience has been streamlined and contextualised:

In Confluence 5, the function of the Create button is relative to where you are and what you most frequently do.

Intuitive space sidebar:

This new feature appears on every page and is intended to display the most likely content users want to access. The aim is to reduce the need for searching and to help orientate users.

Responsive design and real-time alerts:

The front-end has been overhauled so that real-time updates are pulled into the page automatically rather than requiring a page refresh. The design adjusts to the size of your browser and features like the Space Sidebar can be collapsed.

3 reasons we like Confluence 5

Uses context to declutter the interface:

The Confluence 5 user interface is the first step in a new model that will work across the Atlassian portfolio. The key addition is the use of context to bring the functions and information that you're most likely to need at any time to a clear, less-cluttered interface.

Better integration between apps:

The reason this is great news for Confluence users is that it means you're more able to stay in the world you're used to. If you're focused on documentation you can manage you're Tasks from Confluence. If you live in JIRA, you can continue to stay up to date there with updates being pushed seamlessly between apps.

Context streamlines your tasks:

The contextual intelligence of Confluence 5 gives you a head-start, making it easier to select templates and bringing out features and content that were previously tucked away. You can find what want more easily and focus on the content the metadata is still there if you need it.

All this means that you and the whole development team can spend more time working and less time searching for information, figuring out how to work the software and navigating through menus to the type of content they want to create. In short, the Confluence 5 review is Learn less, do more. If you want help with the process of migrating to Confluence 5 don't hesitate to get in touch with us now.