Will concurrent editing take Confluence to a new level?
Having multiple team members editing the same page in Confluence is a feature that has been coming for a long time. As Atlassian has confirmed that it's about to roll it out with some pre-release announcements, we felt it was time to look at what collaborative editing will mean to Confluence users.
Long overdue
We first heralded the arrival of concurrent editing to Confluence after Summit 2014. However, for unspecified reasons, 18 months to implement. Presumably, adding the functionality has involved integrating technology from Atlassian's acquisition of Wikidocs in 2014. This, perhaps, explains the timeline. That and the fact that, while It's a simple concept from a user point of view, concurrent editing has ramifications for myriad aspects of Confluence.
No more Google Docs?
As a platform focused on team collaboration, being able to concurrently edit documents in the same way as you can with Google Docs et al seems a crucial upgrade. It will enable more collaboration to happen within Confluence and reduce the need to use external tools like Google Docs or Microsoft Word. For Confluence die-hards, it will also mean that never having to deal with conflict resolution messages ever again.
Streamlining collaboration and information management
Concurrent editing will mean that multiple users will be able to edit the same document at the same time. Users will be able to see who else is editing it and their changes being made in real time.
Keeping more of the process inside of Confluence will streamline the process of collaborating even further. It will also reduce the security and information management risks associated with documents being created, managed and shared through other systems.
When will it be available?
Collaborative editing will be released to the Confluence Cloud platform first before being rolled-out to the Server version of Confluence. That means that there will be a period where customers won't be able to migrate from Cloud to Server. Atlassian have confirmed by Atlassian that there will be significant differences in the platforms until Confluence Server gets upgraded with concurrent editing in Confluence Server 6.0.
