Confluence and Jira
Overview
Confluence is where your team collaborates and shares knowledge — create, share and discuss your files, ideas, minutes, specs, mockups, diagrams, and projects. Confluence is considered an Institutional application, meaning that all departments/employees can have access to Confluence. Source
Benefits:
- Easily publish, organize, and access information in one central location
- Capture, store, and grow your team's knowledge so you can stay up to date and on the same page
- Share internal and external facing content in the same space
- Create page templates, copy pages, move content from space to another space
- Create links that will never break due to name change
Features:
Accessible anywhere with an internet connection
Every page that is published has revision history
Powerful search function (Keyword, tags, attachments, specific word search, etc.)
- Full features list can be found here.
- Easily reorder documentation with simple drag and drop option
Best used for:
Content management
Policies
Standard Operating Procedures
- Training Documentation
- Handbooks
- Department Knowledge or How To's
Accessing Confluence
If you are reading this page, you are actually in Northwestern's Confluence application.
- Employees can access protected Confluence pages by going to the URL below and logging into with their normal username and password. Students and Employees can also visit public Confluence spaces/pages, which do not require a Confluence login.
- https://unw.atlassian.net/wiki/home
- If you see an arrow in the upper right corner of the screen like the one pictured below, it means you are not logged in yet. You will want to click the arrow to login.
- The Space Directory contains all the current spaces you have access to. Some Spaces are restricted so they will require you to login to view their content.
- The Search feature can be used help you to find articles. You can use quote to encapsulate phrases you want to search for (ex: "myUNW account". This is especially useful for finding articles that have been migrated from the older version of Confluence to the newer version.
Single Sign on in the Cloud
While there have been significant improvements and new features introduced in our Cloud licensing, we acknowledge that the current SSO process may seem less seamless to some users as compared to the login process prior to the cloud migration in Summer of 2023.
To make logging in easier and more convenient for you, we offer a couple of methods that eliminate the need to manually enter your email:
Use the My Apps Portal: You can launch Atlassian from the My Apps portal by either clicking the link on that page or bookmarking this direct link: My Apps Atlassian Link. This method allows you to log in without typing your email. Please note that it will take you to the Atlassian Start page, where you can access recent pages and IT tickets. Once you are in the Atlassian cloud, any subsequent pages you visit within a 14-hour session will not require you to enter your email again.
Login with Microsoft: Alternatively, you can click the 'Login with Microsoft' button on the Atlassian login page. The first time you use this method, it will request necessary permissions. After that initial setup, clicking the button will log you in with your existing session, such as the one from myUNW. Keep in mind that this approach may involve additional redirection time to access all the pages, so some users may still prefer manually entering their email for a quicker login.
Request a Space
If you are interested in getting a Space created for your department, please submit a ticket to the IT Department to meet with someone from IT about getting your department or team into Confluence.
Training
If you already have access to a space and are a content editor, you can click on the purple question mark in Confluence to learn more about Confluence. Otherwise for one on one training you can submit a ticket to the IT Department.