Sometimes, two or more people may edit a page at the same time. When this happens, Confluence will do its best to ensure that nobody's changes are lost.
How will I know if someone else is editing the same page as I am?
If another user is editing the same page as you, Confluence will display a message above your edit screen letting you know who the other user is and when the last edit was made.
Screenshot: Notification of Simultaneous Page Editing

What happens if two of us are editing the same page and the other user saves before I do?
If someone else has saved the page before you, when you click 'Save', Confluence will check if there are any conflicts between your changes and theirs. If there are no conflicting changes, Confluence will merge both the edits successfully. If there are any conflicts, Confluence will display them for you and give you the option to either 'Overwrite' the other user's changes, 'Merge your changes' manually, or 'Discard' them.
Screenshot: Notification of Page Editing Conflict

Example Scenario
| For example, Alice and Bob both edit the same page at the same time.
If Alice clicks save before Bob, Bob is now effectively editing an out-of-date version of the page. When Bob clicks save, Confluence will examine his changes to see if any overlap with Alice's. If the changes do not overlap (i.e. Alice and Bob edited different parts of the page), Bob's changes will be merged with Alice's automatically. If Bob's changes overlap with Alice's, Confluence will display an error message to Bob showing where Alice has changed the page, and giving Bob the options to overwrite Alice's changes with his own, to re-edit the document to incorporate Alice's work, or to cancel his own changes entirely. |
RELATED TOPICS
Page History and Page Comparison Views
Viewing Page Information
Working with Drafts Overview
Take me back to Confluence User's Guide.






Comments (4)
Oct 08, 2008
Jim Dibble says:
Where does the option "Merge your changes" appear in the user interface? I only ...Where does the option "Merge your changes" appear in the user interface? I only see "Overwrite" and "Discard" buttons in the merge tool. Is there any assistance in performing the merge?
Nov 03, 2008
Ming Giet Chong says:
Hi Jim, For further clarification, the "Merge your changes" is not a button in ...Hi Jim,
For further clarification, the "Merge your changes" is not a button in Confluence's user interface. As described above, you are require to merge the changes manually. Hope this helps. Thanks.
Regards,
MG
Feb 15, 2009
Jon Hertzig says:
Lately I've had a couple of clashes, with people make multiple conflicting chang...Lately I've had a couple of clashes, with people make multiple conflicting changes at the same time
--- is there no way of preventing simultaneous access, or warning users someone else is editing a page before they can get to the edit view ?
Feb 16, 2009
Azwandi Mohd Aris [Atlassian] says:
Hi Jon, Confluence does have this feature, where it will display a warning mess...Hi Jon,
Confluence does have this feature, where it will display a warning message as depicted in the first screenshot on this page. Users should also be prompted with a screen asking for content overwrite if Confluence detects concurrent changes. However, there is no such mechanism for content locking or disallowing multiple users from editing the same page at the same time. Perhaps, you might want to refer to our developer's comment on this issue here.
Hope that helps!
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