Blueprints and User Created Templates
Create a page from a template
Choose to select a template and create a page. Follow the prompts and instructional text, then edit and publish like a regular page. in the sidebar
The Create from Template Macro
If you want to encourage the use of a specific template within a location, try the Create from Template macro.
This displays a button on a page, linked to a specific template. When someone clicks the button, the macro opens the editor, ready to add a new page, and adds content to the page based on the given template.
When you set up the Create from Template macro, you can specify which blueprint or user created template the macro should use, the name of the button displayed, and the space in which the new page will appear.
This is useful, for example, if you need each person in your team to fill out a weekly status report, and you want them all to be filed in the same place. Create an index page with the Create from Template Macro on it, and each of them only has to click the button, fill in their details, and publish. All the pages will live under the index page, and the index page itself will feature a sortable list of those pages.
Confluence blueprint templates
These are the templates that come with Confluence:
- Decision: Record important project decisions and communicate them with your team.
- How-to article: Provide step-by-step guidance for completing a task.
- File list: Upload, preview, and share files with your team.
- Jira report: Communicate Jira information in easy to read reports
- Meeting notes: Plan your meetings and share notes and actions with your team.
- Retrospective: What went well? What could have gone better? Crowdsource improvements with your team.
- Product requirements: Define, track, and scope requirements for your product and feature.
- Share a link: Share and discuss content from the web like articles and videos with your team.
- Task report: Keep track of tasks for your team or project.
- Troubleshooting article: Provide solutions for commonly encountered problems.
The first time a blueprint template is used in a space, Confluence creates an index page and adds a shortcut to your sidebar. The index displays a list of pages made with the template, and selected information from your template pages.
For example, the meeting notes index displays a list of all meeting notes pages in the space, who created them, and when they were last modified. Here's the index page for the Meeting Notes template:
Screenshot:
Want to download more templates?
If you're a site admin, you can download additional free and paid templates from the Atlassian Marketplace.
Promote templates in the Create dialog
If you want to encourage the use of a template in your space, you can promote it in the Create dialog.
Promoted templates appear at the top of the create dialog, and other options, including blank page and blog post, are collapsed under a Show more link.
If someone uses the Show more link more than three times in a space, the dialog will start showing them all the templates again.
To promote a template:
- Choose Space settings in the sidebar, then choose Content tools
- Choose Promote next to the templates you want to appear in the Create dialog
Create your own template
Confluence templates exist on two levels:
- Global templates: These page templates are available in every space on your site. If you have Confluence Administrator permission, you can create, edit, and promote global templates via the Confluence administration console. To go to the global templates page, go to Settings in the Confluence sidebar, then choose Global Templates and Blueprints.
- Space templates: These page templates are available only in the space they were created in. If you have space administrator permission, you can create, edit, and promote space templates via Space settings. To go to the space templates page, choose Space settings in the sidebar, then choose Content tools > Templates.
To create a new template:
Go to the space template page (as described above), and click Create New Template.
Go to the global template page (as described above), and click Add global page template.
This will open up the template editor.
The template editor
Creating or editing a template is like creating or editing a page, but with the addition of variables and instructional text.
Template variables
Variables act as form fields on your template. When someone creates a page from that template, they'll be prompted to fill in the variable values first, before editing the page. Variables are especially useful if that same value is being used in multiple places on the template, as they only need to be filled in once.
To insert a variable into a template:
- Choose Template > New Variable from the editor toolbar (or choose an existing variable to add it to the page)
- Enter a name for the variable
- Press Enter (by default this will create a single-line text input field)
To change the variable type, click the variable placeholder and the variable's property panel will appear. Choose one of the variable types: Text, Multi-line Text, or List.
You can change the number of lines and width in characters of a Multi-line Text field. If you choose List, enter each of the items in your list, separated by commas.
Labels
Choose the
at the top of the page to add labels to your template. These labels will be added to all the pages that get created with this template.Images and other attachments
Attachments need to be uploaded to a separate page, then in your template, choose Insert > Files > Search on other pages to embed the file or image. Please note that you can't upload an image or other file into a template directly.
Instructional text
Instructional text is placeholder content that tells people how to use the template.. It's only visible when the page is being edited, and appears in italics with a shaded background, to distinguish it from normal paragraph text.
To insert instructional text:
- Choose Template > Instructional Text in the toolbar
- Type in your instructional text (for example, Insert an image of the interface here.)
You can also change the placeholder type from Text to either:
- User mention – Opens the user mention dialog.
- Jira Macro – Opens a dialog that allows you to create a new Jira issue, or search for one or more Jira issues to include on the page.
Macros
You can add macros to your template just like on a regular page. The Table of Contents macro shows errors in the template preview, but works on pages created from the template.
Add a description to your template
The template description displays in the create dialog, and is useful for explaining the purpose of your template to other users.
To add a description to a template:
- Go to the space or global templates page (as described above)
- Choose the Edit icon in the Description column
- Enter your description and hit Save
Edit templates
You can edit both blueprint templates and user created templates from the global and space template pages.
Screenshot: The Space Templates page. From here you can add, edit, delete, disable, or promote templates and blueprints for this space.
Unlike user created templates, you can't change the name of blueprint templates, only their content. If you decide you don't like the edits you've made to a blueprint template, you can select Reset to default (which only appears for edited blueprints) from beside that template to return it to its original state.
Editing a template doesn't change any pages that have been created from that template. Changes only apply to new pages created from the edited template.
Remove or disable templates
You can remove user created templates by heading to the global or space template pages and selecting Delete beside the template you want to remove. Blueprint templates cannot be deleted, only disabled. To do this, select Disable beside the template you want to disable, which will then change to say Enable. You can enable the templates again at any time.
Want to see how you'd create an example template? Check out Create a blueprint-style report.