Confluence 4.2 Takes Attachment and Document Management to the Next Level

Earlier this week Matt shared some of the small improvements to share notifications and blog comments coming soon in Confluence 4.2. This release is tearing at the seams with new features and enhancements that we’re back to tell you about a few more improvements that we’re just too excited about to keep to ourselves.

Add Labels to Attachments

Ever heard the phrase, “With great power, comes great responsibility”? Made popular by Uncle Ben from the blockbuster hit ‘Spider-Man’, this phrase dutifully portrays the challenge Peter Parker faces as Spider-Man.

To some degree, the same can be said for Confluence’s Drag-and-Drop feature, which makes it incredibly easy to attach files, Office documents, and images to any Confluence page. Without the right checks in place, it can be easy to lose track of your attachments, let alone different versions of the attachments, leaving your content anything but organized. So much power demands responsibility!

Fortunately, with the release of Confluence 4.2, you’ll be able to apply labels to attachments, just like you do for pages and blog posts – satisfying 117 of your votes!

Labeling an Attachment

Using the ‘Labels’ dialog, you can label an attachment the same way that you would label a page or blog post. Confluence will suggest current labels tagged to pages, blogs, or attachments based on what you type. Continue to type through the suggestions to create a new custom label.

Meet the New, Sexier ‘Attachments’ Macro

The ‘Attachments’ macro let’s you to display a list of attachments on to a page. For instance, you might embed the ‘Attachments’ macro on to a Confluence page to create a light-weight repository for all files related to an upcoming release or project. It provides a link to each attachment for easy access and makes it easy to manage each attachments’ labels and properties.

Why label attachments?

Simple – labeling your attachments provides a means to organize them. Right now there isn’t an effective way to categorize your attachments. ‘Attachments’ is a bulk term for files, documents, images, and the like. But with labels, you can group your attachments into similar categories or group your attachments with other relevant content, such as pages and blogs. With Confluence 4.2 you have the flexibility to manage your attachments any way you want to.

Labeling your attachments is also an effective way to make attachments a first-class citizen in Confluence pages and blog posts. Even when you embed PowerPoint files on a Confluence page, as far as Confluence is concerned, the PowerPoint is just a part of the greater page. Labeling that PowerPoint file and then making use of the ‘Content by Label’ macro can level the playing field and heighten the discoverability of that PowerPoint file.