Confluence at PUL

Owned by Esmé Cowles
Last updated: Oct 31, 2023 by Vickie Karasic
3 min read

Introducing Confluence at PUL

We began using Confluence in 2020, primarily as a documentation platform for the Alma implementation. By early 2022, we had 140 staff using the new system with more than a dozen spaces and 1,300 pages in place. In addition to documentation, Confluence is also being used for internal guidelines and policies, such as the Discovery Services Steering Group (DSSG) Approved Policies.

For those of you unfamiliar with the platform, following is information about it and how it complements other PUL information-sharing platforms.

What is Confluence?

Confluence is an intranet and a wiki. It's an excellent choice for sharing documentation, policies and documents that are unlikely to change frequently. It's a good place for content that you'd like to share with colleagues outside PUL, such as our Digitization Best Practices which is designed for sharing with vendors. Confluence pages are easier to maintain than Drupal pages (and are clearly separated from our public-facing pages). Confluence pages are typically more structured and easier to find and keep track of than Google Docs.

What types of information and documents should be stored on Confluence?

We will develop guidelines for best practices regarding Confluence in the months ahead. Please share your ideas and questions with us as you begin exploring the platform. 

Is Confluence public? If yes, how do I keep non-public information private?

Authors can choose at the page or site level to set permissions with fine granularity. Pages on Confluence can be set to be visible to the world, only to PUL staff, only within a department, or shared with manual permissions similar to Google Docs

How does Confluence fit into information available on our main public website(s), LibGuides, Connecting, and Google drives?

Unlike the Library's public website and LibGuides, Confluence is intended for internal PUL content. Some of the content on Confluence may benefit from being publicly-available, but the primary audience is PUL staff. Google Docs work well for real-time collaboration, but many staff have found it difficult to go back and find documents after weeks or months have passed. Google Docs also need to be manually shared with new staff and can be hard to trace in terms of ownership. Confluence is a better  organized, more permanent place for documentation. We plan to host committee minutes, group charges, internal PUL policies, documentation, and workflow descriptions in Confluence. Connecting will continue to have a PUL Committees and Groups information page which will link to Confluence for various reference materials.

Is using Confluence required?

We have many ways to communicate with each other, and Confluence is one more tool in our toolkit. We recommend thinking through the guidance here and consulting with your colleagues before choosing the right tool for each context. We will provide training sessions and open houses soon to explore the relative merits of  the different  tools available to us.

Do I need a Confluence account and login?

If you will be editing content, yes (see below). However, most pages are viewable without having to log in (i.e. they are publicly viewable, like this page). 

How do I get a Confluence account and login?

Confluence uses Princeton Single-Sign On (SSO) for logging in, but accounts need to be set up and are limited. Please contact L-Support to request a Confluence account or a new space for your unit or project. Once your account has been created, you can login using your Princeton NetID and password, and Duo will send a push request to your mobile device.