This site has moved to the integrated Appfire documentation and information site for our apps.

From February 2024 this site is no longer updated.

Take a look here! If you have any questions please email support@appfire.com

Quick Start with Comala Publishing

 

lg-lockup-logo-comala-publishing-dark.png

Quick Start with Comala Publishing

Overview

Comala Publishing is used for

  • between-space publishing letting you keep two spaces in the same instance in sync

  • copying in a one-time copy operation any space content to a target space within the same instance

  • the creation of static versioned snapshot documents from your dynamic Confluence content and the organization of these documents as logical groups in one or more collections


Space Publishing

Space publishing lets you keep two spaces in sync

  • a draft space where you can make all the content changes you want

  • and a published space, that displays the content you want users to see

You can choose to

Publish content from the current space to another space

Publish content to the current space from another space

Copy Space

Copy Space lets you make a copy of any space content and copy this to a target space within the same instance.

Using Copy Space creates a one-time copy operation with no subsequent sync if content changes in either space.

You can use Copy Space, for example, to make an initial copy of an existing production space to set up a new space as the draft source space.

o

Snapshot Publishing

Snapshot Publishing lets you

  • create a static versioned document from your dynamic Confluence content

  • organize these documents as logical groups in one or more collections

  • view the static version of the snapshot documents in PDF or HTML view

Confluence macros that display live content are frozen on each snapshot version. This includes content from

  • Jira Issues

  • Excerpt Include

  • Metadata

Collections allow you to build and manage Collections by document type and user permissions, not space permissions.

Collections provide the ability to manage permitted users view access to a versioned, read-only view of a static version of logically grouped Confluence pages.


Getting Started

You will need global administrator permission to Install the app from the Atlassian Marketplace.

Once installed, you then need to set the global configuration for the app to define

  • the global user permissions for the app

  • the spaces in which the app can be used

    • to publish and copy

    • for snapshot publishing

  • the content properties are published including the content label that can be used by the space admin to sync content

Secondly, a space administrator configures

  • the link between the space for the content to be published (target space) and the space for the draft content (source space)

  • the target space for a one-off copy of the space

  • the content and properties to be published or copied e.g. pages, blog posts or both, and how they are published

  • whether the space can use snapshot publishing


Comala Publishing users


Global Configuration

A global administrator will need to configure

  • the permissions for the user group who can publish and copy the content

    • Publishers Group - users who can configure a space for publishing and publish content must be a member of the added Confluence user group

    • Copiers Group - users who can copy must be a member of the added Confluence user group

  • the permissions for the user group who can snapshot publish and create a collection

    • Collection Managers group - users who can set up a space for snapshot publishing and create a collection must be a member of the added Confluence user group

If required, set the spaces that can be published

  • separate configuration setting for publishing/copying and snapshot publishing

  • the default is ANY space in the instance for each setting

You can limit the spaces for each publishing feature by adding one or more spacekeys

Global admins can also

  • set the prefixes for content properties such as metadata to be published or copied

    • the default prefixes are metadata and com.communardo

  • set the label that space admins can optionally use to ignore or publish space content

    • the default label value is syncme.


Space Publishing Configuration

A space admin needs to

  • link the draft and published spaces

  • configure the type of content and content properties to be published

  • set the options for publishing content e.g. allow single page publishing, publish content with the sync label set by global admin

The user must also be a member of the Confluence group added to the app global configuration Publishers Group.

Link the draft and published spaces

As the space administrator, you must link your draft and published spaces.

You can

  • set the current space as the published space and link to a draft space

  • set the current space as draft space and link to a published space

Choose a space to be the linked space in the dropdown menu.

Once the spaces are linked you can

  • Configure the content to be published

  • View Changes that will be made when space is published

Configure the space publishing options for content

In the publishing screen, Configure what to include when you publish your draft space content.

Set publishing options including

  • link/change the target linked space using the dropdown menu

  • enabling users to publish single pages using the Single Page Publish slider

  • excluding pages or blog posts from the publish action

  • cleaning up out-of-sync pages

  • keeping labels intact

For publishing actions, you can use check buttons to configure the content to be published

  • Page Content Options

    • use and configure the use of the globally set label to determine the space content to publish

    • enable/disable copying of page properties

    • include/exclude labels

    • copy page restrictions

    • version comments

    • override content in the selected target space (and do not retain page history)

    • when publishing use the modification date or publishing date in the target space

  • Visualization Options

    • display publishing status lozenge

    • display draft watermark on draft space logo

  • Space Sync Conditions when publishing from the space tools dashboard include

    • publish pages, blog posts, or space home page and any orphan pages in the draft space

    • delete content in the published space that is not in the draft space

    • only publish changed draft space content when publishing a whole space

    • always publish content even if there are no updates in the draft space

    • only publish content in a Comala workflow final state (when a Comala Document Management family app is applied) and publishing content on transition to the workflow final state

    • use of a sync label to filter the publishing of content

When Display Publishing Lozenge is checked a publishing status lozenge is added to the content to easily identify the state of each draft and published page.

The publishing status lozenges are one of

  • new

    • NEW content not yet published 

  • out of sync

    • OUT OF SYNC previously published  content is now different in each space

  • published

    • PUBLISHED is published content that is the same in each space

Publishing content

You can make content changes in your draft source space, and then update the target space pages all at once or one page at a time.

Choose the Publish button to publish the whole space content.

0

Viewing out of sync content

The View Changes option button displays any content that is out of synchronization between the draft source space and the published target space.

Filter buttons allow you to choose the date range for out of sync content, publishing status of content, and the user who last updated the content.

Checking content sync

Toggle between the target and published space to view the content in that space that is out of sync.

The report lists new or edited content since the last Publish action within the set date filters.

Here the Published Space has content that is not in the Draft Space.0

The report lists new or edited content since the last Publish action.

 If you publish a page whose parent does not exist in the target space, it becomes an orphan in the target published space (published to the root of the space).

Space Publishing - useful pages


Copy a space

With Comala Publishing, you can also copy one space to another to replicate content. Use this Copy Space option to copy a space as it exists at a point in time.

The Copy options

  • target space is configured separately from the publishing target space

  • settings for content to be copied are set separately from the publishing settings

Copy Space - useful pages


Snapshot Publishing space configuration

A space admin needs to

Once snapshot publishing is enabled in the space the space admin as a collection manager can

Collections and the added snapshot documents can be viewed in the collections global viewer by any user with view permission or contributor permission for the collection irrespective of the user permissions on the source Confluence document.

A snapshots of a Confluence document in a space can be added to one or more collections by a user who has contributor permission for each collection and the collection is linked or created in a space.

Snapshot Publishing - useful pages


Publishing content using a Comala workflow

If the Comala Document Management app is installed together with Comala Publishing and a workflow is applied to a page or blog post, the space administrator can choose to configure

Publishing with a Comala workflow - useful pages