Confluence Groups vs Collections

What are Confluence Groups?

Confluence, uses groups as a way to manage users and control access to features and content. These groups represent collections of users that can be granted specific permissions within Confluence spaces, pages, or even system-wide settings. When an organization starts with Confluence, certain default groups are created which allow for basic levels of permission and access. Why are Groups Important in Confluence?

  1. With groups, administrators can grant specific access levels to a collection of users.

  2. As organizations grow, instead of assigning permissions to each user individually, groups allow administrators to manage permissions for large sets of users at once.

  3. Departments, teams, or even ad-hoc project groups can have their own set of permissions in Confluence.

Confluence Groups

Pain points & the need for Improvements

While groups in Confluence offer robust control over permissions, there are certain areas that can benefit from enhancements:

  1. Manual user addition → Currently, adding users to groups is a manual process. For large organizations, this can be time-consuming and can lead to human errors.

  2. Lack of dynamic groups → Modern organizations are dynamic, with roles and responsibilities frequently shifting. Static groups may not always reflect the evolving nature of teams. There's a need for groups that can adapt based on certain criterias or rules such as promotions, moving to other departments etc.

  3. Complexity for new admins → For new Confluence administrators or users, understanding the usage of groups and permissions can be daunting.

Cosmos Collections → Revolutionizing Confluence user management

As organizations grow, the need for dynamic and flexible user management becomes more important. Cosmos Collections allows administrators to create dynamic Confluence groups based on a combination of existing Confluence groups and supplementary filters from the Employee Database. This makes the management of user permissions more precise, adaptive, and efficient.

 

Cosmos Collections
  1. Extensive Employee Database → From basic information like department and position to more personal data like hobbies and expertise, the Employee Database offers a huge of filtering options.

  2. Dynamic grouping Traditional Confluence groups can be combined with filters from the employee database to create a more refined group. For instance, an administrator can form a group that includes members of the "Marketing" Confluence group who also have "Content Creation" listed as an expertise in the Employee Database.

  3. Automated user addition → As soon as an administrator adds or updates profile information in the employee database that matches the conditions of a Cosmos Collection, the relevant user is automatically added to that collection. This ensures that Confluence groups remain up-to-date without any extra effort.

  4. Content Personalization → One of the standout features is the ability to personalize Confluence content based on these collections. Tailor the content experience by displaying relevant content to specific collections. For instance, someone tagged with "Graphic Design" expertise could see content related to design tools and workshops on their Cosmos Dashboard.

  5. Non Confluence can create Collections → Cosmos comes with its own permission scheme allowing non Confluence administrators to create Collections. In order to create Confluence groups you need to be a Confluence admin.