What examples do you have of useful databases?

[Ash Roberts]

I am trying to find some good examples of databases and what they can be used for. Does anyone here have any good examples?

[Filip Callewaert]

@Ash Roberts , thanks to Databases, Confluence at this moment has become (again) my main digital workplace: 

1. My cases (projects) > 95% of the content I produce in my job

- at the highest level I define my projects (or 'cases'), with fields that provide me with links to client, client contact(s), responsible (assignee), start date, status, jira link

- second level: per case: all my case notes (anything that happens in the context of that project): analyses, meeting notes, documentation, next steps explorations, ..., expecting to end with the 'case resolution'

notes can be linked to Jira (extra field in dbase), but that is not a necessity

2. Documentation management

Databases support me enormously in the management of documentation pages. Databases provides me with an overview of important metadata, that can be changed in my overview itself - I do not need to open pages, edit, save. In this use case, Databases is my status manager for pages, my label manager and as I can link labels to permissions through Automation rules, it is also my permission manager. 

3. Management of and nice view (use card view) for blog-like pages 

4. All kinds of dynamic 'knowledge libraries'

5. Also possible: Meeting agendas and follow up (but this is interwoven with the case management above)

One entry in database is one meeting agenda item. Databases allows me much better to plan (= bundle) items for meetings, to provide a workflow (status) to items, to provide overview of agendas, and to dynamically manage meeting agendas (items that were not discussed in this meeting, just get a new meeting date and become automatically part of the next meeting agenda)

6. One specific use case of the meeting management is the management of the Board of director's meetings, and the Council's meetings. > at the highest and most official level of the company

7. Another use case: a development portfolio concept with Databases: every employee his/her portfolio with goals, assessments, learning paths, etc. of which some parts are even open for co-workers, so that they can participate in the development of their colleagues. 

8. Brainstorming and ideas management - mainly the flexible metadata allow that these ideas get easily sorted, filtered, and developed (indeed, I always have a 'blank' Confluence page attached > white space that invites to be used)

9. The sky is the limit

For me, databases is revolutionary for Confluence, as Confluence's native structuring and metadata capabilities were very limited. Databases changes this completely. So, for any set of information that might profit from 'datafication', Databases is my companion.

Do you remember page properties (reports)? The most counterintuitive way of datafying content... One hour after your first Databases experience, you will have forgotten what that was.

[Tami Dubi]

Hi @Filip Callewaert 

Can you please provide an example of the usage of replacing page property reports by using a database in templates, so that multiple users are filling in details and they are added to the database?

I couldn't find a way of putting an empty row from an existing database table that users can fill.

Thanks,

Tami

[Filip Callewaert]

Hi @Tami Dubi ,

I see the field names of the database as the names for the page properties - is that clear to you too?
Next:  If the Title page field (the column that generates a new Confluence page) has the settings that a new page contains the "Database entry macro" (see screenshot), you get your typical "page properties table" in each page that you add to the database. 
So, adding a page > presents the "page properties table" to a user, who completes it, saves it > the "page properties" end up in the database. The database, or a view on it, is the former "page properties report". 

Which is no longer active in Databases beta (but was in alpha, and I expect it back for the public release) is the macro "Insert a database entry" > "create new one" - which allows that anywhere in your Confluence you offer users the option to generate a Confluence page with that macro in it which allows the user to complete an entry for a specific database. In this sense, I think I completely replace the page properties (report) mechanisms.

Do not hesitate to ask further questions on this if it is not clear!

Filip

[Filip Callewaert]

@Tami Dubi , I add some more screenshots: 

My database (I have a database to explore Confluence Databases (of course :-) )

And each entry (a Confluence page) has on top of that page the "database entry macro", which shows the field values:

Maybe that's part of your confusion: the macro "database entry" might not be in your pages, then indeed you do not get that page properties effect (table with data) in your page.
This is the edit view of that one page: 

Part of the fields are populated automatically (eg. fields with page details, page status, page link, page labels), others need to be completed by the user manually. 

For the report:

when you add views on the database, this allows you to show only a selection of columns.

[Filip Callewaert]

@Divya Sriram - am I right that in Beta the macro "database entry" is not available? Then I understand the confusion of @Tami Dubi . 

If so, will it come back for the public release? 

(idem for the macro "add database entry" (existing or new one) ?)

[Tami Dubi]

Hi @Filip Callewaert ,Thanks for the swift and extensive answer.

Now I understand the missing part of the pazzle. 
One question however, assuming I want to use one template in multiple places and not under a specific parent page. If I set the the macro "database entry" (when it will return) in the template, that won't be an issue, right?

Thanks,

Tami

[Filip Callewaert]

@Tami Dubi , I leave that answer to @Divya Sriram and team. 

I personally would expect it not to be an issue, but I could not test that up to now. The feature to create a database entry from the macro "add database entry" in a page is not active for me right now. I can only show existing ones.

Suppose that would work, you can have the "add entry in database" macro in a template. In that macro, you predefine the database to which new entries would be added. You also mark the option that you create new entries (instead of showing an exisiting one). 

Then you can use this template in e.g. buttons "create from template", and this would generate a page with the database entry macro, which would in turn generate a new entry for the database with the data the user has just entered. 

I do assume that you can only do this in the space in which the database exists (though here the alpha/beta and public release might also differ). I thought that in alpha, databases are space-specific and cannot be fed from outside that specific space.

[Richmond Izard_ PMP_ CFPM_ CPRP]

Hi @Filip Callewaert 

Thanks for sharing your successes. My foundational question with Confluence databases is, "Where is the source documentation?" Is there a video or online documentation available that actually explains how to replace page properties with the database solution on the parent (target/rollup) and child (source) pages?

I do see that there is a resource page, "Getting started with Confluence databases."

Respectfully,

Richmond

[Filip Callewaert]

@Richmond Izard_ PMP_ CFPM_ CPRP , is this what you mean:

https://support.atlassian.com/confluence-cloud/docs/create-and-edit-databases/

Mind, I do not expect 'migration'-support in Databases to convert page properties to Databases. I think you could keep your existing page properties working, and add new databases (instead of page properties) for new use case that you set up.

[Divya Sriram]

Hey @Ash Roberts , great question! 

We've got some examples on our page here, and if you go down, you can click through examples for different teams

https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/databases 

We've seen customers love using databases for:

• RFCs (request for comments) for eng teams
• Quarterly and yearly deliverables for products
• Launch checklist and storing related links, owners, and details
• Candidate tracking for hiring, storing interview templates, notes, etc
• Campaign tracker and storing relevant content, owners, review status, etc

Would love to learn how everyone here is leveraging databases!

[Ash Roberts]

Thanks Divya! Appreciate your link and examples. 

[Dina Watson]

Hey Ash, I'm experimenting with creating a database that displays user membership/s in relation to the org workstream.  We currently store that in a spreadsheet which everyone has trouble locating so thought I'd leverage user field available in database to connect the dots. 

[Ash Roberts]

Thanks for the Share! 

[George Pomar]

In our eComm shop we have a handful of teams working on various parts of the website/apps.  For identification, we use professional sports team names, and each team is manned with the typical lead developer, development engineers, and product managers. We will often lend team members to other teams depending on the current priorities and workloads, as well.  

So I've created a team table that can display our team as a whole, the normalized teams, and have views displaying hybrid teams based on projects.  It's very handy for us to add a new team view and share it since we use Confluence to produce and track the requirements, feasibility, and execution of projects.  

The interface is very clear to read and use, and the updating capabilities make adding to a new Confluence project page very speedy.  We designed it as follows:

Associate - Team member names

Role - The associate's position on their assigned team (lead, dev, UI, QA, Product Manager, etc.)

Team - The team names

Area - This field assists with some team member who regularly float between team such as UX and UI, and also identifies specialty roles like an analytics analyst or an engineer who specializes in our legacy systems. 

Projects - Project names (often Epic names)

[Dave]

Hey @Ash Roberts 

Bit late to the question but we've been using them in a similar manner to @Filip Callewaert 

A checkout table for the dev team to track work on common or global components, with a column for who currently has them checked out and what they're doing with it. The table also serves as a point of truth for documentation, with several backlinked tables providing links to technical documentation, entities (ERD etc) - makes it far easier for test, dev and support teams to find relevant information based on a single element or component reference.

[Filip Callewaert]

Hi @Dave - for your first use case: have you already explored Compass?

[Dave]

@Filip Callewaert Not extensively! Most of the features aren't of use to us, and we can't justify the cost based on just the catalogue feature alone. It looks like a great product

[Agnes Canlas]

I started using the Confluence database feature I believe in January, and below are what I have developed so far. I love the database feature; it is very useful in my opinion.

• Project Request Submission and Project Tracking database - I created different views of the data, one view is where users can submit their request. Another view is for project tracking, my team is using the same database to update the status of the project. Then another view where our leadership can see high-level status of the projects. I connected this database to a master database to auto-populate some of the fields.
• Solution Repository - A collection of all the solutions that we built, I connected my Project Database to the solution repository so that I can track how many projects are connected to the solution. I used the Entry BackLink feature to track the connected projects.
• Service Request Tracking - We track external vendor tickets in this database.
• Data Governance - I created a database to house our data dictionary. I connected 4 databases to remove redundancy of data entry. Tracks the data owners, stewards, developers, etc.
• Workflow Documentation - Lists the details of our workflow schedules, it helps us quickly identify the workflows that will be impacted by an update at a given time, and identify the developers and owners.

[Jacyline Gerson]

@Agnes Canlas Can you share how you created the workflow documentation?

[Aj]

@Agnes Canlas : can you share how you created and related two Confluence tables to each other? In your example, you stated that you connected the 'Project Database' to the 'Solution Repository', which I presume was a separate, new Confluence Database. You mentioned using the 'Entry Backlink' feature to track the connected projects (databases), but I'm wondering if that is actually how you related (connected) the databases in the first place?

I've been looking for documentation on if and how to related Confluence Database tables to each other, but I have not found any. Your post is the first I've found of something that 'sounds' like creating database relationships.

Hopefully my question is clear, if not, please let me know and I will re-phrase. Thanks for your help!

[Lana Kelly]

Asset management (I know Jira has a native assets, but I like this better).  So we have one database of asset categories (SaaS, laptops, network equipment) and then separate databases of those entries.  This way, we can have a database of vendors and then backlink to the services they provide (reseller A provides services B, C, and D, for example).  It also allows us to link the Confluence pages with the working instructions, contracts, risk assessments, access control reviews, etc.

[Ingo Dörrie]

The project I am working on is to deliver a template for an interview with a set of pre-defined questions.

The user may select the questions of relevance for an interview and add others.

Works fine. 

Only thing missing: create a graph from database data.

[Robert Hean]

I've been toying with using them for faq, with each row a question. Previously I would use either sub headers or child pages, which works but can get uggo fast...

I've got a YouTube video coming out on Monday detailing the setup, but at its simplest:

Question - a text column of the question

Type - Tag column - used to sort by area/type (e.g. hr, eng, etc)

Answer - link - a link to the page, resource, etc with the answer. Could also be text, but trying to have answers be on their own page for searchability. 

I also setup a number of saved filters to share with specific groups, including one for unanswered questions to let me easily see outstanding items. 

[Todor Velikov]

A bit late to the thread but didn't see this being mentioned. I managed to use them as a calendar of upcoming events utilizing the card view, columns are anything you need to have visible on the cards but I would suggest the first column being the date as it will be big and on the top of the cards, the rest is up to you, external links, webinar registration links and so on.