Best way to migrate from Microsoft?

[Brian Royce]

I am new to Confluence and have a small 7 person company currently using share files and email to manage everything (giant headache). Does anyone have some best practices on migrating a company? IE: Would I just take any word docs that have documentation and convert them into pages? Or is it better to attach the word doc? The thing I do not like about using Microsoft Office is you run the risk of people saving a copy of a file and things getting outdated. Any suggestions greatly appreciated :-)

[Pramodh M · Accepted solution]

Hi @Brian Royce 

As I understand from the context, you have Doc files and you want them to move to Confluence. I say you have to do this one by one by managing what files go into what space and you could then distribute the work among your co-workers for publishing pages.

I would not go into attaching a word doc

Thanks,
Pramodh

[Brian Royce]

Thank you @Pramodh M! This is what I thought, but wanted to make sure. I am a consultant and have spent a long time looking for solutions before deciding Confluence was the one to use for KNowledge Management (and maybe a few other plugins).  There are a lot of other options these days but the Atlassian Community, University, Certifications and software itself, etc all made me pick it over the other as I was to learn and master one platform and offer to my clients.

Using the approach you recommended - One inevitable challenge I can see coming up is client's fear of moving everything to another platform. I have 2 questions surrounding this:

1) If for some reason you wanted to stop using confluence - is there a way to export all of your page data back into word or google docs?

2) What about Excel sheets? Do you keep all those as Excel files I assume? 

Thank you!

~Brian 

[Pramodh M]

Hi @Brian Royce 

Great to meet you in the community!

We have the option to export Pages to Word Docs.

Excel if it contains a small amount of information we can use confluence pages, or we could go with attaching them as well.
For exporting them as excel files, confluence doesn't have feature but could be achieved thorugh some plugins.

Thanks,
Pramodh

[Brian Royce]

You're the man - thanks! So best to put in a confluence sheet if it does not have a bunch of complicated formulas etc! This helps a lot thank you!

[Pramodh M]

Hi @Brian Royce 

Yes..

Happy to help :-)

Thanks,
Pramodh

[Shardul Juyal {Addteq}]

Hi Pramodh,

For migrating from Excel you can also look at our tool Excellentable spreadsheets for confluence. 
It is one of the few tools that allows collaboratively editing spreadsheets inside Confluence.

Regards,
Shardul Juyal

[Oki__PolarisOffice_]

@Pramodh M 

Hi, 

As the answer above, Converting a word file to Confluence page might be a good option now. 

For excel file, using an AddOn might be a good solution.

I am working for a vender company of marketplace and I have interests in working efficiently with documents in Atlassian products. 

I would like to suggest our app,  Polaris spreadsheet for Confluence , for the scenario. 

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1223556/ 

You can directly embed an excel file and edit it in a confluence page. 

It supports over 400 formula, filter, tables, and etc. 

Please check it. 

[Brian Royce]

@Oki__PolarisOffice_ @Pramodh M 

This is exactly what I am looking for. An embedded Excel you can edit from Confluence :-)

Thanks,

Brian

[Oki__PolarisOffice_]

@Brian Royce  @Pramodh M 

Free trial for a month is available. You can evaluate full features during the period.
Here is a clip that introduces how to embed an excel file in a confluence page using the AddOn. I hope it would help you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OELp_2G62oI 

[Pramodh M]

Thank you @Shardul Juyal {Addteq} and @Oki__PolarisOffice_ 

I will look into it.