Is there a way to export a list of pages created in a specific space?

[Branna Chamberlain]

I am looking to maintain a list of created pages in a specific space that will allow me to know when they were created and last updated.  I want to set a time frame on the pages so that we can go in and do timely maintenance to make sure the pages have the correct content.  For example, I created a page with instructions on how to do something on 3-1-2021.  It was last updated on 4-1-2021.  I want to make sure that all articles are reviewed 3 months after the last maintained date.  Is there a way for me to export this information out of Confluence?

[Levente Szabo _Midori_ · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the mention, @Darryl Lee

UPDATE:

Better Content Archiving Cloud is available on the Marketplace! Give it a try today, and don't postpone creating your Confluence content lifecycle management strategy and document review workflow!

Start a free trial >>

[Darryl Lee]

Hey, I wish we were on Cloud now so I could help with your EAP.

Interestingly, I just saw a ton of updates from Atlassian regarding their own page archiving functionality. Will BCA be enhancing that functionality with things like expiration dates, etc?

And of course a major concern would be migration to cloud. Are you planning to somehow convert the pages in BCA's "Archived" spaces into Cloud's new integrated space archive (apparently at the bottom of the page tree in Archived pages? Huh.)  

Recent updates from Atlassian include:

Archive all nested pages in one action

Page archiving enters its next phase with nested archiving. For any page you archive, if it has any nested pages, you’ll have the option to include all of them with the original page selected. Pages archived together will maintain their visual hierarchy to preserve the context in which they were organized in the page tree.

You’ll have the same option to include all nested pages when restoring any page in the archive back to the page tree.

Recommending pages to archive

We’ve added a notification email that’ll recommend archiving pages excluded by a bulk archiving action.

With the ability to archive a page and all of its nested pages (a whole branch of the page tree), sometimes not all pages in the branch can be included. This happens when the archiver either doesn’t have permission to view a nested page or doesn’t have permission to archive a nested page, which results in these pages being left behind in the page tree.

If you created any of these “left behind” pages, we’ll let you know in the email and give you a quick way to archive them!

(From here: https://confluence.atlassian.com/cloud/blog/2021/11/atlassian-cloud-changes-nov-1-to-nov-8-2021)

[Levente Szabo _Midori_]

Hey @Darryl Lee ,

I think your questions are already valuable :)

In short, nothing is decided 100% and the product can still take different turns to focus on the hardest problems customers struggle with when it comes to Confluence Cloud Content Lifecycle Management.

Before the EAP begins, I'll be sure to talk to as many of you (current Server/DC customers and new customers as well) as I can, so feel free to reach out if any other idea comes up.

[Aron Gombas _Midori_]

Hi @Darryl Lee

I'm the product owner of the Better Content Archiving app.

Answers to your two concrete questions:

1. Expiration on a given date: We have lots and lots of problems to tackle before we release the Cloud version of the app for the public, but it's 90% sure that expiration dates will be available already in 1.0.0.
2. Archiving: We see that Atlassian is working on their own mechanism which is a bit different from what we historically did in the Server and DC versions of our app. I can see that our approach can be both superior in some use cases, and maybe inferior in others. Also, if Atlassian provides an API that triggers their archiving, then we can offer their mechanism as one type of archiving strategy in our app. It's not decided yet.

But, let me also ask: how does the Atlassian archiving approach work for you? Does it fit your needs?

[Darryl Lee · Accepted solution]

As it happens, one of the main things I'm tasked with at my (kind of new) job is to try and "clean up" Confluence, and the approach I took was to install an add-on that offers functionality exactly like what you're looking for - the ability to put an "expiration date" on pages.

Unfortunately that add-on (Better Content Archiving) is only available for the on-premises version of Confluence, and last I checked, they're "still working" on a Cloud version.

That being said, I found a similar question, "Functionality to support maintaining fresh & relevant content" that linked me to: Confluence Cloud Archiving Plugins

I took a quick glance the top few Marketplace listings and it looks like:

• Automatic Archiving for Confluence Cloud only supports space-wide expiration settings (ex 180 days w/o update), not per-page expiration dates.
• Update This+ for Confluence creates "wiki gardener sprints" to make sure content is fresh. Oof. I mean... interesting!

Search results for "expiration" in Confluence Cloud apps only bring up an app for External Sharing.

From that other question, @Shannon S provided a few good links:

• Is there a way to get a list of pages that haven't been updated? 
• How to find information pages on Confluence which are outdated 

From that last link, Bob Swift notes that the Confluence Command Line Interface (CLI) has a getPageList function that could probably provide the "last updated" data you're seeking.

Because I'm a nerd, I would suggest some kind of automation.

The way Better Content Archiving handles Expiration is to add Labels to pages. This looks like: "expire-single-21/12/04" for a single page, or "expire-21/12/04" for a page and all children.

The add-on then does a daily check for any expired pages, and depending on your settings, will notify page creator/last modifier/"owners" if any of their associated pages have expired.

With CLI's getPageList, you could theoretically write a script that does this daily search for pages w/ the appropriate labels for the current date, check if its Modified field is within 3 months of the date, and if not, then send notifications to the Author and Modifier.

Alas, it looks like the output data for this command

acli mywiki --action getPageList --labels "expired" --outputFormat 998

Only returns my name, not username, id, or email, so it might be tricky generating that email, unless you have a good lookup table.

"Space","Title","Id","Parent id","Author","Created","Modifier","Modified","Version","Url","Tiny Url","Labels","Position"
"HELP","Fix your VPN","884737","753799","Darryl Lee","1/7/21, 10:47 AM","Darryl Lee","1/7/21, 10:48 AM","1","https://MYWIKI.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/HELP/pages/884737/Fix+your+VPN","https://MYWIKI.atlassian.net/wiki/x/AYAN","expired kb-how-to-article vpn","221"

Well, at any rate, instead of --labels you could just get --space and that will give you what you originally requested, a list of pages created in a specific space, including Created and Modified dates. Sorry it took so long for me to get to the answer. :-}

[Branna Chamberlain]

Wow!  Lots of info @Darryl Leel!  I will take this information back to my peeps and see how it can benefit us. Thank you!! 

[Branna Chamberlain]

@Darryl Lee One question on the last part of your reply  - use --space instead of --labels.  Does that provide results for only the pages I have created in said space?  Or is that for all pages created by everyone in that space?

[Darryl Lee]

--space should return all the pages in that space that you can see so unless someone has applied restrictions to a page that keep you from seeing it, you should get everything.

CLI runs with the same permissions as the user you're running it as.

Good luck, and please let us know what you end up doing!

[Branna Chamberlain]

Thank you so much!