How to Automate Monthly Page Snapshots in Confluence?

[Brian Clampet]

I’m trying to create a monthly snapshot of a Confluence page using automation.

Here’s what I’ve tried so far:

• First approach: Scheduling a PDF export via Confluence Automation, but I couldn’t find any built-in support for this.
• Second approach: Copy → Rename → Archive.

The goal:

• Create a copy of a given page once a month.
• Rename it using this format:

  {{now.format("yyyy-MM-dd")}} {{page.title}} Backup

• Archive the newly created copy.

I’m struggling to put this workflow together with the available automation options.
Has anyone implemented something similar or have suggestions on how to achieve this?

Thank you

[Matthew Schier · Accepted solution]

Hi Brian, 

What is the outcome that you are trying to achieve?

Are you doing this to have a restore point? So you have a moment in time version? Or something else entirely?

Confluence has auto versioning, so if you need something from a specific moment in time you can always go back to a previous version and see the state of that document from a month earlier. 

You can view version history from the top right 

Once you are in version history you can see dates of versions, restore, delete or compare against another version.

If you need a monthly snapshot for some other reason start with why you need it and can make other suggestions.

[Brian Clampet]

Thank you @Matthew Schier 
Version Control will be my solution. I was aware of the feature but wanted to keep the monthly "snapshots" in neat order. The page in question is continuously updated throughout the month, resulting in hundreds of versions. Monthly I'll utilize the comment section of version control to highlight the points in time I'd like to keep as my monthly snapshot. The compare feature of Version Control is another added bonus over an archive automation rule.
On a positive note, I was able to get an Automation rule in place, but not on a schedule trigger which negates my intention of this automation. Apparently scheduling page copy via UI isn't possible. I'll paste the flow below for anyone interested. Thanks again!

[Aron Gombas _Midori_]

What you described is called "baselining", basically taking periodical snapshots of your content and making the snapshots viewable, comparable, etc.

There are multiple third party apps that implement this for one or more content, and with extended feature set. You may want to check those, if the automation rule based approach is too limited for your use case.

See: https://marketplace.atlassian.com/search?query=baseline&product=confluence&hosting=cloud

[Brian Clampet]

Thank you @Aron Gombas _Midori_ 
This is an interesting add-on. The feature set is more than I need at this time. I appreciate you sending along. I'll keep in in mind for future use.

[Marc - Devoteam]

Hi @Brian Clampet 

Welcome to the community.

@Aron Gombas _Midori_ is valid.

But I think you could use the API for this.

First you would need to make a copy of the page via the API endpoint, api-wiki-rest-api-content-id-copy-post 

Then based on the API call api-wiki-rest-api-content-archive-post archive the created page