Getting started

Turn a space you already set up into a template with fill-in blanks, then create ready-made spaces from it.

What it does

Confluence has no space templates. Space Factory gives you them without a new editor to learn: your template is a Confluence space. Set one up the way you like it, put blanks like {client} in the pages, and Space Factory reads it, asks for the blanks and builds a ready-made space.

• Blanks are filled into page titles, page text, tables, links, labels, macro parameters, and the new space’s own name and key.
• People who aren’t admins can ask for a space. Approvers say yes or no.
• Roles, page restrictions, labels, the space description and group watching are all set up with it.
• Every creation can be undone for as long as your admin keeps its record.

Make your first template

1. Install the app from the Atlassian Marketplace. You need to be a Confluence admin.
2. Pick a space you have already set up well — the pages, the structure, the labels.
3. In that space’s pages, replace the things that change from one project to the next with blanks: {client}, {project}, {start date}. See Blanks.
4. Start the template one of two ways. From Confluence administration → Apps → Space Factory, click New template and pick the space. Or from the space itself, open Space settings → Space Factory and click Make a template from KEY (KEY is that space’s key): the space is already set. If Space Factory isn’t under Apps in Confluence administration, Confluence has moved app management out to Atlassian Administration, so go to admin.atlassian.com → your site → Connected apps → Space Factory → Configure.
5. Press Read it and find the blanks. Space Factory lists every blank it found, and flags likely typos.
6. Say what each blank is: text, a date, a person, a number or a choice from a list.
7. Give the new spaces a name and a key rule, for example {client} onboarding and CL{client}.
8. Decide who gets which role, what gets copied, and who may use the template. Save.

Full detail: Making a template.

Create a space from it

1. On the Templates tab, press Create a space.
2. Fill in the blanks and press Preview.
3. Read the preview. It leads with anything that can’t happen — pages the app can’t read, a space key that’s taken, blanks you haven’t filled, or (when you’re adding to a space that already exists) a page title that space already uses — then shows the counts, the time it will take and the page titles before and after.
4. Press the button that names the space, for example Create space CLACME. You can close the page; it keeps going.

Let other people ask

People who aren’t admins use Request a space in the Apps menu. Each template says which groups may use it, whether requests need approval, and who approves them. See Requests and approvals.