Atlassian Corp. PLC is using its annual user conference to overhaul its Confluence workflow system with a new live-content feature that enables teams to collaborate on production data.

Confluence is a collaboration and wiki platform oriented toward professional development teams. It enables groups to share the many planning documents, schedules, notes and comments that are typical of large programming projects. The platform is notable for its live integration with JIRA, a popular bug-tracking and project management tool for development teams.

With today’s announcement, which Atlassian is calling the biggest since Confluence’s 2004 introduction, the company is broadly expanding the range of content and media types that can be included in what it calls the dynamic content editor. Up to 80 different file types will now be supported in-line, including multimedia, PDFs and even virtual reality files.

Another notable change is that Confluence will now be able to pull live data into the dynamic editor. For example, records from a human resource system or production SQL database can be displayed in the document editor, with full update capabilities. The company is also enabling real-time collaborative editing, so that multiple participants in a project can work on the same documents concurrently.

“The future of work is about shared experience and connections to more services, such as human resources or a repository,” said Wendell Keuneman, head of Confluence. “Having access is one thing. Being able to be connect with richness of content allows you to provide a far greater narrative.”

Live edits

Atlassian is enabling live editing through dozens of connectors to sources like SQL databases and graphic editors. Previously, most files were edited by launching external programs. The capability will now be embedded into the editor. Support is included for tools that are particularly popular with developers, such as Gliffy Inc. diagramming software, Balsamiq Studios LLC’s wireframing tools and MeisterLabs Inc.’s MindMeister mind maps.

For example, a live link to an issue being tracked in Jira will now convert automatically into a ticket with title and status information. Atlassian said this feature updates the file and folder metaphor that is commonly used by document managers. Instead of forcing developers to navigate directories, all content will now live in a single shared repository.

Atlassian made a conscious choice not to map access controls to imported data, which creates the possibility that people without authorization to view or edit live data may be able to do so through the shared editor. “By default there are no access permissions,” Keuneman said. “Our stance is that content is there to be consumed.” Users do have the option of making shared documents private. Users can also see who has made edits before on any given drift and can withhold drafts from publication until all edits have been made.

The company says Confluence is used by more than 35,000 customers and that more than 100 million pages have been created with it. Subscription customers will have immediate access to the new features. The company is also improving its mobile client with the addition of ”reflective” navigation, which allows users to pick up edits where they last left off.

Confluence mobile app image courtesy Atlassian