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Managed Data Fields give you the ability to easily define and manage structured data fields globally in Confluence, instantiate field definitions on Confluence pages and perform queries on existing field instances.
Add a Field Definition
The creation of Field Definitions is managed consistently for your entire Confluence instance. More information on how to manage edit rights for Field Definitions can be found in Manage Access Control.
For the first time, it is convenient to open a Confluence page in page editor, open the insert macro menu and click on Managed Data Fields. Select Field Definition and open the Definition Page by clicking on Create.
You are redirected to the global Definition page. There you can add, edit and delete Field Definitions. These changes will be directly available in all Confluence pages and displayed in existing Field Instances and Queries.
Manage Access Control
Per default, every Confluence user may add, edit and delete Field Definitions, as described in Add a Field Definition. However, the access to Field Definition page can be controlled via Confluence user groups. If you the user group managed-data-fields-editors exists and contains at least one member, access is only granted to users in this group.
These users will then see a new button Field Definitions in the Confluence top bar, which allows quick access from everywhere in Confluence to the Managed Data Fields Definition page.
Field Types
You can defined Data Fields of different types.
As native types we refer to fields that define a text input, a date picker, a dropdown field, an option field with single or multi select.
Additionally, option fields are defined with fixed option values, i.e. you predefine all values, that can be assigned to an instance of this field.
As complex fields we refer to Data Fields, that are composed of several native typed fields. A complex field can for example be composed of two string inputs, a date field and an option field. The individiual components are called attributes and have their own labels and types.
Instantiate a Field
Once you defined your abstract Data Field, you can instantiate it as a macro in every Confluence page. Simply select the Managed Data Field Macro from the insert menu. Alternatively, use the shortcut { and start to type Managed Data Fields.
In the showing dialog, choose Field Instance, the Definition you want to instantiate and fill in your instance values. Click on Create to add the macro to your page.
Editing Existing Fields
If you already have a page with Data Field instances, you can edit them by going into the Confluence page editor, clicking on the corresponding macro placeholder, and entering your changes to the showing input panel.
Create a Field Query
Evaluation of Field Instances is done with Field Queries. A Field Query searches all current instances of a chosen Field Definition, if specified matching a given value filter and space filter. The results are listed in a table overview and can be downloaded as .csv-file.
Edit existing Field Definitions
On the Field Definition page you can also edit existing definitions. When doing so, you cannot change the type of a Data Field (cf. Field Types), but edit the name and edit, add or delete attributes. Changes to Field Defintions are directly applied to all matching Field Instance. When possible, existing instances are merged with the changes applied to the definition. If this is not possible, for example if an attribute value was deleted that was selected by an instance, you will see an indicator next to this attribute, and have the possibility to synchronise affected instances with the changed Field Definition. This way, you will never loose any data. Whenever data would be deleted, you will be asked to manually confirm this deletion. Any other changes not causing data deletion will be applied automatically.
Field Instance with deleted attribute in page view
Field Instance with deleted attribute in page editor