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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.
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.
Add a Field Definition
The creation of Field Definitions is managed centrally for your entire Confluence instance. More information on how to manage editing rights for Field Definitions can be found under Manage Access Control.
If the Confluence group as described in Manage Access Control does not exist, simply insert the Managed Data Fields macro on a Confluence page. Select Field Definition and open the Definition Page by clicking on Create. You are redirected to the global Field 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.
Field Definitions centrally define your data fields. For each Field Definition, you may select a name and one or more Data Attributes.
Since Managed Data Fields 2.0.0 and BPMN-Modeler Enterprise 3.14.0, your globally defined Data Fields can be used on process elements within the BPMN-Modeler Enterprise! Therefore, for each Field Definition a decision can be made where it should be possible to instantiate Field Instances (on a Confluence page as a Managed Data Fields Macro, and/or within the BPMN-Modeler Enterprise Plug-In).
It is also possible to restrict the usage of Field Definitions to certain Confluence spaces. Simply add your private Confluence here and the Field Definition may only be instanted on pages that belong to the whitelisted space.
Data Attribute Types
A Field Definition can comprise of one or more Data Attributes. These are currently:
Text → free-text input
Number → allows only numbers
Date → date-picker
Confluence user → add one or more Confluence users found by their name
Option Field (Radio-Buttons) → one of several predefined selection options can be selected
Multi Select (Checkboxes) → multiple predefined selection options can be selected
Dropdown → one of several predefined selection options can be selected
Note that the latter three data types require at least one predefined selection option to be defined.
Instantiate a Field
Once you have defined an abstract Data Field by creating a Field Definition, you can instantiate it as a macro on 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 up showing dialog, choose Field Instance, the Field 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.
Field Query
A Field Query allows you to create reports on all existing Field Instances of a Field Definition. Simply create a Manage Data Fields Macro on your Confluence page and choose “Field Query”. After selecting a certain Field Definition the Query should create a report for, you may also define some filtering values each retrieved Field Instance should match.
Moreover, you can restrict the query on Field Instances on a certain Confluence space.
Edit existing Field Definitions
On the Field Definition page you cannot only create but 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