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Migrate from Confluence Server/Data Center to Confluence Cloud

This guide provides essential guidelines for teams using Better Content Archiving for Confluence who are transitioning from a self-hosted (Server or Data Center) Confluence instance to Confluence Cloud. It helps you adapt your content lifecycle management strategies to the cloud environment, ensuring your new workflow closely mirrors your existing setup while introducing useful new features to enhance it further.

The guide assumes familiarity with the self-hosted version of the Better Content Archiving for Confluence app and highlights key differences in configuring and using the app in Confluence Cloud.

Design choices

Let's start with a brief overview of the design choices made in the cloud version of the app. These choices were driven by the need to adapt to the cloud platform's architecture and API, as well as to improve the overall user experience. We also took the opportunity to enhance the app's capabilities and introduce new features that were not possible in the self-hosted versions.

Configuration schemes

On the self-hosted deployment types, archiving configurations combined content status settings with notification settings into a single unit. While this approach was straightforward, it had certain limitations in terms of flexibility.

The introduction of configuration schemes on cloud represents a significant conceptual shift. The cloud version introduces multiple types of configuration schemes, each with its own focus:

  1. Content status scheme: how to calculate the statuses of your contents?
  2. Notification scheme: how and when to send notification emails?
  3. Automation scheme: how and when to archive or delete contents?

Note that these configuration scheme types are decoupled from each other. For example, two spaces may share the same content status scheme, while each using a different notification or automation scheme!

The app comes with sensible defaults for each scheme type, making it easy to get started. You can customize these defaults to suit your specific needs or define entirely new schemes to align with your unique workflows.

This modern approach allows for greater flexibility and customization. By decoupling configuration schemes, you can mix and match different schemes to implement your ideal workflows!

CQL searches

Another key difference in the cloud version is the use of CQL searches as the foundation for all features requiring flexible filtering.

Unlike the self-hosted versions, which provided only a few predefined controls and boolean operators, CQL is a complete, versatile query language integrated into Confluence. It allows you to create advanced queries to filter and manage your pages, blog posts, and other content with precision.

This represents a significant improvement and opens up new possibilities.

Asynchronous behavior

The cloud platform's architecture and design choices significantly influence how the app operates.

On the self-hosted platform, content statuses were updated effectively in real-time, ensuring they were always current. In the cloud, statuses are updated asynchronously, which may cause slight delays between content changes and status updates.

To minimize delays, the app recalculates statuses on every display of the Content Status Indicator and ensures all statuses are refreshed within a few hours. You can also trigger recalculations manually if needed, by starting the Refresh Content Statuses background job.

This asynchronous approach balances performance and resource usage, and the app hides most of the complexity from you. Keep in mind that some degree of delay is inherent to the cloud platform.

Key differences

The following sections summarize the key differences between the self-hosted and cloud versions of the Better Content Archiving app, focusing on terminology and features.

Terminology

Self-hosted term Cloud term Differences
Content lifecycle configuration (archiving configuration) Configuration scheme (general) and types:
  1. Content status scheme
  2. Notification scheme
  3. Automation scheme
 Self-hosted: Content lifecycle configurations bring together all rules of lifecycle management (status calculation, notifications and archiving) into a single, compact configuration unit.

Cloud: Schemes provide greater flexibility by breaking down the loosely connected aspects of lifecycle management into more focused and reusable configuration units. Schemes can be mixed and matched freely.
Default archiving configuration Default scheme Self-hosted: You can select a default archiving configuration.

Cloud: You can select a default for each scheme type.
Archiving strategy Automation action Self-hosted: The strategy defines what to do with contents due for archiving.

Cloud: An automation specifies when, what to do on which content. It is a broader concept, in which the self-hosted "archiving strategy" roughly corresponds to the Action field.
Job (general) and concrete jobs:
  1. Analyze Content Quality
  2. Find and Archive Expired Content
  3. Persist the Content Update Journal
  4. Persist the Content View Journal
(All job names are prefixed with "Better Content Archiving".) 		Job (general) and concrete jobs:
  1. Refresh content statuses
  2. Send notifications
  3. Execute automations
  4. Initialize content events
 There is no 1:1 mapping between self-hosted and cloud jobs, but the names describe their responsibilities well.

Self-hosted: One job may perform multiple tasks. (It is especially true for the "Find and Archive Expired Content" job.)

Cloud: Jobs are more focused, with a single responsibility for each specific job.
Blacklisted space Excluded space These terms are essentially the same.

Features

Self-hosted feature Cloud feature Description and location
Content Quality Statistics Dashboards Dashboards offer a much wider range of statistics and KPIs on your content in two scopes.
  • Site Dashboard
  • Space Dashboard
Start Archiving Execute automations You can run the Execute Automations job in two scopes.
  • Global app settings1 → Jobs
  • Space app settings2 → Jobs
Global Configurations Configuration schemes You can configure the app on a single, easy-to-understand screen.
  • Global app settings1 → Configuration
Custom Configurations No direct equivalent You can apply configuration schemes to spaces in flexible way.
  • Global app settings1 → Configuration → choose a scheme type → click Apply to spaces
Notification Emails Notification email templates You can configure notification email templates together with notification schemes.
  • Global app settings1 → Configuration → Notification configuration → Notification email templates
Content Audit Log Job audit log You can view the job execution results of the most recent jobs started either automatically or manually.
  • Global app settings1 → Jobs → Job audit log
  • Space app settings2 → Job audit log
Blacklisted Spaces Exclude spaces You can exclude spaces from content lifecycle management.
  • Global app settings1 → Administration → Exclude spaces
Settings No direct equivalent Further differences on cloud:
  • There is no "Trusted group" setting.
  • You can select the default scheme on the corresponding scheme list screen.
Page Status Indicator Content Status Indicator You can view the content status in a more feature-rich user interface element. Further differences on cloud:
  • The Content Status Indicator is not available if the page is the home page of a space.
Scheduled Jobs (Confluence screen) No direct equivalent The cloud version has its own job runner implementation. You can execute jobs manually on the Jobs screen. The execution history is available in the Job audit log.

Legend:

  1. Global app settings refers to Confluence Settings (cog icon "⚙" in the top right) → Apps → Better Content Archiving.
  2. Space app settings refers to opening Space settings in any space, and then selecting Integrations → Better Content Archiving. This screen is not available in excluded spaces.

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