Publishing in Confluence is straightforward. You hit ‘Publish’ and your page is live.
Saving a draft is just as simple. Click ‘Close’ in the editor, and Confluence saves your changes automatically.
But – and for those of you working in regulated industries, or managing cross-team documents of varying levels of confidentiality, this will be a big ‘but’ – if your team needs a formal review before content goes live, native Confluence starts to show its limitations.
The solution lies in Atlassian Marketplace apps.
So, this guide covers:
- How publishing works in Confluence
- How to manage drafts and unpublished changes
- How teams with more demanding review and approval needs can benefit from Atlassian Marketplace apps like Workflows for Confluence
How publishing works in Atlassian Confluence
Every Confluence page exists in one of two states:
- Draft: Never been published
- Published: Visible to anyone with space access
Now, when you edit a published page without republishing, those edits exist as unpublished changes – a version of the page that only contributors can see, sitting alongside the last published version.
Confluence autosaves both drafts and unpublished changes continuously as you work, so nothing gets lost if you close a tab or navigate away.
Note!
We need to make an important distinction here.
The Confluence draft/publish model we described above applies to pages and blog posts only. Live docs work differently. They don’t have drafts, and instead show changes to collaborators instantly, without a publish step.
So, if your content needs structured review and version history, pages are the right choice.
How to save changes without publishing in Confluence
To save your work without publishing in Confluence Cloud:
- Open or create a page in the editor
- Make your changes
- Click Close (bottom-right of the editor) – not Publish
- Confluence saves your work automatically as a draft or unpublished changes
Your draft will appear in Recently worked on on your dashboard, with a ‘draft’ or ‘unpublished changes’ lozenge next to the title. These lozenges are only visible to contributors – your readers will only ever see the last published version of the page.
Note!
Another important reminder: Confluence drafts are shared by default. If another user has edit access to your page, they can see and edit your unpublished changes. If you want to prevent this while a draft is in progress, you can temporarily restrict editing on the page via page permissions.
How to publish as a draft in Confluence
Strictly speaking, Confluence doesn’t have a ‘publish as draft’ option – a page is either published (visible) or not (a draft/unpublished changes visible only to contributors). There’s no intermediate ‘published but hidden’ state natively.
The closest thing is to:
- Keep the page as a draft: So don’t hit Publish – visible only to contributors
- Restrict page permissions: Publish the page but restrict viewing to specific users or groups, effectively keeping it hidden from the wider team until it’s ready
- Use page labels: Apply a label like
draftto signal status. Note that though this doesn’t enforce any access control
None of these options create a true separation between a working draft and a published version. For that, you need a more structured approach – which is where an Atlassian Marketplace app, like Workflows for Confluence, comes in.
How to publish changes in Confluence
To publish an updated page or a new page for the first time:
- Open the page in the editor
- Make your changes
- Click Publish (top-right of the editor)
That’s it – the page immediately becomes visible to everyone with access to the space.
If speed is your primary metric, this is great. But if you need more robust content management controls – think a review step, approval gate or a wait for sign-off before the content goes live – then you need to to turn to the Atlassian Marketplace.
Improving review and publishing workflows in Confluence
This is where Workflows for Confluence by AppFox plugs the gaps of what native Confluence can’t do.
A robust draft-to-published workflow
With Workflows for Confluence, you can create a structured document lifecycle: Draft → In Review → Approved → Published, with defined statuses that appear in the page byline, so anyone viewing the page knows exactly where it sits in the process. Status labels can also be applied automatically as pages move through stages.
Approval gates before publishing
Workflows lets you add single or multi-stage approval steps to your publishing process. Content doesn’t move to the next stage – and can’t be published – until named reviewers have approved it. You can configure who approves, in what order, and whether all approvers need to agree or just a majority.
Separate draft and publishing spaces
One of the more powerful features is the ability to set up a draft/publish space separation, allowing you to effectively publish as a draft.
You can keep a Draft Space where content is written and reviewed, and a Publishing Space where content is automatically published upon approval, thanks to your workflow. These spaces are cleanly separated, with different permissions on each. Editors work in the draft space; your audience only ever sees the published space.
Automatic publish action on approval
Rather than requiring someone to manually copy or republish content, Workflows for Confluence includes a Publish Content action that triggers automatically when a page reaches the approved stage. This pushes the approved version to the destination space or page without any manual intervention.
Official versions
The Workflows for Confluence app also enables official document versioning. You can mark approved versions as major or minor releases, with descriptions retained in the workflow history. This is particularly valuable for regulated or controlled documents where version numbers are a key reference point.
Ready-made templates to get started fast
If you’re not starting from scratch, Workflows for Confluence includes a set of ready-made workflow templates available as soon as you open the workflow builder. These include: ‘Basic’ (a simple two-step workflow), ‘Simple Approval’ (single-stage review and approval), ‘Two-stage Approval’ (multi-stage review), ‘Content Restrictions’ (approval that restricts visibility until approved), and ‘Content Expiration’ (approval with an automated expiry step). Yep, we’ve got you covered.
Frequently asked questions
Can I review a Confluence page before it’s published? Not natively – anyone with edit access can publish immediately. To add a formal review step before publishing, you need a third-party app like Workflows for Confluence.
How do I save changes in Confluence without publishing them? Click Close in the editor rather than Publish. Confluence autosaves your changes as unpublished changes, visible only to contributors. The published version of the page remains unchanged until you (or someone else with edit access) hits Publish.
Can I have a draft version and a published version of the same page at the same time? Natively, yes – but they exist on the same page, not as separate pages. The draft (unpublished changes) and the live version coexist, with the draft only visible to contributors. For a true separation between a working draft space and a clean published space, Workflows for Confluence lets you set this up with separate spaces and automated publishing on approval.
Is there a way to stop other people publishing my draft changes before I’m ready? Yes – temporarily restrict editing on the page via page permissions. This prevents others from making or publishing changes while your draft is in progress.
What’s the difference between a draft and unpublished changes in Confluence? A draft is a page that has never been published at all. Unpublished changes are edits made to a page that has already been published, without those edits being republished. Both are autosaved and visible only to contributors.
Does Confluence notify reviewers when a page is ready for review? Not natively. You can @mention someone in a comment or send a manual notification, but there’s no built-in system to formally assign a reviewer and notify them. Workflows for Confluence handles this automatically – notifying named approvers when content reaches the review stage, and reminding them if action is outstanding.
Bring true structure and compliance to your Confluence publishing and approvals
If your team needs a proper review and approval process before content is published in Confluence – including formal approval gates, automatic publishing on approval, and a clean separation between draft and live content – Workflows for Confluence is built for exactly that.
Why not get started with your free trial from the Atlassian Marketplace today!
