Atlassian Confluence vs. Workplace from Meta

Atlassian Confluence is a great tool for housing important information and resources across the organization, as it's very easy to search and find content across different teams and departments. The search function is mostly very accurate and the additional tagging with keywords also helps in the search experience. It's also good at tagging other team members, which triggers an automated email to them. Atlassian Confluence also has an extensive template library for all kinds of purposes like project management, etc., which saves time overall.

Incentivized

I think Workplace by Facebook is a great communication vehicle for any mid-sized to large company. (Since it's more groups-oriented than "regular" Facebook, it might not work well for smaller companies.) I also don't have any idea what the cost is for having it, but that also be a reason that it wouldn't be worth the expense for smaller companies. For larger companies, I think it's a terrific way for folks to communicate with one another and for "the powers that be" to communicate with employees. Facebook Live is only suitable when you have a limited number of people who need to be on screen and it wouldn't really be suitable as a vehicle for instructor-led online training -- it's really most suitable for presentations (although, via the comments area, does allow for questions to be asked in writing)

Incentivized

• Its integration with Jira for tracking development and the bugs and work linked to detailed Confluence documentation.
• We use it extensively for writing Software Product Requirement Documents, feature specs, architecture designs, and retrospectives.
• Our company follows compliance very seriously, so it helps in streamlining all documentation for ISO27001/27017 compliance and security-related information.
• Its integration with various tools allows us to create flow diagrams which are often required to make client and customer understand the overall flow of interactions across various modules of the design architecture

Incentivized

• It is so easy to introduce to employees because it has the same look and feel as Facebook, which the majority of our employees are already familiar with.
• It's a communications, collaboration, and file/document sharing tool all rolled up into one. It eliminates the need for other software.
• Our HR team uses it constantly to keep employees up to date on company news and for polling to get feedback on new initiatives.

Incentivized

• You need to watch over the structure of the content yourself. if not you can get information added anywhere so nobody can find it.
• Top search field is hard to set to only search a section of pages.
• You really need to think your structure through before starting. a guide when setting up at the start could help in that perspective.

Incentivized

• Limited project management options - no good way to track tasks or projects, so other tools are needed.
• Easy to dismiss for people who don't see the value - the Facebook-like nature of the tool can be a liability when it comes to wanting management to take it seriously.
• Chat interface has downsides - the standalone chat applications can be a bit buggy, and the chat interface within the web view is not ideal.
• No intuitive way to message a group - chat options like Slack are better at easily messaging a group or department, where in Workplace you have to be a member of a group to start a conversation.

Incentivized

I am confident that Atlassian can come with additional and innovative macros and functions to add value to Confluence. In 6 months, Atlassian transformed a good collaborative tools into a more comprehensive system that can help manage projects and processes, as well as "talk" with other Atlassian products like Jira. We are in fact learning more about Jira to evaluate a possible fit to complement our tool box.

It's very intuitive for most things, making it easy to jump in and start creating pages and collaborating. This makes it ideal for onboarding new members to the team. There are a few areas that could be a little smoother, but overall it's a great experience.

Incentivized

Having to download multiple apps just to use the tool is very cumbersome. Facebook would have make this better by wrapping it in as a main feature within their app, but having to use multiple apps to see discussions and walls is so frustrating.

Incentivized

I do not recall having outages or applications error so far, very reliable and available.

Incentivized

We never worked against the tide while using Confluence. Everything loads considerably fast, even media components like videos (hosted on the platform or embed external videos from Youtube, for example). We are not using heavy media components a lot, but in the rare occasion we happen to use one we have no problems whatsoever.

Incentivized

This rating is specifically for Atlassian's self-help documentation on their website. Often times, it is not robust enough to cover a complex usage of one of their features. Frequently, you can find an answer on the web, but not from Atlassian. Instead, it is usually at a power user group elsewhere on the net.

Incentivized

Workplace by Facebook is an excellent fit in respect of support and documentation. It has excellent tutorials and documentation, as well. The UI and UX are already great as it is developed and maintained by Facebook, so most of the times, there is no need for any support or documentation.

Incentivized

Overall, I am very satisfied with the initial implementation (and the subsequent upgrades and implementations made over the years).

This product has never rose to the level of being an major issue at an executive level. It has quietly and valiantly done it's job for our company!

Incentivized

Atlassian Confluence is a super handy hub for sharing ideas and keeping all your docs in one place. While Jira Service Management is more about handling tickets and support issues, Atlassian Confluence really makes teamwork easy. I feel Atlassian Confluence is user-friendly, integrates smoothly with other Atlassian tools, and helps everyone stay in sync. It's great for brainstorming, and project planning as well. Overall, it is a great way to boost collaboration and ensure all team members are on the same page.

Incentivized

We can compare Workplace in general from email communication (we use Bananatag tool for this). Our email communication and Workplace communication are sometimes competitors. RIght now, we have much higher analytics of email read rate/open rate than on Workplace activity. It may be connected with the fact that there is a lot of communication going on on Workplace. And with the emails we have a dedicated unit to monitor and balance the daily/weekly official email load on the associate. Workplace is a live network. Of course, we as admins balance the posts in official groups. But there are lots of other groups where people post whatever they want (like local communities or communities by interest). Why we keep focus on increasing Workplace engagement instead of email communication is definitely because of this instant feedback that we can get with posting. Email communication cannot create this feeling - it's always a one-way communication in our case.

Incentivized

This tool is very adaptable. So much so we use it for three completely separate projects, in three very different ways.

Incentivized

• Merging instances has saved search time - We used to have several instances of Atlassian Confluence, which means they're separate and so can't communicate with each other. We've since merged into one instance and now with the help of the search feature can find the documents you're looking for in seconds rather than several minutes.
• Cross linking product assets streamlines following paper trails - Being able to click on a BitBucket link from a Confluence page which then links to a JIRA ticket means you can follow paper trails really easily; seconds rather than several minutes.

Incentivized

• Workplace offers a free version and a more enhanced, and really enhanced, paid version. The free version is a nice place to test the waters out and see if you can get it working at your company. We have only had a positive return on investment, measured in time.
• The on-boarding is where you will see the greatest positive gain. You will quickly be up and running and so will the staff. This will decrease the training and implementation period and for many that means a substantial cost savings.
• The only negative return that might be realized is if too much time is spent monitoring and policing the content. If trust is there, then employees can share and enhance the use of this tool to be a positive force. As with any communication tool, set guidelines and let the community police itself to some extent.

Incentivized