Blog | Knowledge Sharing with the Atlassian Tools

The 2 Types of Data Needed To Improve Your Confluence Product Documentation

Learn how to use qualitative and quantitative data together to improve your product documentation.

How To Successfully Migrate to Jira Cloud in Phases

See how a phased migration could be the ideal way for your team to migrate to Jira Cloud, instead of migrating in one 'big bang'.

Atlassian Team '22 News Wrap Up - Here's What You Missed

Were you not able to attend Atlassian Team '22? We catch you up on all the news Atlassian announced at the conference

Team Week: How K15t Builds Relationships in the Era of Remote Work

While everyone is encouraged to work remotely at K15t, we still felt the need for personal connections. That is why we made Team Week.

Announcing a New K15t Product

With an increased focus on our app business, we found a new way to connect teams with our new Scroll app.

Back to Our Roots: K15t Bids Farewell to Consulting to Focus Entirely on Apps

After being an Atlassian Solution Partner for over 11 years, K15t’s consulting unit will soon become part of our long-term partner and friends at Scandio.

Get the Most Out of Atlassian Team ’22

Get the most out of Team '22 – Atlassian’s flagship hybrid conference – and discover solutions, skills, and ideas to unleash your team's potential.

K15t Stands With the People of Ukraine

Important announcement regarding what we are doing to support the people of Ukraine.

Conditional Content Management Comes to Confluence Cloud

Get the right information in front of the right audience by managing conditional content on Confluence Cloud!

Announcing Orderly: Replace Confluence Page Properties with Notion-like Databases

New app alert! Orderly Databases brings structured content to Confluence.

24 Days of Confluence Best Practice Videos

Advent calendars aren't just for Christmas! As you've made it onto the "nice" list, here's where you can find Confluence best practice content to last the whole year.

Atlassian Codegeist 2021: Great Time for Innovation at K15t

At K15t we value dedicated innovation time for every colleague. In this blog post we want to tell you more about our Atlassian Codegeist project 2021 and how we succeeded there as a team.

How Easy Agile Upgraded Their Documentation Solution To Wow Their Users

Find out how the Easy Agile team kept on top of their documentation for their entire suite of apps and upgraded their customer support by implementing a new, user-friendly help center.

Transform Your Confluence Documentation into a Restricted Help Center

Learn how to publish your product documentation as a restricted help center where you control who has access.

How a New Help Center Delighted Adaptavist’s Teammates and Customers

The Adaptavist team aligned ~30 public help center spaces into one central help center built with Scroll Viewport. See how they did it.

Our First K15t Team Week: Make Great Better

K15t's Team Week is a new, colorful and innovative way of working together that we embarked on as one big team just in time for the end of summer. In this blog post, we look back on the many great highlights and challenges.

Turn Dead-End Documentation Into a Feedback Opportunity

When writing documentation, it's easy to overestimate what your customers know about your products and miss out key information. Provide customers with a way to give feedback on your content to capture valuable insight to improve it.

All Aboard! K15t's Summer Get-Together '21

Heavy rain, flooding and corona measures couldn't keep our spirits down! Even with some adversity, the K15t team was able to finally reunite this summer at Stuttgart's 'Riverhouse' on the Neckar.

Go Team! Advice From Sports Teams To Bring Into Play in Your Team

Can advice given by a soccer and NFL coach be applied within a software team? Yes! It doesn't matter where you work – teams are teams. We're stronger when we work together. Here are 5 pieces of advice to bring into play in your team.

The Life of a Working Student at K15t

Ever wondered what it's like to work at K15t? Jasmin shares her experiences as a working student at K15t and what impact the company culture has on her work.

Better Content at Scale with Scroll Content Quality for Confluence

Writing content in Confluence Cloud is easy. Writing quality content and keeping it consistent across your team is the tough part. Ready to give your copy editors a rest? Scroll Content Quality is here to help.

Atlassian Team ’21: What To Watch – Journey to the Cloud

Atlassian Team '21 is the premier conference for modern teamwork. Whether your team is just starting plan your cloud migration, or you've already migrated and want tips on how to improve your setup, here are five 'Journey to the Cloud' sessions worth watching at Team '21.

Free Templates: How to Export Your Confluence Content to Comply With DIN and ISO Standards

Learn how to consistently meet quality and compliance standards when exporting your Confluence documentation with these preset export templates.

4 Ways Your Team Can Overcome Collaborative Writing Challenges

With powerful collaboration tools like Confluence, writing as a team has never been more accessible. But collaborating has its challenges. In this article you'll learn how to work through some common growing pains to become a better writer and a stronger team.

The Life of an IT Consultant at K15t

Ever wondered what it's like to work at K15t? Valentina shares her experiences as an IT consultant at K15t and what impact the company culture has on her work.

How User Insights Can Improve Your Help Documentation

Learn how to leverage the knowledge your team has about your users and their needs to transform your dry product documentation into a powerful and intuitive collection of help topics.

Video: Publish Versioned Documentation to a Confluence Cloud Help Center

The versioning and document management power of Scroll Documents meets the styling and publishing flexibility of Scroll Viewport! Watch the video to learn how these apps work together to offer you a complete documentation solution on Confluence Cloud.

The Life of a Software Developer at K15t

Ever wondered what it's like to work at K15t? Elrasheed shares his journey as a software developer at K15t and what impact the company culture has on his work.

How to Create a Documentation Structure That Works for the Whole Team

Great documentation helps you build a base of happy, successful, and self-sufficient users. But how you choose to structure your content will have a big impact on both your users and the team members who write and contribute to the docs.

Everything Atlassian Customers Need to Know Now (Infographic)

Atlassian announced major changes to its Server and Data Center offerings, which heavily impact many long-term users of Atlassian software. It's a bold move, but we think it's the right step into the future. Here are the actions your team should take right now to help ease this transition.

tekom/tcworld 2020 Sneak Peek – A New Approach to Technical Communication

For the tenth year in a row we are participating in the tekom/tcworld conference, this year for the first time virtually. Read our tips on how to get the most out of the event and meet us to learn more about technical communication with Enlite.

Build a Roadmap Template in Confluence: When All You Need is a Page

Learn how K15t builds its roadmaps by reading our blog post about building a roadmap template in Confluence.

How K15t's Culture has Changed During Corona Times

See how K15t's company culture continues to shine through since we've been working remotely.

K15t Summer Get-Together 2020: The Beach Nearby

Summer, sun, beach, and more – this year, we spent our annual company outing in a different way.

5 Reasons to Build a Help Center on Confluence

Discover the top 5 reasons why you should create a help center for your users, using the documentation you already have in Confluence.

Build a Help Center on Confluence Cloud with Scroll Viewport

Scroll Viewport is now available on Confluence Cloud. You can now easily create a help center for your users, using the documentation you have in Confluence.

The Life of an App Marketer at K15t

Shannon shares her journey as an app marketer at K15t and how the company culture, Atlassian tools, and self-organized team structures have shaped the way she thinks about work.

K15t vs. Coronavirus #FlattenTheCurve

How K15t is taking big steps to contribute our small part in stopping the spread of the Coronavirus – and how we're making the best of it!

Going to Atlassian Summit? Here's What You Need to Know

As we've been going to Atlassian Summit for over 10 years now, we know a lot about what to expect. Check out our recommendations and top tips so that you can get the most of your time at Summit!

Regulatory Compliance for the Regular Confluence User

Document control systems don't have to be complicated, and industry regulations shouldn't hold your team back. Get more control and traceability in Confluence with features like versioning, approvals, change tracking, and more.

It's a K15t Thing: What It's Really like to Work Here

Every company likes to say they have a ‘great company culture’, but what actually makes it so great? Here's what it's like to work at K15t. If you like the sound of it, apply to join our team!

How to Create Winning Proposals in Confluence

Learn how to create better proposals in Confluence, including tips on how to prepare your document, save versions to track revisions, and export the proposal as a beautiful PDF or Word document to help your submission stand out.

How to Manage Restrictions Across Multiple Confluence Pages

Need to lock your Confluence pages? Here's what you need to know about handling Confluence page restrictions and how to apply advanced restrictions when your content spans multiple pages.

Atlassian’s Bug Bounty Program: Join Us in Our Hunt

When you think of Atlassian, maybe time tracking and team collaboration software spring to mind. So you might be wondering how Atlassian’s connection to a charity helping those in Syria came about…

How We Hire

Thinking of a career at K15t? We've created a hiring process that's easy to follow and transparent for candidates so you'll always know what to expect from us.

Create a Public Documentation Library in Confluence Cloud

When you need to make your Confluence documentation, manuals, user guides, or other documents publicly available, Scroll Documents and Scroll Viewport can help.

We Created a Help Center in Confluence and You Can Too

Now any team can quickly create a help center from Confluence using the new Help Center theme in Scroll Viewport. Create a custom help experience without writing code.

Manage Versions of Multi-Page Documents in Confluence

Learn how to effectively manage milestones and track changes to multi-page documents in Confluence like proposals, contracts, manuals, and more.

A Cheat Sheet of Confluence Shortcuts: Free PDF Download

Be more productive and save precious time in Confluence with these helpful shortcuts for all users.

Synchronize Jira Fields Your Way with Backbone's Java API

Backbone Issue Sync for Jira offers a Java API which you can use to write your own transformations between two Jira fields and configure them via Backbone's UI.

How to Rock Remote Work

Are you also exploring the possibility of remote work in your team? Here are three things we've identified that you need to nail both as a remote worker and as a company if you want to be successful.

5 Tips for Getting Started with Confluence

Confluence is a company-wide wiki from Atlassian where you team can collaborate. Get started using Confluence quickly and avoid issues with these 5 tips.

How to View and Resolve Inline Comments in the Confluence Editor

Save time, review in context, and tighten the feedback loop by being able to see and resolve inline comments while you edit content in Confluence.

Amplifying K15t's Bike to Work Day

For the third year in a row, K15t participated in Bike to Work Day, a global event that encourages a fun, healthy commute to the office and promises to add a few new regulars to our growing K15t cycling community.

Customize Scroll Versions and Translations using the Java API

Extend what Scroll Versions and Scroll Translations can do for your team.

Introducing Rock the Docs: Your Team's Guide to Documentation in Confluence

Your guide for creating great documentation in Confluence using proven technical writing methods.

Amplify Your Document Management in Confluence

Working with longer content and documents can be tricky in Confluence. Scroll Documents empowers users to control versions, manage workflows and approvals, track changes, and effectively manage their documents in Confluence.

Up to Eleven - Amplify Your Development Setup for Atlassian Server and Data Center

Using a streamlined development, test and trial setup on your local machine for Jira and Confluence Server or Data Center can quickly save you hours of waiting around.

How to Get the Most out of Atlassian Summit

With the size of Atlassian Summit, deciding what you're going to do during the conference can be a bit overwhelming. Here are some tips for getting the most out of your trip!

Getting Productive with the New Confluence Editor

A new version of the Atlassian Confluence Editor is out. We've taken a look at the new editing experience to share how things will change in Confluence Cloud over the upcoming months.

Essential Confluence Features For Effortless Teamwork

After years of working with Confluence, we've come to value a handful of features in particular. Learn which features we find the most useful and why you should start using them, too.

Best Ways to Define Permissions in Jira

It's essential to think about which software users should be given which type of permissions. After years of configuring Jira projects, we've collected the most valuable tips when it comes to defining permissions in Jira.

How Will Git Develop in the Future?

Git is the most popular version control system for collaborative software development. How is it doing right now and how will it develop in the future?

Amplifying the K15t Brand

What happened to the old K15t design? CEO Stefan tells the story beyond the change from his personal perspective.

4 Resolutions to Improve Your Tech Writing in 2019

Ready to amplify your documentation experience? Here's some inspiration as you make your technical writing New Year's resolutions.

K15t at World's Biggest Techcomm Conference

Check out the big changes in the technical writing industry and discover brand new solutions for better teamwork

Atlassian Spirit at First K15t TeamTalk

How do I combine technology and teamwork in a meaningful way? Our very first TeamTalk held in our office in Stuttgart exposed thought provoking answers to this and other questions.

Which Jira Should I Get?

Working with Jira is always a good idea, but deciding which version of the tool is the one for your use case can be tricky. To help, we've summarized all the different features for you to figure out which Jira solution works for your team.

The Future of TechComm is Now

The way we work is changing in almost every profession. But what does the future hold for the techcomm community? Read about the challenges the industry is facing and how a new focus on collaboration will change technical documentation for good.

Sync Jira Issues Without Installation

Collaborate across Jira borders, even under the most restrictive conditions. Remote Licensing for Backbone removes the need for your partners to install the app on their Jira, allowing the collaboration to start immediately.

Amplify Your Confluence Exports: Scroll PDF Exporter vs. Confluence's Native Exporter

PDF continues to be the go-to format for organizations to share and distribute business documents, so it's essential that Confluence provide a quick and customizable PDF export option. See how Scroll PDF Exporter measures up against Confluence's native PDF export functionality.

Scroll Versions 3.11: Content Reuse Across Spaces

Scroll Versions 3.11 introduces content reuse across versioned or translated spaces. Learn about the new Include Library and how to benefit from the updated Include+ macro.

Content Reuse Strategy in Confluence: Write Better Docs in Less Time

Content reuse helps technical writers create high quality documentation faster and facilitates updates and translation of content. Learn why you need a content reuse strategy and how to get started using tools that Confluence offers out of the box.

Break it up! 5 Reasons to Avoid Long Pages in Confluence

Ever wondered how to manage content that's really too long for a single Confluence page? Breaking it up brings big benefits for authors, content managers, and readers alike.

K15t Company Outing 2018: Off to the Black Forest

Each year, the K15t team goes on an adventure known as the Company Outing. This time around, we hiked, tobogganed, and swam our way through the Black Forest, enjoying the sites along the way. Read all about what the team got up to.

Scroll PDF Exporter for Confluence: New Navigation and Styling Features

Scroll PDF Exporter 4.4 introduces fresh styling and navigation functionality to give users new options for exporting their Confluence content as professionally-styled PDFs.

Hacketse XIII: Sharing the Trophy...Again!

The K15t Hacketse always promises to produce some awesome projects – and occasionally a surprise or two. Read on for a recap of our latest Hacketse, everyone's favorite K15t event.

Amplify Your Atlassian Summit Experience

We're gearing up for Atlassian Summit Barcelona and want to help you prep for Atlassian's biggest event of the year. Here's how to amplify your Summit experience – from session highlights and must-see keynotes, to Atlas Camp, and a few exciting surprises of our own!

Scroll ImageMap 2.1.0 Makes Image Map Management in Confluence Even Simpler

Scroll ImageMap brings Confluence images to life, by adding clickable link areas and mouseover tooltips that engage and inform, making them a powerful way to visually communicate information. We've recently been focusing on further improving the app's usability to make adding interactivity to Confluence images even simpler.

Video: A Crash Course in Scroll PDF Exporter for Confluence

A crash course in how to export Confluence pages as beautiful, professionally-formatted PDF documents with full styling flexibility and administrative control.

Scroll PDF Exporter 4.2 Introduces More Control over Confluence PDF Exports

Scroll PDF Exporter 4.2 introduces fresh styling and administrative features focused on giving users more control over their Confluence exports.

3 Ways to Extend Your Jira Workflows with Issue Synchronization

Jira workflows are flexible enough for the vast majority of scenarios, but occasionally, they just can't do what you need. However, Jira issue synchronization can extend workflows to cover even more use cases – find out how.

Hacketse XII: Ready... Set... Hack!

What do you get when you combine 27 participants, 10 creative ideas, 24 hours, and a kitchen full of pizza? A K15t Hacketse of course!

Why (and How) I Co-Founded K15t Software

K15t co-founder and CEO, Stefan Kleineikenscheidt, tells his personal story of growing a career in IT, being inspired by new ideas and technology, meeting co-founder Tobias Anstett, and founding K15t.

Enhance Your User Help Experience with Context-Sensitive Help in Confluence

Context-sensitive help offers users the help content they need, when and where they need it – and Confluence is the perfect platform for managing it.

Synchronize Jira Projects to Help Consultants and Clients Work Better Together

The openness of Jira is a strength, but limiting transparency between partners is tricky. See how to solve this by synchronizing Jira data across projects.

Conversations Video Chat - Time to Say Goodbye

From ShipIt Live victory all the way to the Atlassian Marketplace, we share the valuable lessons learned as we sunset Conversations for Confluence.

How Metrics Help Us Measure Help Center Effectiveness

The term 'data driven' is thrown into just about every best practice process one hears about these days. Thankfully it's more than just meaningless buzz – but what does it mean when applied to a self service portal such as a help center website? How does one decide what self service analytics to look at, and what conclusions to draw?

Exporting Confluence Content to PDF: Easier and Better Than Ever

Scroll PDF Exporter has gotten some big improvements of late. With full styling control, custom fonts, and even a Comala Workflows integration, now every user can turn Confluence content into beautiful PDFs.

Scroll Documents Brings Document Management to Confluence

Scroll Document Versions has been relaunched as Scroll Documents for Confluence Cloud, adding powerful new functionality for multi-page document management.

Backbone Adds Native Support to Sync Data Across Jira Cloud Instances

Backbone Issue Sync for Jira, the leading Atlassian Marketplace app dedicated to Jira to Jira synchronization, now supports Cloud to Cloud integrations natively. This means that Jira Cloud users can now take advantage of the app's intuitive setup and robust synchronization flexibility to synchronize issue data.

Highlights from Tekom/TCWorld 2017

Tekom/TCWorld, the world's largest technical communication conference, wrapped up last week. Our resident tech writer Tom highlights a few points of interest.

Why You Need to Stop Writing Letters in Word and Use Confluence Instead

Does your text editor help you track, review, revise, and make your business letters look professional? Confluence can.

Our Presentations from Add-on Discovery Day 2017

Add-on Discovery Day 2017 gave an engaging look at what can be accomplished by extending the core Atlassian tools. If you missed it or want to share the day's presentations from K15t Software, look no further.

4 Insights Gained at Write the Docs Prague 2017

Write the Docs Prague 2017 is a three-day conference where some of the brightest minds in techcomm get together and discuss the field's hottest topics. I picked up a bunch of handy tips at the event – here are some personal highlights.

Countdown to Atlassian Summit US

It's the final sprint of our preparation for the big show: Atlassian Summit US September 12th–14th. Summit always showcases the newest trends and technology in the ever growing world of Atlassian-powered teamwork, and this year will be no exception.

Save Time When Creating Step-By-Step Instructions in Confluence

As Content Marketing Manager, documenting how our publishing process works is part of the job. This also includes writing instructions on how to use content tools in their context. I recently stumbled across a quick and easy solution to accomplish the creation of these instructions in Confluence – StepShot for Confluence. To save you some trouble next time you take on such a task, I thought I'd share my experience in using this tool.

Instant Content Collaboration with Conversations Video Chat for Confluence

There is no substitute for face-to-face discussion, not even with collaborative editing in Confluence. But what if we could combine the two?

Managing Document Versions in Confluence Cloud

Want to manage various kinds of documents in one Confluence space? As their histories and structures change you'll need a simple way to keep track. Scroll Documents, new for Confluence Cloud, makes it easy.

Sharing the Hacketse Trophy

We have held ten hackathons over a period of three years, and until last week, we've never had two winners.

K15t Bikes to Work

Davin recently kicked off K15t's first official Bike to Work Day. We'll talk a little bit about why and how.

Managing Your Editorial Calendar With JIRA and Confluence

Most editorial calendar tools only report on analytic parameters – distribution channels, due dates, etc. But content creators should consider using synergetic tools which will also allow them to manage the creative side of an editorial calendar. Here's how we do it.

How to Hatch a Healthy Habit

Much has been written about the habits of effective and successful teams. Very few articles actually talk about how to develop them. This blog post aims to fill that gap.

Teach Your Old Docs New Tricks: Align TechComm and Content Marketing

In this post, I'll share five techniques our teams here at K15t have adopted to align the efforts of tech writers and marketers in support of one another. Together they constitute a light and fast approach to making changes that aren't big, difficult, or complicated. They're about teaching your old docs new tricks.

Insights from DocMuc - a TechComm Conference

Tuesday's technical documentation conference in Munich featured many interesting topics – such as digitalization, connectivity, and creative writing – but two technologies really took center stage: virtual and augmented reality. Will they change the techcomm industry?

5 Advantages of Using Confluence for UX Documentation

Why is Confluence our tool of choice when it comes to documenting UX design concepts and why should you use it? The answer: collaboration, flexibility and a single source of truth.

XLIFF - Standard File Format for Translations

Nowadays, translators use software to make their daily work easier and it's quickly becoming obvious that a standardized file format is needed. XLIFF is an odds-on favorite for making translation files universally practical.

Cleaning Up Stuttgart's Forest Trails

Some of our team members recently took advantage of K15t Software's Pledge 1% partnership to spend a sunny afternoon cleaning up Stuttgart's forest trails.

Content Optimization Tools - Part of a Great Writing Process

Writing high-quality content (no matter what type) is extremely difficult, but using automated content optimization can definitely help you tackle this challenge. I'd even go so far as to claim that optimization tools are part of a great writing process. Why? Read on to find out.

Consider 4 Things Before Choosing a PDF Exporter for Confluence

Confluence is a leader in the content collaboration tool space, allowing entire organizations to access and contribute to information within a single centralized knowledge hub. Sometimes however, Confluence users need to export this documented knowledge as PDFs to fulfill business requirements. Here are four important factors to consider before choosing a Confluence PDF exporter.

Catching Our Breath After Atlassian Summit Europe

A few photos and thoughts from a packed marathon week at the first-ever Atlassian Summit Europe – see what stood out for us in Barcelona.

The Millennial Future of TechComm

No one knows what the future of technical writing looks like. You can however get a pretty good idea if you have a look at the characteristics and philosophies of the people who are newly entering the profession. As a teacher of technical writers, I get to see generation Y in action all the time and perhaps my observations about their ideas and reactions to different editorial systems are an indicator of what is to come.

Scroll PDF Exporter 4.0 Introduces Visual Template Editor

Right in time for the kickoff of the first Atlassian Summit Europe, we're releasing a major user experience overhaul of one of the Marketplace's best selling add-ons: Scroll PDF Exporter for Confluence Server. Now, everyone can quickly and easily create templates to export Confluence content as richly-styled PDFs. Credit goes to the new visual template editor in Scroll PDF Exporter 4.0, with a real-time preview and fine-grained control over the styling and export properties of Confluence-based PDF documents.

Behind the Scenes: Developing Backbone for JIRA Data Center

As the technical lead in charge of Backbone's JIRA Data Center compatibility implementation, Matthias would like to take you behind the scenes and share how he solved some tricky development challenges.

6 Reasons Why the Enterprise Wiki Confluence Keeps on Thriving

The time of wikis' widespread popularity are long gone. And yet, the enterprise wiki Atlassian Confluence is more popular than ever. Our guest author found six reasons why this isn't a contradiction and may have unearthed the secret recipe behind Confluence's trend-bucking success.

6 Tips to Use HipChat While Still Getting Things Done

We started using HipChat a few years ago and it has been working like a charm – no wonder chat apps are experiencing tremendous growth. While live chat helps us keep up, it can also be a source of constant distraction – detrimental when you need to get things done.

Insights from Tekom OpenLab 2017

Tekom OpenLab 2017 – a one-day 'unconference' where techcomm enthusiasts meet to discuss the industry's hottest topics. And because sharing is caring, I'm excited to share some pointers I picked up in this short summary.

Barcelona Bound: Atlassian Summit Europe is Almost Here

Between the massive Summit conference, and the AtlasCamp developer event that directly follows, nearly 20 of us will make the journey from Germany with big product release news and even some secret 'skunkworks' products to demo on May 2nd–5th.

Solving 11-Year-Old Issue 4174: Confluence Blog Post Templates

If you're a Confluence user you have probably tried to create a template for blog posts. Unfortunately, Confluence doesn't support them. Don't worry though, I came up with a solution that everyone can implement.

Synchronize JIRA instances with Backbone Issue Sync for Data Center

Teams working on large-scale projects that span across departments and B2B borders need tools that enable everyone to be on the same page at the same time. With its latest release, Backbone Issue Sync 3.2 is now compatible with JIRA Data Center providing the uninterrupted stability and data synchronization enterprises need to ensure their teams keep moving forward.

Techcomm and Content Marketing: Mine the Gap

The gap between technical communicators and content marketers can be a daunting one, but the benefits realized by building the bridge makes it well worth the effort.

3 Use Cases for Image Maps in Confluence

Giving images in a collaboration platform new life with interactivity can help all kinds of teams work better together – and we have three examples that prove it right here in our own office using Confluence and the Scroll ImageMap add-on.

Hacketse IX: Can't Stop (Won't Stop) the Hackin'

The latest K15t hackathon just wrapped, boasting 22 participants and ten projects. With a time constraint of 24 hours, every team worked hard to get their great ideas shipped out the door. Here's a look at the three highest voted projects.

Best tool for creating employee handbooks - Confluence vs. Word

Employee handbooks are a valuable resource for employees and employers alike. That's why it's important to make them accessible and keep them up-to-date. I have administered quite a few employee handbooks throughout my career, and this post explores the differences between the Microsoft Word-based approach I used in the past and my current, Confluence-based approach to writing employee handbooks.

How employee handbooks help build company culture

An employee handbook is an important business document. There are many reasons for having one and at least as many articles on the web that discuss them. So, instead of reiterating arguments others have already made, I'd like to discuss how an employee handbook can help build company culture.

Technical Communication & Content Marketing: Mind the Gap

Techcomm and content teams often have a dysfunctional relationship even though they have the potential to be more effective at achieving their goals by understanding and working together. In the first part of this four-part blog series I will explore the reasons for the gap between techcomm and content marketing teams.

Backbone Cloud-to-Cloud JIRA Sync Workaround

Nov. 28, 2017 Update: Today Backbone Issue Sync for Jira has added native support for cloud-to-cloud data synchronization. This now makes the workaround described in this blog post unnecessary. Happy collaborating!

Practical Guide to Organizing a Hackathon (Checklist Included)

There are lots of blog posts that talk about why and how companies host hackathons. This is not one of those. This blog post provides a practical guide and checklist that helped me organize our upcoming hackathon. To help out all those other hackathon-organizers out there, I thought I'd share my experience and checklist.

Consolidate Multiple JIRA Service Desk Instances

In most cases, IT support teams utilize one JIRA Service Management instance to manage multiple service desks. This method works perfectly most of the time – but not always.

Managing your Hackathon Project - Unicorn-Style

K15t Software regularly stages hackathons, which I participate in. But how do you go about a hackathon project? What do you start with? How do you decide what you can and cannot achieve? I will answer these questions by guiding you through my own hackathon project.

Making IT support process easier for key accounts

The point of providing IT support is to make your customers' lives as easy as possible. However, for key account customers who need extensive help from your support team, creating lots of tickets in your ITSM instead of their system is a pain point. Time for a solution.

Exporting Confluence Pages to Word: Built-In Exporter vs. Scroll Office

There are multiple tools that export Confluence pages to Word. I examined how Confluence's built-in exporter compares to the Scroll Word Exporter app. There are four major differences.

Managing and Sharing Passwords in Teams (while Keeping your Peace of Mind)

Sharing passwords with team members can compromise company security. Unfortunately, many teams have to. In this article, I want to demonstrate how the K15t team manages and shares passwords without compromising security.

Switching from DITA to Confluence and Scroll Versions

Matt Reiner, content strategist at NimbleUser, explains why he championed the transition from writing technical documentation in DITA to writing with Confluence and Scroll Versions in this guest blog post.

Keeping 1st level and 2nd level IT support teams in sync

It’s an age-old question: how can 1st-level support teams using JIRA Service Desk and 2nd-level tech support teams using a seperate JIRA instance communicate more efficiently? Backbone 3.1 aims to do exactly that so that you can concentrate on what really matters: solving customers tickets.

Exporting the Collaboration Gap Away by Merging Confluence with WordPress

Do you use WordPress to run your blog or website? If so you'll wish you had known about this years ago... I certainly did.

Technical writers' requirements for editorial systems survey

In Nov 2016, we asked our TC World Conference booth visitors how they think technical editorial departments and bordering departments work together. Who works together with whom and what is especially important to those involved?

Delivering Design Specifications to Developers with Sketch & Jira

Delivering UI design specifications to developers can be painful. Read on to find out how I improved this process using Sketch, Jira tickets and a new add-on called Inspector Sketch.

A time for giving: the K15t Software sticker pack

At the end of a successful year, we want to thank you for collaborating with us by sharing a little bit of cheer: K15t Software is proud to present you with a free sticker pack for iMessage and Telegram featuring our rocketcorn mascot. Happy Holidays!

Confluence 6 and Scroll Versions, Scroll Translations, Scroll Acrolinx Connector: Not Yet, But Soon

Updated March 1, 2017: K15t Software is proud to announce the release of Scroll Versions 3.4 and Scroll Translations 3.4 . Both add-ons are now compatible with Confluence 6.

All About Usability: Scroll ImageMap vs. ImageMap Macro for Confluence

Scroll ImageMap 2.0 introduces lots of UX changes over the old ImageMap Macro for Confluence. Click on to see first-hand what's new.

Hacketse VIII: The Hacketse Strikes Back

Last week, we hosted our final 24-hour 'Hacketse' hackathon of 2016 – with a bigger and stronger range of competitors than ever before. Check out our wrap-up, and find out who lifted the winners' trophy this time around.

Dev Together IV Recap - How the JIRA Team balances complexity and power

Last week, we held our fourth Dev Together meet-up, where we learned about how the Atlassian JIRA team balances complexity and power in its software. The talk was given by Dave Meyer, one of Atlassian's Senior Product Managers, who we welcomed all the way from Australia.

Backbone 3.0: JIRA issue syncing made firewall-friendly

Backbone Issue Sync 3.0 for JIRA is now live on the Atlassian Marketplace. This new release supports firewall-friendly distributed integrations, which save you time and trouble when configuring project synchronizations between firewall-protected JIRA instances.

Scroll Versions 3.3 Adds Advanced Comala Workflows Integration

Scroll Versions 3.3 for Confluence is live now on the Atlassian Marketplace. This major release of the popular version and variant management add-on features advanced Comala Workflows integration – letting you leverage powerful workflows to achieve great results even in complex versioned content projects.

Reminder - Connect with us at tekom/tcworld 2016

Just announced: Scroll Acrolinx Connector demo – with support from Acrolinx – at the K15t Software booth at tekom/tcworld 2016. It's one of many ways you're invited to connect with us at the conference.

Dev Together IV on Nov. 14: How the JIRA Team Finds Product Balance

Join us for the fourth Dev Together meetup at our Stuttgart HQ, where we'll welcome Atlassian's Dave Meyer all the way from Sydney, Australia.

Announcing a new documentation solution at tekom/tcworld 2016

K15t Software will have a big presence at tekom/tcworld once again – and this time we're announcing a groundbreaking new solution that lets teams doc better together. We'd love to meet you at our booth if you're headed to the show.

Atlassian Summit 2016

Women in IT - debugging the gender gap

IT requires creative, communicative and flexible people. So why are there so few women working in IT? Join us for a documentary screening on Oct 26th, 2016 to find out.

Backbone 2.3: Issue Synchronization in Jira Just Got Faster

Backbone Issue Sync 2.3 from K15t is now available on the Atlassian Marketplace. This latest release features the new Suggestions tool, which makes configuring cross-border JIRA synchronization even quicker and more intuitive – letting your team work rapidly and with confidence.

Helping others is the best way of being selfish

This story is about a young man's volunteer experience – it explores why giving can also mean receiving. Taking time to do good for others is something the K15t team strongly believes in, and we're proud to have been a small part of this story.

We're Bringing Plenty of News to Atlassian Summit 2016

Atlassian Summit 2016 is only a few short weeks away, and this year K15t is stepping up as a proud platinum sponsor of the biggest event of the year for the Atlassian ecosystem.

Build Links Into Confluence Images With Scroll ImageMap

K15t proudly introduces Scroll ImageMap 2.0, a handy add-on that brings Confluence images to life with multiple clickable link areas and mouseover tooltip regions. With its intuitive graphic editor, ImageMap makes it easy to define circles, rectangles, or complex polygons as clickable regions, and make your Confluence images an engaging, informative experience.

Recap of Our Seventh Hacketse

A few weeks ago, we had our seventh 24-hour Hacketse hackathon – once again, we brainstormed, developed, and realized some fantastic ideas.

7 Wiki-Based Documentation Myths Busted

For many companies – including Nintendo, BMW, Moody's and Lufthansajust to name a few – Atlassian Confluence is the platform of choice for documentation. Yet while this wiki-based approach to technical content is gaining popularity by leaps and bounds, there are still plenty of misconceptions floating around on the web about tech doc wikis.

Backbone Issue Sync Summer Releases

Summer is in full swing here in Germany – and while beer garden visits are a lot more fun when it's warm in the evening, the K15t team is still hard at work building great collaboration software every day.

3 New Features that Make Managing Languages in Confluence Easier in Scroll Translations 3.2

The best translation and language management add-on for Atlassian Confluence has new functionality: Scroll Translations 3.2 is live on the Atlassian Marketplace – upgrade your version now or try it out for free.

K15t Returns to the Alps

Every day, the staff at K15t work hard together as a team, and that sense of camaraderie and teamwork doesn't end at the office doors. On Friday, June 10th, the K15t Software office was closed as we all piled into a bus and headed for the German Alps once again.

The Gender Gap of Women in Tech

There is a distinct lack of women and minorities in the tech industry in general, and in computer science in particular. What are the reasons behind this gap?

Backbone - Issue Sync for JIRA: Two Webinars on June 15th

Are you Backbone-curious? Missed out on previous webinars perhaps? Let's shed some light: get an up-close-and-personal look at Backbone Issue Sync direct from the lead developers on the project on June 15th.

Scroll Add-ons Power DocOps - But Don't Take Our Word For It

The Scroll Add-ons for Atlassian Confluence power painless content collaboration, and in many organizations that means taking the DocOps approach for technical communication. Check out some fresh news on how several companies are using Scroll Add-ons to do their documentation the agile way.

Backbone 2.1 - JIRA Issue Synchronization Comes to the Cloud

Backbone Issue Sync 2.1 is live, making server-to-cloud JIRA issue synchronization possible for the first time.

AtlasCamp 2016 - Bringing Big News to Barcelona

AtlasCamp is just a few short days away, and we've got some big news. Here's what brings us to Barcelona this year.

Meet Us in Manhattan on May 18th

Don't miss out on the finale of K15t's whirlwind USA speaking tour – join us at Medidata HQ on May 18th for our first-ever event in New York City.

Break Down Your JIRA Boundaries - Backbone Issue Sync is Live

Bridge the information gap and collaborate on projects across departmental and B2B borders – Backbone Issue Sync for JIRA is available now in the Atlassian Marketplace.

May 10-18: K15t is Coming to America

Backbone - Issue Sync for JIRA: Field Mapping Configuration Sneak Peek

Development of our upcoming JIRA synchronization add-on, Backbone, is in the home stretch. We think it's the perfect time to reveal a bit of the configuration UI and explain what it can do. Take a look below at four of the config UI's screens, and gain insight into some of Backbone's core JIRA syncing functionality.

Hacketse VI: The Hacketse Awakens

Our first 24-hour hackathon of 2016 took place on March 10 and 11, and great things were made – quickly. Check out our wrap-up, and find out who was on the winners' podium this time around.

Infographic: IT Service Trends Worldwide

Hacketse, Our Sixth Hackathon, Begins!

Controlled Documents Versioning in Confluence with Scroll Versions

Managing controlled documents such as software specifications, plans, or collaboratively-edited contracts isn’t easy at the best of times. And it’s harder yet if multiple stakeholders from different organizations are involved: project managers, engineers, QA, legal etc. Thankfully, there is a better way. . .

O:Bachd! Behind the Scenes at Stuttgart's Biggest Beer Maker

AUG HH BAC

Publish Versioned Content in Confluence: Scroll Versions 3.0 - What's New, Part III

Welcome to the final part of our look at what's new in Scroll Versions 3.0: features to dramatically enhance your publishing capability.

Version Management in Confluence with Scroll Versions 3.0 - What's New, Part II

Scroll Versions 3.0 is live in the Atlassian Marketplace, and it boasts a range of new features and functionality. Today, we'll examine some features that give you unprecedented control over your content management: version-based editing permissions, modular configuration. . .

You ask, we deliver: announcing Scroll Exporters 3.4

Our most popular exporters just got a flexibility upgrade, allowing the exporting of Confluence content in two new ways: task list export in all Scroll Exporters, and table cell highlighting in Office.

ShipIt V: Return of the ShipIt

K15t Software's fifth Atlassian-rules 24-hour hackathon happened just before the holidays in 2015, and the dust has finally settled enough for us to tell the tale.

What Authors Want: Authoring Tool Insights from Technical Communicators

With 4,200 participants from 48 countries, the tekom Jahrestagung (TCWorld Conference) is at the forefront of technical communication, and we're blessed to have it right in our home city of Stuttgart, Germany.

Scroll Versions 3.0 Webinar and Q & A

tekom Regionalgruppe at K15t

Announcing Scroll Versions 3.0

Five Insights: Confluence for Content Collaboration

Tales from tekom / tcworld

Atlassian Summit 2015 Recap

The Unofficial tekom tcworld Conference Guide for Newbies Techcomm Pros

Atlassian Summit 2015 is Coming—See you in SF!

Scenes from the K15t Office Warming Party

Feedback, Please! - Part 2: Building a Web Help Platform to Get the Crowd Involved

Sept 23: Join Us for the K15t Office Warming Party

Out-of-Office Adventure: the Austrian Alps

Feedback, Please! - Why Technical Writing Shouldn't Be a One-Way Street

Dev Together: Requirements Management with JIRA

Dev Together III - JIRA insights at K15t on June 16

ShipIt III: Attack of the Coders

One Page Template, Multiple Languages

Scroll Viewport 2.1: Introducing the Web-Based Theme Editor - Viewport Development Made Easy

Markdown vs. Rich Formatting - Who Will Win the Ultimate Text Processing Competition?

Migrating Legacy Content - Best Practices for Importing HTML Pages Into Confluence

Building a Glossary and Checking Terminology in Confluence

Learn how to build a glossary in Confluence to ensure terminology consistency. What’s more, we'll show you a way to check your Confluence content for terminology and writing style.

Context is King - Four Royal Tips on Providing Context-Sensitive Help in Confluence

Confluence 5.7: Inline Comments vs. Page Comments

The inline comments functionality allows users to review Confluence pages line by line and add comments on selected words, phrases, or entire paragraphs. Once you've added your feedback, you can resolve comments simply by clicking 'Resolve'.

Putting It On the Table - Managing Tabular Content in Confluence

Webinar - How CA Technologies Broke the Rules - The DocOps Approach to Agile Technical Content

ShipIt Day @ K15t Software: Confluence goes 3-D and Other Impressions from Our Hackathon

Techcomm Survey Results: How Technical Writers Collaborate Today

Introducing Scroll CHM Exporter for Confluence

Scroll Versions 2.6: Publish Your Content to Remote Confluence Systems

Weekly Round-up: Styling Developer Documentation, Empathy, Problem Words, Auditors, and More

Weekly Round-up: Team Communication, Evolution of Tech Writing, Targeted Content & Agile, and More

Think Out of Your Box - Highlights From the tcworld Conference and Fair 2014

Weekly Round-up: Immigration to Confluence, Lazy Writing, Content Rot, and More

Dev Together @ K15t Software: Videos and Slides from the Event

Weekly Round-up: Spreadsheets in Confluence, Content Authoring Levels, the DITA Debate, and More

Out of Office: K15t Team Event 2014

Weekly Round-up: Editable Screenshots, DevOps for Content, Sincerity and Comic Sans, and More

tcworld Conference 2014 / tekom Jahrestagung

Weekly Round-up: Beautiful Code Examples, Bad Content Reviews, Robot Speak, and More

Export Beautiful Code Examples from Confluence to PDF

Weekly Round-up: Atlassian Summit Archive, Bad Writing, Multimodal Content Navigation, and More

Pro Tip: Keeping Both Confluence's Default PDF Export Link and Scroll PDF Exporter

Dev Together - Atlassians at K15t on October 30th

Why Confluence's Page History Feature Doesn't Help When Managing Versioned Documentation

Weekly Round-up: Answers Meet Questions, Content Organization, Quotation Marks, and More

Weekly Round-up: Books for Every Content Strategist, Atlassian Bitband, and More

Interview: Learn How Atlassian Tech Writers Keep Pace With Agile Development Tools (Video)

Weekly Round-up: Confluence vs. SharePoint, Writing Aches, Hypertext as Agent of Change, and More

Atlassian Summit 2014 - A Five-Star Review

Weekly Round-up: How Atlassian Tech Writers Keep Pace with Agile Development, Inspiring Headings, GPS for Writing, and More

Customer Story: K15t Helps Atlassian Technical Writers Keep Pace with Agile Development Teams

Weekly Round-up: Free Atlassian Training, Content Reuse, Agile Game Changer, HTML9, and More

Seven Major Pitfalls to Avoid When Using Atlassian Confluence for Collaboration

7 common mistakes made by organizations when using Atlassian Confluence for collaborative knowledge management and documentation – and how to avoid them.

Weekly Round-up: Tech Writing Handbook, Confluence Team Space Or Project Space, and More

My Favorite Scroll PDF Exporter Feature: Quick and Easy Template Exchange

Weekly Round-up: Periodic Table of Content Marketing, Boosting Confluence Adoption, and More

See You in San Jose: K15t at the Atlassian Summit 2014

Weekly Round-up: Author in Confluence, Add Styles in Word, Agile and Techcomm, Rebirth of the Intranet, and More

Confluence for Content Management 101 - Useful Resources, Videos, and Further Reading

Weekly Round-up: Confluence Shares vs. @Mentions, User Assistance Tools Survey, Content in the Driver's Seat, and More

What the FAQ?! - Collecting Frequently Asked Questions With Confluence (Including Four Pro Tips)

Weekly Round-up: Getting Into Git, Customer Relationships, Visual Content, and More

That's Git! - Impressions From Our K15t Expert Talks (Video)

Scroll Versions Pro Tip: Using the Variant Management Functionality for Workflows

Weekly Round-up: Build Amazing Confluence Add-ons, Distraction-free Reading, Agile Review, and More