Issue #105
Sky Is NOT the Limit for Documentation on Confluence

Confluence space. The final frontier. Or is it? In this issue, we’ll show you how hardware and science teams can benefit from using Confluence as their documentation tool and take you where no Confluence space admin has gone before.

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Y. Cheng (NAOJ), J. DePasquale (STScI). License: CC BY 4.0 INT

Confluence is an excellent tool for documenting all sorts of subjects and ideas, but when it comes to technical and product documentation, people tend to associate Confluence with software and SaaS products.

Confluence shines in fast-paced Agile workflows, but hardware, research, and engineering teams are leaning into it for similar reasons:

• Cross-team collaboration among multiple fields of research, expertise, and roles.

• Clear structure: It’s easy to build, organize, and share documents.

• Peer reviews: Live docs, page history, and comments are tools that make collaborative writing and formal reviews easy and transparent.

• Stability and Atlassian tools integration: Hardware doesn’t change often, but when it does, it requires high-quality planning, updates, and accountability.

• Extensible through Marketplace apps: Add versioning, translations, approval workflows, and custom publishing.

Now let’s see how some teams decided to boldly go where no one has gone before.

Out-of-This-World: JWST and Hubble Space Telescopes

From stunning images of the galaxies far, far away (literally) to invaluable scientific data, these telescopes are the pinnacle of mankind’s space exploration. Their scientific teams are rewriting our understanding of the universe, all the while… they’re using the same tool as you do every day.

Confluence.

The teams behind the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) use Confluence and Scroll Sites to create, manage, and publish:

• hardware specifications

• operations manuals

• guides for scientists submitting observation proposals

• public, accessible educational resources

And that’s not just super cool, it’s proof that Confluence can go as far as you’re willing to take it – literally millions of kilometers away.

From a Twinkle to Inspiration

Accessible public documentation for flagship scientific research projects is an important tool that democratizes science and makes high-end projects more accessible to both the scientific community and the enthusiasts.

Hubble and JWST documentation shows what’s possible when teams embrace Confluence as a full documentation platform, not just a place for meeting notes.

Here’s how you can apply the same principles with Confluence.

• Consolidate product, process, or hardware documentation into a single shared source of truth.

• Use Atlassian Marketplace apps to extend Confluence into a full documentation toolkit.

• Make technical topics discoverable for new teammates or external stakeholders.

• Treat documentation as an asset, a part of the process – not an afterthought.

• Publish polished, public-facing sites with your own branding using Scroll Sites, our app that makes publishing Confluence content effortless.

If Confluence can make the universe understandable, it can certainly make your documentation clearer.

What’s the Coolest Confluence Site You’ve Seen?

Powered by Atlassian Confluence is a telltale sign revealing the origins of the content. Have you seen a cool or immensely helpful (or both) Confluence-powered site?

Simply write a comment and tell us about it!

And yes, you can share your own site 😉

As a teenager, I spent a lot of time at the astronomy club at my local observatory. And I’ve used Confluence as a product/technical documentation tool for over a decade. So the story of JSWT and Hubble documentation running on Confluence is… well, it’s only logical that those scientific and engineering teams chose Confluence.

It works off-the-shelf to write and maintain documentation. And as ESA (European Space Agency), already uses Atlassian apps, including Confluence, why not use them? Why spend funds on a dedicated documentation tool that, for those science teams, would cost like a small satellite?

And if you augment Confluence with our Scroll Sites, you have an end-to-end solution and a great documentation website.

Documentation evangelist, Confluence enthusiast, writer, and innovator.

Curious to see how your Confluence documentation would look if you transformed it into a genuine help center with Scroll Sites? Try the app for free at the Atlassian Marketplace.