Here’s the scenario: You’re an internal communications specialist. Your job is to keep employees engaged and informed about the latest company news, updates, important resources, and so on. Generally you’ll be using a host of tools and channels for this. Of course, a dedicated Confluence space to act as your company hub, email newsletters, Slack- you know the usual suspects.
Lately Confluence announced the new company hub feature to centralize all of your internal communications in one place. In this article we’ll discover this new beta hub, why you need it, and how you can either build on it or create your own from scratch.
Why You Need a Confluence Company Hub
- Centralize Communication: A centralized location that groups all of communications is a win-win for both internal com specialists, and, of course, employees. On the one hand, content creators have one hub to focus on in which they can post all company related content. On the other hand, employees won’t be juggling between multiple channels to stay informed. No more “I didn’t see that email” or “Where’s the link to that document?” With everything in one place, your team stays informed and aligned.
- Streamline Employee Onboarding: As a new hire, there is nothing more frustrating than to repeatedly ask questions (obvious questions). And the same can be said about the ones who answer. A Confluence company hub can act as the gateway to all the resources needed to help new hires start on the right foot. Dedicated FAQs, glossaries, documentation, company policies, and more.
- Facilitate Access to Information: One of the common challenges facing businesses today is the amount of time spent to locate information.With a centralized Confluence company hub, your teams can easily find information on the go. With shortcuts, quick links, and organized resources, users don’t waste time hunting down information.
Confluence Company Hub Beta Feature: For Premium & Enterprise Plans
If you happen to have Confluence on Premium and Enterprise, then Confluence company hub is available by default in Beta. The feature is quite new and at the moment Confluence is gathering feedback to further improve the hub and understand user behavior while testing.
It’s designed to offer all the basics to set up a functioning hub right off the bat, with no technical headaches. So what’s inside?
What’s Included in the Confluence Company Hub?
At the first glance? Carousel, cards, cards, and more cards. Of course, the company hub is well-structured and is fully customizable. Now let’s explore the building blocks
- Announcements: Clever move from Confluence to place announcements at the top to display important updates that users might not be looking for yet. Think of announcements as your team’s internal newsfeed. Major updates, milestones, and even birthdays can be posted here. It’s the central space for keeping everyone informed without sending mass emails.
What’s even better, is you can place announcement banners upon updating your hub. You can select the announcement to be public or private. You can also customize the message and even schedule the duration when the banner is visible in Confluence.
- Shoutouts: The next bloc is employee shoutouts. It’s nice to have, in my opinion, at least being placed at the top of the page. Nonetheless, it’s important to recognize employees and the choice of cards is great as the section can be both informative and engaging.
- Resources Section: This part of the hub is designed to be a gateway for other locations within or outside Confluence. Here the choice also has been to use cards and you can include links to essential documents, like company policies, guides, or onboarding material. With organized categories, no more fumbling around looking for the latest version of the employee handbook!
- Quick Links: The name says it all. Use quick links for anything from links to external company tools (think Trello, Jira, or Slack) to department-specific resources. Quick links are a huge time-saver, especially for teams juggling multiple platforms.
With these premium features, you’re already ahead of the curve. But that’s just the start. Let’s dive into some macros you can use to further build on your Confluence Company Hub.
Some Macros & sections to Include within your Confluence Company Hub?
The premium carousels and cards look great and are easy to implement and customize. But are they enough? For some, yes, they might do the job. If you’re looking for some other macros, here’re my picks. It’s a mixture of native and our very own Content Formatting macros.
Blogs for Relevant Articles
If you happen to have an internal blog where your communications and marketing specialists post regularly, you can point to it. For this you can use the blog posts macro which allows you to list blogs from specific spaces. Generally this section is to be placed at the bottom of the page, since the most important information is better portrayed using carousels.
Tabs for Detailed Sections & Onboarding Guides
Do you have content that consists of multiple sections? Here you can use the basic Confluence layout to separate them or even better, Tabs.
Tabs allow you to condense multiple pieces of information into a single block, making it easy for users to switch between content without overwhelming them with information. This is especially helpful for HR resources, step-by-step instructions, or even newsfeed (but carousels are more visually appealing tbh).
💡 Pro Tip: Make sure to properly name your tabs to facilitate navigation. Also avoid overcrowding your tabs with content and nested macros to avoid breaking the flow of the page.
For more tips on how to properly use tabs, make sure to check out this dedicated article.
Expand for FAQs
You’ve got a list of FAQs that you want to display within your company hub. Here you can opt for simple bullet points for questions and answers. But that’s too basic. Instead you can leverage the Confluence expand macro. It’s easy to implement and edit.
Want to take it up a notch? Use the Vectors expand macros. They allow you to further customize the display and style for your expands to better match your branding guidelines.
💡Pro Tip: Combine your Expand macros with visuals like icons or images to make them stand out. For example, a question mark icon next to FAQs can signal that users can click to reveal more information.
Buttons for Additional Resources
Buttons help with quick navigation and can be placed anywhere in your hub -preferably at the top- to guide users toward specific actions. Whether it’s directing them to another part of Confluence, specific pages, or external platforms, buttons keep things user-friendly.
💡Pro Tip: Use contrasting colors for buttons to make them stand out and clearly indicate what the action is.
Check the Atlassian community post to learn more about buttons.
Best Practices to Create Your Company Hub
Now that we’ve covered the essentials, how can you ensure that your company hub is efficient, user-friendly, and—most importantly—used by your team?
1. Keep It Simple, But Functional
It can be tempting to load your hub with everything under the sun. Don’t do that! Too much information can overwhelm users and be counterproductive. First try to understand what your teams look forward to the most within their Confluence company hub. This way you can properly structure sections.
Focus on providing the essentials upfront such as the newsfeed, important resources, shortcuts, articles and more. Keep more targeted content (if brief) further down the page. If it’s quite long, better place it within other sections in Confluence and point to it.
2. Update Regularly
If your hub isn’t updated regularly, users will quickly stop relying on it, or worse work on outdated information. Schedule regular reviews by designated users to ensure resources are current and announcements are relevant. Assigning someone to manage and curate the hub can keep things fresh and up to date.
3. Make It Visual
Banners, carousels and cards are great elements to include since they’re visually appealing and easy to customize. At the end of the day, your company hub is a gateway for other places and shouldn’t be cluttered with walls of text.
Further build on what you already have with images, icons, and other visual elements to make your hub inviting and enjoyable. This keeps users engaged and helps them quickly find what they’re looking for.
4. Manage Permissions
Who’s responsible for creating and managing your company hub? It’s important to answer this question to guarantee that your hub is properly managed by the right people. The hub permissions settings are similar to the space ones. You can basically grant or restrict actions to specific sections of your hub.
Confluence Company Hub for Standard & Free Plans: The Workaround
What if I don’t have the Premium and Enterprise plan and still want to create my own Company hub? Yes you can. Although the feature is convenient and quickly accessible, you can still build your company hub using both Confluence native and third party macros.
You can simply create a Confluence space for your internal communications. The space homepage can act as your company hub. Here though, you’ll be working with native and third party apps to populate your page (no carousels, cards, and so on).
In terms of live announcement, you wouldn’t be able to leverage the new announcements feature. You can instead rely on email notifications upon updating the page (which is frankly not that ideal). But all and all, you’ve all the tools you need for a great workaround.
Building a Confluence Company Hub is more than just setting up a few sections and âges. It’s about creating a centralized location that promotes organization, efficiency, and productivity across your teams. With Confluence’s new features, like cards, carousels, and advanced macros like tabs and expanders, you can design a hub that’s both functional and dynamic.
Remember to keep it updated and use engaging visuals, to make your hub a vital place that your team turns to up to date information.
