Many businesses today are adapting work-from-home arrangement on a long-term basis because of the benefits that working remotely offers to both management and employees. Under this arrangement, it’s mostly the project managers and team leaders who are involved in managing remote teams because they’re the ones who directly interact with these teams. Confluence is one of the primary work from home tools that they use for project management and collaboration because of the benefits it offers for structuring online documentation.  

Your remote staff can use Confluence as an effective project management and collaboration tool for ensuring uniformity in the content structure of the documentation that they have to create and maintain. However, if some members of your work-from-home team are newly hired, they should know how to structure the content of Confluence documentation. 

Here are work-from-home best practices for structuring documentation in Confluence that you can provide to the new members of your virtual team. 

1. Define the page structure

In Confluence, you must first create a space that allows you to construct your content into different categories. An example is setting up a space per team (e.g., Sales Operation) or by project (e.g., Web Development) Then in each space, you should have a coherent and systematic page structure by arranging your content by subject and relevance. Below is an example of the page structure of a product specification for a software process. 

In the example above, the page is structured into several layers of hierarchy. Every item under each page is a related or expanded explanation of the preceding item above it. There is a coherent and continuous structural hierarchy that makes it easier for your virtual team or an external end-user to follow, especially when it involves a set of procedures or instructions.   

2. Use page templates

You can use the page templates in Confluence to arrange the pages into specific categories for the content (e.g., Project Requirements, Meeting Notes, How to Documentation, etc.,). Using page templates that already have a specified layout and structure will enhance the work-from-home productivity of your remote teams since they don’t have to create a document from scratch. This will allow them to save time and focus on other important parts of the documentation process. 

3. Use macros

Encourage your remote staff involved in documentation to use Confluence macros because they have a range of capabilities that can make your pages more dynamic and customized to your specific requirements. Macros can customize the layout and format of your page and allow you to include multi-media content on your page.  

4. Label content

Correct labeling of content is an effective method to make it easy for you to arrange the pages and their accompanying attachments that are relevant to the same subject. This is an efficient way of remote managing documentation because it becomes easier for remote teams to find the specific document they need in Confluence. 

LegalMatch’s Use of Structured Confluence Documentation 

LegalMatch Philippines (LMPH) is a leading technology and software solutions provider for the legal industry that employs a talented remote staff. Our team’s effective use of Confluence as their project management and collaboration tool has consistently promoted the standardized structure of the documents they maintain and manage.   

By following a uniform standard in the template and format we use, we have decreased the chances of deviations and errors in the documentation process. This has also contributed to our remote team’s productivity by decreasing the time devoted to error tracking and double-checking of documents. LMPH’s expanding operations are supported by our continuous recruitment of skilled staff like web project managers and other employees who can contribute to the efficient documentation process that we practice at LMPH. 

(Sharepoint image from SharePoint Online Backup <https://www.nakivo.com/microsoft-office-365-backup/sharepoint-online-backup/>)

Microsoft SharePoint is a website-based collaboration system that is limited to an organization subscribed to the system. It acts as an internal network that facilitates collaboration between teams in an organization. At LegalMatch Philippines (LMPH), we use this system to organize and share files and other work-related information as part of an efficient system to enhance work cooperation among our teams.  

Our teams optimize their everyday use of SharePoint for their work tasks by using these four best SharePoint tips and tricks. 

1. Set a Consistent Standard for File Naming

A standard for naming files, documents, lists, libraries and other information that you use can make it easier for you to search for items in SharePoint. The SharePoint best practices that we use in our naming standards are: 

• Don’t put spaces in between file names because this can cause confusion during term searching. A better alternative is using uppercase letters for the first letter of two or three words joined together, or using underscore or dashes to separate words. For example, “FileName”, “Filename_name1_name2”, and “Filename-name1-name2″. 
• Avoid using the same name for multiple files. This can result in errors and waste of time because you have to do multiple clicks and verifications every time your search in SharePoint turns up several files with the same name. 
• Use names that are meaningful and make sense. For instance, use labels that are related to the topic of the document or the theme of the project you are handling. Make the names of files, lists, libraries, pages, sites and documents short and simple. A good suggestion is keeping the document names up to 24 characters only while it’s 14 characters for the other types of files. 

 2. Using Tags to Easily Find Your Files

A good trick in searching for files on your SharePoint sites is to tag them so you’ll get more specific results. To do this, go to your document library and add a new field that will hold the category for the tag you will use. In the library, create a new column of type [Choice] e.g., “Fiscal Year”. After you assign each document a specific year, you can group and filter the documents based on the “Fiscal Year” tag.  

The tagging trick is useful for files with the same names by grouping them in related folders where you can easily find them. The table below is an example of a SharePoint library where the tags would be highlighted in the columns and rows. 

 3. Activate Alerts When Files Are Edited

If you’re a leader handling teams who are working on several documents, it makes sense to create an alert system that notifies you when these documents are changed. This prevents the danger of missing out on any file changes that you’re regularly monitoring. Our SharePoint guide to creating an alert system: 

1. In the SharePoint list or library, make sure no items are selected. 
2. From the list of options in the list or library, select to click on the horizontally or vertically positioned ellipses. Then select Alert Me.
3.  In the Alert me when items change dialog box, change or fill in the options that are applicable for you. Then select OK. 

 4. Organize Your Libraries in an Effective Way

You can use one library to store many files or use multiple libraries for specific categories of files. Below are two of our SharePoint best practices for organizing SharePoint libraries: 

a. Managing files in a single library: 

• • Create folders – Folders can help you manage and scan files more efficiently. A better way to manage your folders is by arranging them into main folders and subfolders such as: 

• • • ABS software 2021: 

• • • • Version 1.1 
      • Version 1.2 

• • • ABS software 2022: 

• • • • Version 2.1 
      • Version 2.1 

• • Add columns – You can create columns that appear at the top of the library page as headings such as a group name or project name. Then use the column heading to arrange and filter the files by date or alphabetically. 

• • Set up templates – Build several types of templates if multiple content types are set up in a SharePoint library. An example is templates that are arranged into budget spreadsheets, marketing presentations or sales contracts that are all located in the same library.   

b. Managing files in multiple libraries: 

• • Create site templates and columns – You can set up site templates and site columns, then share the settings across multiple libraries so you don’t have to recreate the settings each time the templates and columns are updated. 
  • Send files to another location – Store a file in one SharePoint library then send a shared copy of that file to multiple libraries. Once you update the original document in the first library, the shared copies in the other libraries will be automatically updated. 
  • Build library templates – You can save a library as a template by using the library template option when you click Create on the Site Actions menu in your SharePoint site. 

Advantages of Optimizing Your Use of SharePoint 

Our teams have realized that arranging folders into main and sub-folders makes it easier for us to group and filter our files in the SharePoint libraries. An alert notification for changes to documents can immediately notify team leaders or subject matter experts who need to be informed. With standard naming and file tagging, searching for information has become more accurate and faster, and less prone to turning up results that are not related to the search terms we used. That’s why we highly recommend you use these tips in your organization so you’ll reap the same benefits that we have experienced.