How to automate Confluence page creation: A step-by-step guide

If your team uses Confluence for projects or client onboarding, you know the routine. A new project kicks off, and it’s time to create a space, set up the same handful of pages, and copy-paste the same boilerplate content. It’s repetitive, tedious, and honestly, a poor use of your time. What if you could standardize and automate that entire process?

Automating your Confluence page creation keeps everything consistent, saves you time, and lets your team jump straight into the important work instead of getting bogged down in setup. This guide will walk you through the most common ways to do it. We’ll cover the built-in tools, point out a few common hurdles you might encounter, and explore how to build a knowledge workflow that’s actually useful.

What you’ll need

Before we jump in, let’s do a quick check to make sure you have the right setup. Getting this automation up and running requires specific permissions and, in some cases, a particular Confluence plan.

• A Confluence Cloud Premium or Enterprise plan: The native Confluence automation features are only available on these plans.

• Admin permissions: You’ll need to be a space admin to create rules for a specific space or a Confluence/site admin to set up global rules that apply across your entire instance.

• Jira integration (for Method 2): If you want to create pages from Jira, you’ll need to have your Confluence and Jira instances connected.

Method 1: Use native Confluence rules

Using Confluence’s built-in automation is the most direct way to get started. You can create rules that automatically publish new pages when something specific happens inside Confluence. This is great for straightforward documentation tasks. For example, you could set it up to create a standard set of pages every time a new project space is created, making sure every project starts with the right docs from day one.

Here’s a simple walkthrough for creating an automation rule.

1. Find your automation settings

   For a single space, head to Space settings > Automation. If you want to create global rules that can apply to any space, click the settings cog in the top right and go to Automation.

2. Create a new rule

   Click Create rule to open the rule builder. You can either start from scratch or choose a pre-built template if one matches what you’re trying to do.

3. Choose your trigger

   A trigger is just the event that kicks everything off. For this scenario, Space created is the perfect trigger. It will fire the rule every single time someone makes a new space.

4. (Optional) Add a few conditions

   What if you only want the rule to run for certain types of spaces? You can add a condition to narrow things down. For instance, you could use an Advanced compare condition to check if the "Space name" includes a specific word like "Client" or "Project." This keeps the rule from running on personal or internal team spaces by mistake.

5. Add the ‘Publish new page’ action

   This is where the real work gets done. Select the Publish new page action. You’ll need to configure it by picking a template page. This means you have to create a "blueprint" page first, maybe in a dedicated "Templates" space. Give your new page a title (you can use smart values like "{{now.shortDate}}" to make it unique). Finally, pick the space where the page will be created, using "{{space.key}}" targets the new space automatically, and set a parent page if you want to organize pages in a hierarchy.

6. Name your rule and turn it on

   Give your rule a clear name, like "Create Project Kick-off Pages," and flip the switch to turn it on. You’re all set.

graph TD

A[Start] ---> B{Choose Trigger: Space Created};  

B ---> C{Optional: Add Condition};  

C ---> D["Check if Space Name contains ‘Client’"];  

D --- Yes ---> E{Add Action: Publish New Page};  

C --- No ---> E;  

E ---> F[Configure Page: Select Template, Add Title with Smart Values];  

F ---> G[Set Target Space: {{space.key}}];  

G ---> H[Name the Rule & Turn On];  

H ---> I[End];  

Method 2: Create Confluence pages from Jira

For a lot of teams, the real work kicks off in Jira, not Confluence. So, it only makes sense to have your documentation follow suit. You can automatically create a Confluence page when a new epic, task, or important issue is logged in Jira, keeping your project management and knowledge base in sync. For example, you could automatically spin up a technical spec page in Confluence every time a developer starts a new feature epic in Jira, linking the two from the get-go.

Here’s how you can set this up from the Jira side.

1. Go to Jira automation

   In your Jira project, make your way to Project settings > Automation.

2. Create a new rule

   Just like in Confluence, click Create rule to begin.

3. Pick a Jira trigger

   Select a trigger that fits your team’s process. Issue created is a popular option, but you could also use Issue transitioned (like when an issue moves from "To Do" to "In Progress"). You can also specify the issue type, like "Epic" or "Task," so it doesn’t run for every little sub-task.

4. Add the ‘Create Confluence page’ action

   In the "Actions" section, find and select Create Confluence page. You’ll be asked to pick the Confluence space and a parent page where the new page will go. You can also choose a Confluence template to keep the format consistent. The best part is using smart values from the Jira issue to name the page, like "{{issue.key}} --- {{issue.summary}}". This automatically puts the Jira ticket number right in the page title.

5. Name and enable the rule

   Save the rule, give it a name you’ll remember later, and turn it on. Now, whenever your trigger event happens in Jira, a new page will pop up in Confluence.

A screenshot showing how the Jira integration works within Confluence, which is essential for this method of page creation automation.

This video provides a deep dive into how you can set up automation in Confluence to streamline your workflows.

Common challenges with Confluence page automation

While these automation tools are helpful, they have some quirks that teams often run into. It’s better to know about them upfront.

• Trouble with templates: As some folks on the Atlassian community forums have pointed out, the "Create Confluence page" action can be finicky with templates that contain variables. This is a real snag if you want to create dynamic documents that pull in custom fields or other specific data from Jira.

• No dynamic parent pages: You can’t use smart values to automatically assign a parent page. This makes it tough to build out complex page trees, like creating project-specific sub-pages under a main client page, without someone having to manually organize it later.

• Gets technical, fast: If your needs are more complex than the basics, you’ll probably find yourself digging into webhooks and REST API calls. This requires some technical know-how and drifts away from the simple, no-code setup. Many teams get stuck at this point, unable to build the workflow they really want without roping in a developer.

• Creating pages is only half the battle: Automating page creation is a great first step. But the bigger challenge is making sure your team can find and use the information on those pages. If your knowledge base becomes a black hole of well-organized but undiscoverable documents, the automation hasn’t really solved the core problem.

Beyond page creation: Automate your knowledge workflow

Fixing page creation is one thing, but what about the bigger picture? The goal isn’t just to have a bunch of neatly organized pages; it’s to give your team the answers they need, fast, wherever they’re working.

This is where a tool like eesel AI can make a huge difference. Instead of just organizing your documents, eesel makes all that knowledge instantly useful.

• Connects to everything you use: eesel plugs directly into your Confluence spaces, Google Docs, and other knowledge sources in just a few clicks. There’s no complicated setup or API scripting needed. You just connect it, and it starts working.

A look at the eesel AI dashboard, showing how easy it is to connect various knowledge sources like Confluence for a complete knowledge workflow.

• Get answers, not just links to pages: Once it’s connected, your team can ask questions right in Slack or Microsoft Teams and get instant answers pulled directly from your Confluence docs. No more switching tabs or digging through spaces to find that one specific guideline. The info from your newly automated pages becomes immediately accessible.

• Automate actions, not just documents: The eesel AI agent can do more than just find information, it can take action. For instance, it could look at a support ticket in Zendesk, find the solution in one of your Confluence articles, and draft a reply for your agent to review. It can bridge the gaps that the native automation tools don’t cover.

While Confluence’s tools are great for structuring your knowledge, eesel is all about making that knowledge active and accessible. It’s a self-serve platform you can get running in minutes, giving you control over how your team taps into its collective brainpower.

Final thoughts

Setting up automated page creation in Confluence is a solid move for bringing consistency and efficiency to your documentation. With the native tools in Confluence and Jira, you can build reliable structures for all your projects and save your team from a lot of boring, manual work.

But remember, creating the pages is just the start. The real win is when the information on those pages is easy for everyone to find and use. By pairing smart automation with an intelligent knowledge platform, you can turn your Confluence instance from a quiet library into an active, helpful assistant for your entire team.

Ready to make your Confluence knowledge work for you?

If you want to make all your documentation instantly useful and accessible, give eesel AI a try. Connect your knowledge sources in minutes and give your team an AI assistant that delivers answers and automates tasks right where they already work.