Building Automated Index Pages

Owned by Adil Nasri
Last updated: May 12, 2020
3 min read

Built in Confluence blueprints come with predefined index pages. These list all pages that were created with their respective blueprint in an overview. This exact result can be used by a combination of the Page Properties and Page Properties Report macros. They work together to show summary information from one page on a another page.

Using the Page Properties macro

Start by creating a new blueprint.

  • Go to the space and choose Space tools > Content Tools from the bottom of the sidebar.

  • Click 'Create Page Blueprint' on the top right in templates section.



If you want to use an existing Page Blueprint feel free to just edit it. Anyway, you have to add the Page Properties Macro to your blueprint to create a table of parameters.

  1. In the editor, choose Insert > Other Macros > Page Properties (Alternative: Use the ‘{‘ key to bring up the macro browser without having to use your mouse and just type in "page properties")

  2. Add a two column table within that macro

  3. The left column represents the keys that will be the column headings on your index page

  4. Move your placeholders into the right column (more info) - these will populate the rows in the report table on your index page

 

After you have done that you need to add a label to your blueprint. This is important since your index page will collect all the pages with the same label.

Adding a specific label to your blueprint is crucial. Without that label you can't generate overview pages.

Building the index page

Now we want to make sure that all information that will be entered by users when creating a new page using your blueprint will end up on one single page. For that you need to create a new blank page and add the page properties report macro.

You can customize your index page as you please. Just make sure it contains the page properties report macro.

  1. In the editor, choose Insert > Other Macros > Page Properties Report

  2. Enter the labels you want to report on - this is the label you added to your blueprint

This is all you need to do to create an overview of all pages that were created using your blueprint.

To make sure your index page is easily accessible and visible to your users you can pin it as a space shortcut in the sidebar.

  1. Choose Space tools > Configure sidebar

  2. Click Add link and select your index page

Create pages using your blueprints

This is all it takes to have a dynamic list of all pages in one single page. All you need to do now is to create them using the blueprint that contains the Page Properties macro.

 

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