One of the recent endeavors here at Liberty Fox was to create a knowledge base and wiki with the goal of creating a single, well-maintained, and central location for everything Liberty Fox does. Confluence, an Atlassian product, provides the tools necessary to accomplish this goal. At its core, Confluence is software that allows anyone to build and maintain a wiki, whether for internal uses, for customers, or for a mixture of both.
In the fast-paced world of agile development, thorough documentation is essential. Whether the need is to spin-up a new developer on a project or to re-visit a previously on-hold project, having resources to reference makes the familiarization process much simpler. Previously, these documents and resources have been stored in Google Drive. While Google Drive is an excellent tool for storing vast amounts of data and information, it could only accomplish so much. Confluence allows for the storage of the same data and information, with the added benefit of full customization.
One of the biggest attractions that made the decision to build a Liberty Fox Wiki through Confluence, is the level of adaptability and customization Confluence allows. PDF, Excel, and Word files can be directly embedded into a page, bringing along full formatting and the ability to edit the document without needing to download and re-upload the file. Creating content is as simple as adding a new page, adjusting the layout to the desired style, and adding the content. There is also an option to create a page template, so creating multiple pages that have a similar layout becomes streamlined and simple. As with most Atlassian products, plugins and add-ons are widely available for Confluence, making the possibilities nearly limitless for what can be created. While Google Drive is still an exceptional file sharing tool, Confluence handles file sharing but at the same time allows for so much more. For this reason, it has become the preferred collaborative tool for Liberty Fox.
