Setting a date that automatically updates
Asked by Hannah Arnette:

Hello, all,

I have a coworker who wants to automate dates on pages within Confluence Data Center so they'll update every week. For instance, today is 20 August and the due date is 21 August. She wants the to automatically update every Friday to the following Friday's date (so it would update to 28 August).

I did find the //date lozenge option. I think that will work for the moment, but it still requires that she goes in and updates the date every week.

This is intended to help her Project Management workflow. Our project currently does not have enough JIRA licenses (and we might not ever reach the amount of JIRA licenses needed). Only a handful of us have JIRA licenses, but everyone on the project has access to Confluence.

I'm not finding any simple workarounds and I've searched through Atlassian Community to see if anyone has had any similar questions. Is this something that would require purchasing a macro? Or could I conceivably write a script (something I haven't done yet, but am certainly willing to learn) and insert it using HTML?

Thanks!


Answers:
author: Stiltsoft Support
body: Hello [@Hannah Arnette](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4057904) ,

Could you specify your use case a bit more? Are there any other updates but for the due date on the target page? If so, [Handy Timestamp](https://docs.stiltsoft.com/hmfc/server-dc/handy-timestamp/how-to-use-handy-timestamp) could help you. It allows to insert the time of the page last update, creation, or macro inserting. The first option could work for you in case you edit the page before due date changing. Handy Timestamp will show you the last update date on the page automatically in this case.

Otherwise, try [Handy Date](https://docs.stiltsoft.com/hmfc/server-dc/handy-date) to speed up the date switch in Confluence. With it, dates can be changed on the fly in the page view mode.

These both macros are a part of[Handy Macros for Confluence](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1214971/handy-macros-for-confluence-formatting-and-interactive-ui?tab=overview&hosting=server&utm_source=atlassian-community&utm_medium=answer&utm_campaign=handy-macros-traffic-sources&utm_id=1216111&utm_content=date_update) app. Hope that helps :)

Best regards,

Elena


author: Dominic Lagger
body: Hi [@Hannah Arnette](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4057904)

I think this would be possible with an user macro:

* [Writing User Macros](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/writing-user-macros-4485.html)
* [Confluence User Macro Guide](https://developer.atlassian.com/server/confluence/confluence-user-macro-guide/)

The thing is, the dates are a bit tricky in confluence with velocity.

Question:

* Is there a rule, when which date should be displayed?

If there is a rule, perhaps I could help, but no guarantee :)

Regards, Dominic


author: Kirkie
body: [@Hannah Arnette](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4057904)

Is this for Jira or Jira Service Desk Project?

What version and is this cloud or server?

Do you have Scriptrunner or Automation for Jira?

In your project settings do you see Automation or Project Automation settings?

This is relatively simple to do depending on your current situation.

Let me know!

comments: author: Hannah Arnette
body: It's for Confluence Data Center. We can use html/wiki markup.

I feel like this has to be a really obvious solution, but I'm learning about Confluence as I go.


author: Kirkie
body: What youre referring to with due dates is in reference to Jira tickets, correct?

Then the automation around updating the due date field would happen in Jira. Not confluence. So the questions above are for Jira I believe.


author: Hannah Arnette
body: Ah, no. It's for pages within Confluence. I'll edit my post to more accurately reflect the situation.


Tags: confluence-server

server