Policy management plugins
Asked by Network Operations:

Hello,

I have been searching for a solution to better manage our compliance polices. At present we are managing one set of company policies and then manually mapping this to relevant Compliance Matrix pages. This is a time consuming task manually updating the policy then ensuring the relevant audit page(s) are also updated.

All of our policies are documented in the one space in confluence.

We then have multiple pages for each standard we are audited for (eg. PCI DSS, ISAE3402 etc) with links to the pages for the relevant clauses. Unfortunately these pages are still large chunks of text requiring the person looking for the relevant information to read entire documents. While this is good to ensure context of the information, sometimes its a validation of a section or refresh on it, which then consumes time for the auditor or reader.

I am looking for a solution that will allow me to create these "Standards Pages" (eg. PCI DSS) with an auto updating matrix to the relevant page sections (paragraphs or multiple paragraphs).

If a section of text is tagged as pcidss-12.10.3 (or similar tagging) this is then automatically added to the PCI DSS page with a link to the page section. Even better the matrix includes the text in the linked page section and is displayed with a link for contextual verification etc.

The same section of text may also be referenced in another standards page (eg. ISAE3402) with a tag of isae3402-1.2.3 and would then be included in both standards pages.

Does anyone know of a plugin or combination that would allow the above or similar functionality in Confluence ?

Appreciate anyone thoughts around this and if they managed to solve any similar issues ?

Kind Regards,

Darrin


Answers:
author: Aron Gombas _Midori_
body: Two ideas:

1. Have you tried breaking your pages into smaller includable blocks? And the update the content in those building blocks that would ultimately update all pages that include those. See: <https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/include-page-macro-139514.html>
2. Also, using "excerpts" can be really helpful. See: <https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/excerpt-macro-148062.html>

Both of these are standard Confluence features.

comments: author: Darrin Khan
body: Thanks Aron,

I will have a look at those further. While its still a manual process it seems be the only option to complete what I am looking for.

Regards,

Darrin


author: Robert Reiner _smartics_
body: Just because I read 'only option' ... ;)

In addition to the approach with standard features explained by Aron, there are third-party add-ons on the Marketplace to support [multi-excerpt](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/search?query=multi-excerpt).

In addition to being able to [transclude](https://www.smartics.eu/confluence/x/zoQoAg) multiple sections from a page the [projectdoc Toolbox](https://www.smartics.eu/confluence/x/1YEp), a commercial add-on [available on the Marketplace](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/1212629), provides transclusion with link feature for authors, not rendered for readers. Please refer to the [Transclusion Macro](https://www.smartics.eu/confluence/display/PDAC1/Transclusion+Macro) for a visual example of the [rendered box around the transcluded content](https://www.smartics.eu/confluence/display/PDAC1/Transclusion+Macro#TransclusionMacro-RenderReferenceBox).

The projectdoc Toolbox also allows to define queries for pages to transclude multiple sections tagged by keywords. Please have a look at the [Transclude Documents Macro](https://www.smartics.eu/confluence/x/7ADe) for further details.

The tip [Content Reuse](https://www.smartics.eu/confluence/x/qQdwAg) provides an overview over the transclusion features of the add-on.

**Biased alert**: Please note that I am one of the authors of the projectdoc Toolbox!


Tags: confluence-server

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