How do I use a template to create a blog post?
Asked by BlueHat Dave:

My organization has a daily operation which we would like to record with a template; this seems to be what the blog feature is for. However, it appears that it is impossible to create a template for blog postings.

Am I correct, and if so, when will this feature be added?

Thank you.


Answers:
author: Rob Woodgate
body: Hi Dave,

You are correct, you can't create a template for a blog. You'll have to ask Atlassian for details of their roadmap with regard to blogs.

However, you say "this sees to be what the blog feature is for" but the blog feature is for writing blog posts, not for templatised record keeping. That's what pages and templates are for.

comments: author: BlueHat Dave
body: Except the templatised records show up as frequently as blog posts, and would be well organized in the same fashion which blog posts are automatically. The automatic sorting does not appear to be possible in Confluence, or at least not obviously so.


author: Rob Woodgate
body: Hi Dave,

I'd never say "don't use blog posts for this" because different things work for different people. But obviously you can't have a template then.

As a suggestion, the child pages of a parent page can be ordered in alphabetical order (or reverse) in the Reorder Pages option. Once you've done that then all new child pages under that parent will also be in alphabetical order You can create your own template with a data field that will automatically populate the title of the page with today's date ("today" being the day you use the template), so that when you save the page it will be ordered correctly. Templates also allow you to use things like the Page Properties macro, so that in the parent page you can use the Page Properties Report macro to show the main details from the previous x number of reports. There are lots of possibilities to do things like this with templates, pages and macros that you can't do in a blog post.


author: BlueHat Dave
body: "... create your own template with a data field that will automatically populate the title of the page with today's date"

I've tried this, but I'm finding no documentation and the template creation process explicitly forbids me from putting data fields in the title, and furthermore the title of the created page does not appear to be template-creatable. Perhaps this because our server is still on 5.8?


author: Rob Woodgate
body: Hi Dave,

The 5.8 instructions for creating templates are [here](https://confluence.atlassian.com/conf58/create-a-template-771892102.html). You're correct that you can't add a data field to a title using the template creator, I was thinking of [creating a blueprint](https://developer.atlassian.com/confdev/confluence-plugin-guide/confluence-blueprints/space-blueprints/write-a-simple-confluence-space-blueprint) which seems like a more complicated solution that you need. Apologies for that. It can be done, as you can see in the Meeting Notes template, but not through the Confluence front end (as far as I know).

Templates are an easier way to keep a consistent format and report on the data in the pages. But yes, you're going to have to add the date yourself even if your template title is "xx/xx/xxxx Daily Report". With blogs you won't have to do that because as you say they order automatically.


author: BlueHat Dave
body: Thank you.


author: Danyal Iqbal
body: <https://codepen.io/MartinMuzatko/full/peKOxp/>


author: Damon Gaylor
body: I stumbled on this post with the same question. This is how I'm going to solve it. Create a markdown files that I can copy paste, which sets the basic template up. It isn't as ideal as a template, but works for me.

comments: author: Wade Sturman
body: hey [@Damon Gaylor](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1386048) , did you ever get a markdown template created? how does it work?


author: Damon Gaylor
body: I started using a simple markdown template. The challenge for me is it didn't honor any of the /commands. I still us the template for several things, but then just clean it up with a few of the macros. The markdown converter in Atlassian works really well though.


author: Wade Sturman
body: gotcha, thanks for letting me know. It's a great idea!


Tags: confluence-administration