Database features, populated drop down menus and link of object attributes
Asked by d_jeffbethune:

Looking for general advice from experts towards solving my desired use case:

Using Confluence and Jira, I am trying to build a content management system for our organization that utilizes database relationships, forms, workflows, etc. Approvals with signatures (passwords) are important, as is version control reviews etc. We are currently using Comala workflows which is great.

I am having trouble creating 'objects' with attributes or meta data, that is available across the instance. I am having trouble figuring out my options. For the simplest example:

- I want to create a Customer object, for example, Atlassian. In confluence I imagine this to be a page, with some attributes such as Contact, address.

- I want to be able to have another template, for example, for Purchasing. Lets say I create a purchasing page from a template (using scaffolding perhaps), and I want to have a field that is for the Customer. Ideally this is a drop down menu that auto populates from the Customers.

- Finally, these objects should be filterable, so I can click on the Customer, and it will so all the purchases where this Customer has been entered.

I can see labels being able to solve a lot of the filtering issues, such as searching for a combination of the Customer label and the purchase record label, but it is difficult to use labels in a form-type interaction, where the user selects from available labels.

Is this achievable in confluence? Perhaps it is a Jira issue, however the Comala workflows for Confluence are much nicer than in Jira. Perhaps this is not a suitable application for Jira or Confluence.

Thanks for your help.


Answers:
author: Alex Medved _ConfiForms_
body: Seems like a good use case for our plugin - [ConfiForms - Data Forms \& Workflows](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1211860/confiforms-data-forms-workflows "Create forms in Confluence with Confiforms")

Especially when you need to connect with your **external databases** and other data sources, as well as objects in Confluence itself.

ConfiForms can help you with that. You can build functionality rich forms to collect and store the data of any type and structure. Connect them together and/or with external data and build custom views over the data you store.

Also, it integrates well with Atlassian Jira (no surprise here), with Confluence templates and much much more.


author: Azwandi _ServiceRocket_
body: Jeff, it sounds like you need a template for Customer and Purchasing, and in each template you need to create a form for users to enter metadata. You would also need the template to be dynamic or "live", so that changes to the templates will be reflected to the pages that are using them (Confluence templates have this limitations). You would also need to query the metadata across the space, and most likely you need to report on those forms and metadata.

There's some apps for Confluence that can do what you mentioned: forms, metadata and templates that are dynamic - [https://marketplace.atlassian.com/search?product=confluence\&query=metadata%20templates](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/search?product=confluence&query=metadata%20templates)


author: Caroline Adams
body: Hi Jeff,

Have you considered looking into [Metadata for Confluence](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1213690/metadata-for-confluence?hosting=server&tab=overview) by Communardo? It integrates with Comala Workflows and allows you to do a lot of what you're talking about.

comments: author: d_jeffbethune
body: lll check it out. We have metadata for comala, but it is different than the app you linked above.

Do you know if the metadata spans spaces?


author: d_jeffbethune
body: I see now there are global fields..


Tags: confluence-server

scaffolding

server