Keeping a "Live" office document current in confluence
Asked by Adam Conolly:

We have certain excel docs that we'd like to reflect current data in confluence that are updated nearly daily. Is there a way that we can have confluence use the current version of the document without the document being manually reimported confluence?


Answers:
author: Davin Studer
body: You should look into the WebDav components of Confluence. It lets you map you confluence structure as if it were folders and files. At the top level there will be a folder for each space. In each space folder there will be a folder for each page. In each page folder there will be a file called {pagename}.txt that has the actual page data. All other files in the page folder are page attachments. You can click on these files and edit them directly in excel, word, powerpoint, notepad, etc. ... whatever program you normally use to edit that file type. Basically it just makes it so you can edit Confluence as if it were a file system. Any edits are also versioned. So, you could have a scheduled job to copy the Confluence version of the Excel file out to a network share each day ... or you could just set up the WebDav stuff on all the people who would look at the excel file and they can directly access the Confluence version. I know if you are on a Windows box you can map Confluence as a drive letter. The link to the documentation is below. To borrow a word from Stever Jobs I would say this feature is truly "magical".

[](https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Configuring+a+WebDAV+client+for+Confluence)<https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Configuring+a+WebDAV+client+for+Confluence>

comments: author: Adam Conolly
body: David, this sounds brilliant. Thanks very much.


author: Josch Bencke
body: And a great interface to do mass-manipulations as well, e.g. together with Notepad++ and "Search\&Replace for all files" :)


author: Peter Van de Voorde
body: Thanks for teaching me something new Davin :)


author: Peter Van de Voorde
body: Hi Adam,

If you attach the document to your Confluence page and use the Microsoft Excel Macro to make it viewable in your page you will also got a button to edit the document.

This will open the document in Excel and when you save it it will be automatically saved into Confluence, so your document will always be up to date.

I think that's the easiest solution.

Best regards,

Peter

comments: author: Peter Van de Voorde
body: Adam,

this will store the document into the Confluence Attachement folder, so not the network shared folder. (Why is your company using this structure? there are many better ways to organize documents that need sharing). So it will not automatically keep the version outside of confluence up to date.

Best regards,

Peter


author: Mick Davidson
body: Peter is right Adam, the only thing I'd add is that you have to use IE or FireFox to run this functionality. It doesn't work in Chrome.

Cheers.


author: Adam Conolly
body: Will this keep the version outside of confluence up to date? The company has a strict policy here for keeping all documents directly accessable in a network shared folder. If so - amazing, thanks very much.


author: Adam Conolly
body: Peter, they say it is an ISO standard issue (I know nothing about ISO standards). I'll be meeting with them later today to find out if they can comprimise at all (possibly link or sync the document in the confluence attachment folder from the documentation folder


author: Josch Bencke
body: Sidenote: updating EXCEL sheets can also happen through Database queries, stored in the Excel sheet, when the user opens the file. That requires him having networkaccess to the database path, however.


author: Adam Conolly
body: Peter, they say it is an ISO standard issue (I know nothing about ISO standards). I'll be meeting with them later today to find out if they can comprimise at all (possibly link or sync the document in the confluence attachment folder from the documentation folder


Tags: confluence-administration