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In every organization, valuable knowledge is created daily—from troubleshooting solutions and project insights to best practices and onboarding resources. But without a structured way to store and retrieve this information, knowledge sharing can fall short, leaving teams scrambling to track down details they need or solving the same problems repeatedly.
A knowledge base provides an organized, searchable hub where teams can store, update, and easily share knowledge. In this guide, we’ll cover how to set up a Confluence knowledge base.
Let’s get started!
A knowledge base serves as a centralized hub for information and resources within an organization. It encompasses troubleshooting guides, project documentation, onboarding materials, and best practices—all readily available for those who need it.
Using Confluence for your knowledge base comes with some fantastic perks:
Centralized Storage: All essential information is stored in one spot.
Real-Time Collaboration: Confluence lets team members update documents on the fly, ensuring everyone has the most current information at their fingertips.
Customizable Layouts: With adaptable page structures and templates, you can arrange content to fit your team’s unique needs.
Creating a knowledge base in Confluence is straightforward. Here’s how to get started using Confluence Cloud.
In Confluence, select “Create Space” and choose a template suited for knowledge management, such as the “Knowledge Base” or “Documentation” templates. These templates come pre-configured to help organize and display information effectively.
Give your space a name that clearly identifies its purpose, like “Product Knowledge Base” or “HR Resource Center.” A brief description will help guide users on what they can expect to find here.
By configuring permissions, you can control who has access to view, edit, or manage specific areas of your knowledge base, ensuring information stays accurate and relevant.
Go to “Space Settings” and select “Space Permissions”. Here, you can define access rules for individuals, groups, or everyone in your organization.
Apply space-wide rules and customize for specific user groups as needed.
The home page of your Confluence knowledge base is the first thing users see, so it should be welcoming, informative, and easy to navigate. If you chose the Confluence knowledge base space template, you’ll already see a search bar, description, label list, and recent section on your homepage. You can—and should—customize these elements to suit your team’s needs.
To customize your Confluence knowledge base overview page, simply click the pencil icon in the top-right corner (or press “E” on your keyboard) to enter edit mode.
Add a Welcoming Title and Intro
Rename the homepage to something like “Welcome to [Your Company] Knowledge Base” and start with a friendly welcome message that explains the purpose of the space. Briefly outline the types of information users will find, and encourage them to explore. This introduction sets the tone, helps users feel oriented, and makes it clear how the knowledge base can support their work.
The nice thing about your individual knowledge base is that you are completely free to determine the content. Topics that are often found in knowledge bases:
FAQs
How-To Guides
Troubleshooting Articles
Product Documentation
Release Notes and Updates
Company Policies and Procedures
Glossaries or Knowledge Dictionaries
Training Materials
Best Practices
Community or Discussion Forums
Contact Information
Search and Filter Options
Confluence offers several features that make it easy to categorize and tag content, so users can navigate seamlessly.
Use Page Trees for your Knowledge Base
Organizing your content can make a significant difference in how easily information is accessed and understood. Consider creating a page tree in the sidebar, which serves as a helpful table of contents for your knowledge base. You might begin with broad categories such as “Onboarding,” “Product Documentation,” and “FAQs.” From there, adding subpages for specific articles within these sections can provide clarity and enhance the user experience.
Categorize your Knowledge Base with Labels
Labels in Confluence are tags you can attach to pages or blog posts to categorize and organize content. These tags are especially useful in a knowledge base, where they enable your readers to quickly locate relevant information based on keywords or topics.
When you select the Confluence knowledge base template, the Labels macro is built into your homepage by default.
Open the page or article you’d like to label, and click the pencil icon to enter edit mode.
Go to the “More options” menu (represented by the … icon) in the top right corner of the page.
Select “Add labels” (or “Edit labels” if labels already exist).
How the Label List Macro Works
When added to a Confluence page, the Label List macro displays all labels used within a specified space or across multiple spaces in Confluence.
All newly created labels will automatically be displayed in your knowledge base.
Remember! Create Consistent Labeling
Establishing a standardized set of labels for your team to use is a thoughtful approach. This consistency will not only help in organizing information uniformly but also make it easier for everyone to search and find what they need. It’s a small step that can lead to a more efficient and harmonious working environment.
Consider including a section for recent updates, announcements, or new documentation. This keeps users informed of the latest changes and additions. You can use Confluence’s “Recent updates” macro to showcase updates on the home page.
While Confluence provides essential tools for building an effective knowledge base, you can elevate your pages even further with Aura Content Formatting Macros. Aura is a powerful macro suite designed to help you create beautiful, engaging, and highly functional Confluence pages. The Confluence app offers a range of customizable macros that make it easier to organize content, add interactive elements, and enhance the overall look and feel of your knowledge base.
If you’re looking to improve the visual appeal and usability of your knowledge base, Aura’s tools can provide just the right enhancements.
The Child Tabs macro allows you to segment information within a single page, which is ideal for organizing complex topics without overwhelming users. For example, you can create separate tabs for “FAQs,” “Guides,” and “Troubleshooting,” keeping all related information in one place.
The advantage over Confluence’s Child macro is that with Aura you can consume the content of the children’s pages directly on the page on which the macro is embedded
Aura Cards are perfect for creating a visually appealing knowledge base that’s also highly functional. Use cards to display quick links to key sections, highlight popular articles, or showcase important resources. With customizable colors, icons, and layouts, Aura Cards add a professional touch and improve navigation by clearly differentiating content types.
What sets Aura Cards apart is their advanced customization options and intuitive design, making them a standout tool for building a visually engaging and functional knowledge base.
The Countdown Timer macro is a great way to draw attention to upcoming events, deadlines, or time-sensitive updates. For instance, if there’s a scheduled software release, system maintenance, or an important project deadline, the Countdown Timer helps ensure everyone is aware of it and prepared.
With Aura’s Dynamic Content macro, you can easily pull in real-time information from across your Confluence page, including recent updates, blogs, pages, spaces, user profiles, PR charts, whiteboards, smart links, databases, and even Mantra events.
This allows your knowledge base to stay effortlessly up-to-date, providing your team with the latest information they need to make informed decisions.
It’s also fully customizable, letting you filter and present content in ways most relevant to your users, making it easy for everyone to engage with the knowledge base. Best of all, setup is simple and requires no coding—so anyone can create a visually engaging, interactive experience.
The Expand macro is perfect for FAQs, step-by-step guides, or any sections that may not be relevant to every reader. By allowing users to click and expand only the information they need, it keeps your pages clean and easy to navigate. Aura’s Expand macro goes a step further than Confluence’s default option, offering custom colors, icons, and animations. This customization lets you style expandable sections to fit your brand, making them more engaging. You can even nest Expands within each other or use them alongside other Aura elements like Tabs and Cards, creating a cohesive, professional look.
Then, there is the Status macro of Aura. It’s perfect for adding visual labels like “In Progress,” “Under Review,” or “Approved” to content, giving users an instant snapshot of each item’s status. For example, you might tag new documents as “Draft” or highlight recently updated ones as “Reviewed.” Unlike Confluence’s default status labels, Aura’s Status macro is interactive, allowing you to update the status right from view mode. Plus, you get extra customization options—choose unique colors, icons, and styles to match your branding. This added flexibility keeps your knowledge base both informative and visually engaging.
If you’re just starting out with your Confluence knowledge base and want a streamlined way to get set up quickly, Karma offers an excellent, free solution that’s perfect for all teams. Karma is a user-friendly page builder for Confluence Cloud that includes a range of pre-designed templates to help you create a functional, visually appealing knowledge base with minimal setup time.
With Karma’s templates, you can easily create dedicated spaces for FAQs, troubleshooting articles, onboarding materials, and more. These templates are crafted specifically for knowledge management, helping you organize content logically and making it easy for users to navigate.
Why Choose Karma for your Knowledge Base?
Time-Saving Templates: Karma’s knowledge base templates save you the effort of building pages from scratch, providing a ready-made structure that you can easily adapt to your team’s needs.
Effortless Page Building: With Karma’s drag-and-drop builder, creating well-structured, content-rich pages is a breeze. You can design visually engaging layouts that make navigating complex information easier for everyone.
Interactive Content Blocks: Karma allows you to add customizable buttons to enhance navigation and direct users to important resources. These elements make it easy for users to jump to related topics or key sections without getting lost in information overload.
Pre-Built Sections from Templates: Save time by pulling in pre-designed sections directly from Karma’s template library. Whether you need an FAQ format, a step-by-step guide, or a quick links section, these ready-to-go templates keep your knowledge base visually consistent and professional.
The template of the Karme Knowledge Page can be viewed on the documentation.
A well-structured knowledge base in Confluence can transform how your team accesses, shares, and retains valuable information. With Confluence’s built-in tools and customizable templates, setting up a functional knowledge base is straightforward and effective.
With Aura, and Karma, you can build a knowledge base that’s not just functional but truly engaging—making information easy to find, visually appealing, and always up-to-date.
Ready to take your knowledge sharing to the next level? Try Aura and Karma for free, or book a demo to see how these tools can transform your Confluence pages into a dynamic, interactive knowledge hub. Make it easy for your team to find answers, share knowledge, and stay aligned every day!
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