In this page

Get started with Better Content Archiving for Confluence

This page explains the initial steps you have to complete before you actually start using the app. Don't worry, these steps are simple, fast, and you have to complete them only once after the installation.

Step 1: Wait for the first execution of essential background jobs

After installing the Better Content Archiving app, the first step is simple: wait for the initial execution of some essential background jobs to complete. These jobs initialize the page view and update metadata used by the app's features and calculate a content status for every item on your site using a safe, generic default scheme.

Note that page view data from before the app was installed is not available. For more information, see this FAQ.

To check the status of background jobs:

  1. Login to Confluence as administrator.
  2. Click Confluence Settings (cog icon "⚙" in the top right) → Apps → Better Content Archiving → Job audit log.
  3. Check that the Initialize Content Events (ICE) and Refresh Content Statuses (RCS) jobs completed successfully.
  4. Important notes:
    • On smaller sites, these jobs typically complete within a few minutes. On larger sites, they may take significantly longer, even more than 1 hour.
    • After the ICE and RCS jobs have completed, other background jobs will start automatically. This is expected and you can ignore them for now.
    • If a job fails, it will be retried automatically. If a job fails permanently, check the execution logs or contact our support.
  5. If both ICE and RCS have completed successfully, you can proceed to step 2.

✓ Core app features are ready to use.

Step 2: Select the spaces to exclude from content lifecycle management

Next, exclude the spaces the app should not process (which spaces to exclude?):

  1. (You are still logged in to Confluence as administrator.)
  2. Click Confluence Settings (cog icon "⚙" in the top right) → Apps → Better Content Archiving → Exclude spaces.
  3. Select the spaces to exclude.
  4. If needed: deselect personal spaces you want to include (personal spaces are excluded by default).
  5. Click Save and confirm.

The following substeps are only required if you excluded or included spaces. If you did not change anything, you can skip to Step 3.

  1. Click Confluence Settings (cog icon "⚙" in the top right) → Apps → Better Content Archiving → Jobs.
  2. Click the Refresh content statuses button and wait until the job completes.

✓ The excluded spaces are selected. (All other spaces will be processed.)

Step 3: Review the space permissions

Next, grant the required space permissions to the app user:

  1. (You are still logged in to Confluence as administrator.)
  2. Click Confluence Settings (cog icon "⚙" in the top right) → Apps → Better Content Archiving → App space permissions.
  3. If all space permissions are fine, progress to the next step. If any space permission is missing, grant it.

✓ The app can access your spaces.

Step 4: Run the integrity checks

Next, run the app's built-in integrity checks to verify if the app is correctly configured in your site:

  1. (You are still logged in to Confluence as administrator.)
  2. Click Confluence Settings (cog icon "⚙" in the top right) → Apps → Better Content Archiving → Integrity checks.
  3. If all integrity checks are successful, progress to the next step. If an integrity check fails, follow the how-to-fix instructions shown. (If you need help, ask us any time!)

✓ The app is configured correctly in your site.

Done!

Yay, your app is ready for use!

Go to Apps (top menu) → Better Content Archiving to see the Confluence dashboards.

Questions?

Ask us any time.