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Shelfback documentation

Getting started

  1. Install Shelfback from the Atlassian Marketplace.
  2. Confluence admins: open Confluence administration > Apps > Shelfback content review. Choose the archive method (move to an Archive folder in each space, move to one archive space, or Confluence's own archive), whether archived pages get an "Archived" note and a label, the label that exempts pages from archiving (default keep), reminders, and the default review interval.
  3. Make sure the app may edit and archive pages in the spaces you will clean up (Space settings

    Permissions > Apps). If not, runs report "Confluence refused" and you can retry later.

Review dates

  • Open Review in any page byline. You see the page owner (Confluence's own page owner), the review date, when it was last reviewed and by whom, and the history.
  • People who can edit the page set a one-off review date or a repeating review (every 30 days to 2 years). Space admins can apply it to the page and every page under it.
  • The owner, or anyone who can edit the page, clicks Mark reviewed (with an optional note). The next review date is set from the interval.
  • The byline label shows "Reviewed Sep 12", "Review due Oct 3" or "Review overdue".

Reminders

Once a day, Shelfback posts one page comment that @mentions the owner of each page whose review is due within the reminder lead time (default 7 days). Confluence sends its usual notification for the mention. Each due date reminds once. Pages whose owner is deactivated or unknown are flagged in the space's review queue and stale report instead.

Stale pages and archiving

  1. In a space, open Content review in the sidebar, then Stale pages.
  2. Pick a threshold (90 days to 3 years). You see pages not edited since then, oldest first, with owner, owner status, Confluence's view count and review status. Export to CSV.
  3. Select pages and click Archive. The preview shows where pages will go, which selected pages are already under another selected page (they move with it), and what is left out.
  4. Start the run. Follow it on the Runs tab.

The "Archived" note is a page edit, so Confluence shows it as a new version and updates the page's last edited date (and again when it is taken off on restore). Turn the note off in settings or in the archive dialog if you don't want that.

What is never archived: the space home page, pages with the exempt label, and (in move mode) pages under a view-restricted page.

Restoring

  • Move method: open the run on the Runs tab and click Restore this run. Every page goes back under its original parent, right before the sibling it used to sit in front of, with its subpages. The archive label and note come off (the note only if nobody edited it).
  • Confluence archive method: restore pages in the space's archive (Space settings > Archived content). Shelfback notices and moves each one back to its original place. The run's Put back restored pages button does the same for any it missed.

Runs on big sites

Runs work one page at a time with a checkpoint after each. A page someone is editing is retried later (up to 4 times) while the run continues. If Confluence or Forge has an outage, the run resumes by itself within the hour, or click Resume. Retry skipped tries skipped pages again. Export any run's log to CSV.

Permissions

  • Review dates: set by people who can edit the page; marked reviewed by the owner or editors.
  • Stale reports and review queue: anyone who can see the space (only pages they can see).
  • Archive runs: space admins, or (if the Confluence admin allows it) anyone Confluence lets archive each chosen page, up to 200 pages per run.
  • Restores: space admins, Confluence admins and the person who started the run.

Footfall

Shelfback shows Confluence's own view count. For who viewed a page, unique viewers and stale reports by last view, pair it with Footfall, our page view analytics app.