Documentation

Getting started

Open a Confluence space and click Quick Q&A in the space sidebar. The screen has two tabs: Questions, with the list of questions of the space, and Import / Export.

A question you ask becomes a Confluence page in the space, and each answer becomes a child page of its question. The pages are created in your name, with your own Confluence permissions, and the usual space permissions and page restrictions decide who can see them.

The list of questions

The Questions tab shows a table with one row per question: Votes, Title, Accepted, Answers, Author and Asked. Click a title to open the question. The address of the page changes, so you can reload it, share the link or use the browser's Back button.

The list loads 20 questions at a time, and Load more adds the next 20. Use Sort by and Order to sort the questions already loaded. By default they are sorted by votes, highest first. Oldest first works differently: it sorts all the questions of the space, not only those loaded, from the oldest to the newest. Your choice is kept when you open a question and come back, and lost when you reload the page.

Above the table, you can filter the list:

• Labels: choose up to 5 labels to show only the questions that have them. With two labels or more, Match lets you choose between All labels and Any label.
• Status: Open, Unanswered, Answered, Accepted or Closed. With Unanswered, an Age column shows for how many days each question has been waiting.
• Clear filters removes the labels, the status and the Oldest first order.

You only see the questions you are allowed to read, and only their labels. Space administrators also have an Oldest unanswered button, which shows the unanswered questions with the oldest first. Anyone can get the same list with Status Unanswered and Sort by Oldest first.

Asking a question

Click Ask a question. Type a title of up to 255 characters. While you type, the app shows up to 5 questions of the space with a similar title, so you can check whether your question was already asked. It searches titles only, and a question asked less than about a minute ago may not appear yet.

Details are optional. Labels are optional too: separate them with commas, up to 5 labels of 50 characters each. Then click Post the question. The question opens, and it can take about a minute to appear in the list.

Questions and answers are plain text. Formatting, images and mentions are not supported: an @name stays plain text and sends no email.

Answering, voting and accepting

On the page of a question, write in Your answer and click Post the answer. Your answer appears at once with a Just posted badge. It can be voted on and accepted once Confluence has indexed it: then click Reload.

Use the up and down arrows to vote on the question or on an answer. Click the same arrow again to remove your vote. Each person has one vote per question and per answer. Every signed-in person who can see the question can vote, even without the right to edit pages. The vote total shown in the list can be a few seconds behind.

The author of the question, or a space administrator, can click Accept this answer under an answer. Only one answer is accepted at a time, and it moves to the top with an Accepted answer badge. The same button, Remove accepted mark, takes the mark away. On an imported question, only space administrators can accept an answer. The other answers are sorted by votes, then from the oldest.

Questions imported as closed or deleted cannot get new answers, votes or accepted answers. The app has no button to close, edit or delete a question or an answer: do it in Confluence, like on any page.

Email to the author

When someone answers a question asked in the app, the app adds a comment at the bottom of the question page that mentions its author, and Confluence sends the email. The author gets at most one email per question every 10 minutes, and five per question per day. Nothing is sent for imported questions, or for your own answer to your own question.

Importing questions

Open the Import / Export tab. Importing needs the right to create pages and to ask questions in the space. Each imported question becomes a page, and its answers become child pages, with the accepted answer, the vote total, the labels and the comments.

From another Q&A app: the tab offers an import button for each Q&A app it can import from. If that app is installed on your site and holds questions, choose the space that holds them and start the import. That app must still be installed during the import.

From a JSON or CSV file: type a source name (for example old-forum), choose a file of up to 20 MB, and click Import the file. You can also paste the content of the file instead. The simplest way to see the expected format is to export a space and open the file. A CSV file needs at least the columns kind, source_id, title and body, separated by commas or semicolons.

The import runs in the background: you can close the screen and come back later. The Last import box shows the progress and, at the end, what was created, what was already there and how many questions had errors. Only one import runs at a time in a space. Running the same import again creates nothing twice: questions already imported are left unchanged.

Not imported: attachments, the names of individual voters (only the vote total is kept), and views. The name of the original author is written in the text of each imported page, and the page shows Imported as its author in the app. Because individual voters are not kept, someone who voted in the other app can vote once more here. A space administrator can hide imported votes from the totals in the settings.

Exporting questions

In the Import / Export tab, click Export JSON or Export CSV to download the questions of the space with their answers, accepted answer, vote totals, labels and imported comments. Tick Use semicolons in the CSV if you open the file in Excel in Europe. Anyone who can open the app can export, and the file only holds the questions you are allowed to read.

The file uses the same format as the import, so it can be imported into another space. Authors are written by display name, never by account identifier. Questions imported less than a minute ago may be missing: export again if so.

Settings for space administrators

Space administrators see an Administrator tools button, which opens the settings:

• Ignore votes imported from other tools: removes imported votes from the totals. No vote is deleted, and unticking shows them again.
• Notify the author of a question when someone answers: turns the email to the author on or off. It is on by default.
• Access: choose separately who can ask questions and who can answer. The options are everyone who can create pages in the space, members of some groups, or space administrators only. Type each group name exactly as Confluence spells it, one per line, up to 20 groups. Space administrators are never blocked. This only limits the app: anyone who can create pages can still create a page by hand in Confluence.
• Recount votes of this question: when the settings are opened from a question, rebuilds its totals and those of its answers from each person's votes.
• Questions to repair: lists the pages whose label could not be added, so they can be fixed.

Good to know

• New questions asked in a team space start with a "View this question in Q&A" link, which opens the question in the app from the Confluence page.
• There is no anonymity. Authors and votes are visible to anyone who can read the page, including through the Confluence API.
• Attachments are not supported, in questions, in answers or in imports.
• Comments written directly on the Confluence page are not shown in the app and are not exported.
• A question whose only answers are restricted pages you cannot see is shown as Unanswered.
• The app has no screen in the Confluence mobile app.