About Metadata for Confluence Cloud

With the Metadata for Confluence Cloud, you can build a lot of different use cases, including IT Documentation. You can define content categories that allow the creation of pages with pre-defined content and additional Metadata. You can add metadata fields to the content category to make sure to fill in the needed information when creating a page from a predefined template. They help you with having consistently structured information and building reports.

Below, we describe step-by-step how to set it up in Confluence.

IT Documentation with Metadata for Confluence Cloud

Our example describes a simple IT landscape consisting of several servers on which applications run. Find or create a Confluence Space for your IT documentation. For each server and each application, we create a wiki page — these have properties and relationships that are maintained via metadata.

1. Create Content Categories

In Confluence general administration, Content Categories entry: Let's create content categories with metadata fields for each property. The metadata can have different field types: Text gives you the opportunity to let the user fill in the metadata field with a simple text string. Multi select gives the user the option to select several values from several elements coming from a dropdown menu. Single select gives the user the option to select one value from several elements coming from a dropdown menu. With Page link fields you can draw connections, for example, to existing pages. Our latest update allows administrators to mark metadata fields as required, ensuring important information is never missed.

The table below shows you which fields you need and how you could configure them:

Corresponding Content Category	Field name	Field type	Field description	Required field?	Example values

Corresponding Content Category	Field name	Field type	Field description	Example values
Server	IP	Text	IP-Adress	-
	OS	Single select	Operating system running	Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012
	Location	Single select	Location of the System (Datacenter/Room)	Datacenter 1, Datacenter 2, Datacenter 3
	Last Maintanance Date	Date	The most recent date when maintenance was completed.	14.05.2025
	Tags	Multi Select	Categorization labels describing role, priority, or technology.	Production, Database, Critical, VM, Legacy
Application	Server	Page link	Link to Server where the App runs	-
	Status	Single select	Status of the application	OK, Failure
	Maintainer	Single User	The team or user accountable for the application lifecycle.	e.g John Smith
	Dependencies	Multi Select	External services or components required for this application to run.	Database, API Gateway, Redis Cache
	Enviroment	Single Select	The lifecycle stage the app runs in.	Production, Staging, QA, Development

To use our metadata fields, they have to be included in content categories. For this case, we create a content category for each Server and Application.

Now we can add the fields easily. Click on "Add Metadata field" and choose the fields we've listed in the table above:

2. Create Templates for a Server and an Application

Now we need to fill in the templates that were created for our content categories. For that, go to the Global Templates and Blueprints on the left bar of the page and click on "Edit" for Application/Server template.

The screenshots below shows you how the templates for Server and Application could look like:

With the use of the “Display Metadata” macro, we can display all metadata of Server or Application. Interesting here is the macro "Metadata Report" - you can use it to list applications that are hosted on that server. The corresponding filter for that we'll add after creating a server page.

3. Create Main Pages “Servers” and “Applications”

Now we can create main pages for Servers and Applications and add two macros — “Create from template” and “Metadata Report”.

With the Metadata Report macro, you can list all applications (or servers) by selecting the corresponding content category.

“Create from template” allows us to create a button, which will create a new server/application page from our templates Server/Application.

4. Create Pages for your Servers and Applications

Congratulations! We have finished the preparation and now, when creating pages for Application and Server from the main pages, the user is able to fill in the metadata attached to the template.

While creating a page Server, the user is now able to connect to applications that are only hosted on a current server. Click on “Edit” Button of the Metadata Report macro, add the Server filter and choose the one you're creating (you need to publish the page first).

Here's how the Server main page looks after:

With Live Filters, users can interactively filter server lists by Location, OS, or other metadata fields directly in the report view.

Well done!