What the app does
Confluence is where procedures live, but a page has no notion of being approved, and no way to show that what carries an approval is still what was approved. Document Control adds that layer:
- An approval belongs to a specific version of a page. Edit the page and the approval is withdrawn automatically.
- An approved page can be locked, so only its approvers can change it.
- A workflow is defined once and applied by rule, not copied into each space.
- Approvals expire on a schedule, so periodic review happens without anyone remembering.
- Everything is recorded: who approved what, when, and when it is next due.
The app runs entirely on Atlassian infrastructure. No page content, no personal data and no approval record leaves your instance. See the privacy and security statement.
Setting it up
You need to be a Confluence administrator. Configuration lives in Confluence's global settings, which Confluence restricts to administrators.
- Open the Confluence settings (the gear icon), then find Document Control in the left-hand menu, under the apps section.
- Select New workflow, fill in the options below, and save.
- Under Rules, choose the workflow and what it applies to, then select Add rule.
Nothing is governed until a rule exists. A workflow on its own does nothing: the rule is what connects it to pages.
A page comes under control the first time somebody opens it after a rule covers it. It starts as Draft.
Workflow options
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Workflow name | Shown in the page panel and in the audit view. Name it after the kind of document it governs, not after a team. |
| Approvers | The people who may approve. Anyone else sees the status but has no approve button. |
| Approvals required | How many approvers must sign before the page becomes approved. Each approver counts once; approving again replaces that person's earlier approval rather than adding to the count. |
| Re-review every N days | How long an approval lasts. Leave it blank for an approval that never expires. |
| Lock the page to approvers once approved | Applies a Confluence edit restriction when the page is approved, so only the approvers can change it. Lifted automatically whenever the page leaves the approved state. |
| Send an approved page back to review when it is edited | The behaviour most of this product exists for. Leave it on unless you have a reason not to. |
Rules: deciding where a workflow applies
A rule targets a workflow at pages. There are three kinds:
| Rule | Matches |
|---|---|
| Every space | Every page in the site. |
| One space | Every page in that space, matched on the space key. |
| Pages with a label | Every page carrying that label, wherever it lives. |
When more than one rule matches a page, the most specific one wins: a label rule beats a space rule, and a space rule beats the catch-all. That is what lets one site-wide rule set the default while a label rule carves out the documents that need a stricter workflow.
Changing a rule moves existing pages onto the new workflow the next time they are opened. Their approval state is kept; only the workflow governing them changes.
Using it on a page
Every governed page shows Document control in the line of metadata under the title, with the current status. Selecting it opens the panel.
| Action | Who can use it | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Submit for approval | Anyone who can see the page | Moves the page to In review and puts it in the approvers' queue. |
| Approve | An approver on the governing workflow | Records the approval. Once the quorum is met the page becomes Approved. |
| Send back | An approver | Returns the page to Draft and clears any approvals collected so far. |
| Reopen for review | An approver | Withdraws an approval deliberately, without editing the page. |
The status shown in the metadata line is rendered when the page loads, so after an action it catches up on the next page view. The panel itself updates immediately.
The four states
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Draft | Under control, not submitted. The starting point for every page. |
| In review | Waiting on its approvers. Shows the count when more than one approval is required. |
| Approved | Signed off against the version it was approved at, with the next review date shown. |
| Review overdue | The review period elapsed. The page is no longer approved and needs signing off again. |
What an edit does
When an approved page is edited, the app returns it to In review, clears the approval date and discards the approvals collected, so nobody has to remember to revoke anything. If the page was locked, the lock is lifted so the document can actually be revised.
Confluence delivers page events asynchronously and does not retry them, so an event can be missed. The app therefore also compares the version the page was approved at against its current version whenever the panel is read. An edit that slipped past the event is caught there instead. A page will not keep an approved badge it no longer deserves because a message went astray.
Scheduled re-review
When a page is approved, its next review date is set from the workflow's review period. A daily sweep moves approvals past that date to Review overdue and lifts any lock, so the document can be revised and signed off again.
On a very large site the sweep works to a time budget and continues on the following day rather than running past the platform's limits. Pages are never skipped, only deferred.
The audit view and your queue
Two places show the whole picture:
- Apps → Document Control — open to everyone. Shows what is waiting on you, anything overdue, and every controlled document with its state.
- The Document Control settings page — administrators only. The same audit table, plus the workflows and rules.
The audit table lists each governed page with its space, state, approval date and next review date. It is the view to open when somebody asks what is approved and since when.
What needs a licence
Reading never needs a licence. If the licence lapses, everything already recorded stays visible: page states, the audit table, the queue and the configuration.
Changing state does need one: submitting for approval, approving, sending back, and creating or editing workflows and rules. The panel and the settings page say so and disable the buttons rather than failing when they are pressed.
Troubleshooting
A row says "lock failed"
The approval was recorded but the Confluence edit restriction could not be applied, so the page reads as approved while remaining editable. The app shows this rather than hiding it, because a document control system that quietly fails to control is worse than one that admits it.
The usual cause is that the page already carries restrictions the app cannot change. Check the page's own restrictions, then approve it again.
A page shows no document control
No rule covers it. Add a rule in the settings page, then reload the page.
An approver has no Approve button
Either they are not listed as an approver on the workflow governing that page, or the page is not in review. Check which workflow applies — a label rule may be overriding the space rule you expected.
The status in the metadata line looks stale
It is rendered when the page loads. Reload the page.
Support
Email soporte@vantelia.es. Include your site URL, the page or workflow affected, and roughly when the problem happened — that is usually enough to find it in the app logs.
Support is Monday to Friday, 09:00–18:00 Central European Time, excluding Spanish public holidays.