Link & structure pages in Confluence with Aura Cards

We already know Confluence thrives as your team’s internal wiki, requirements documentation tool, and product support documentation tool. The site structure and permissions allow you to give access to all employees, while giving control to the Space administrators who can decide which actions users can take in their Space. The editor in Confluence is sufficient for most teams as it allows you to customize your pages nearly entirely. Sometimes, though, these pages need a little more structure with a better feel. Confluence provides functionality very well, but oftentimes teams are looking for more beauty in their pages. 

Enter Aura

Aura is Confluence customer’s favorite tool for improving the look and feel for pages in Cloud, Server, and Data Center deployments. With Aura, you have access to eight different macros to help improve the aesthetics of their pages. These macros include:

Today we will focus on how the cards macro helps you link and structure your pages better. 

Structuring cards

The biggest benefit to using Aura cards is the defined and repeatable structure they provide. You can select the overall structure of the card (called “Card Type”) with the following options:

  • Text
  • Icon with text
  • Image with text

Aura Cards

You can also decide how these elements align within the card, like you would in a normal text editor. Similar to a Confluence page, you can set how many columns you want within the card. The design and hover effect are also customizable. On top of this, you can also choose the margin between the cards and the padding within the cards. 

Aura Cards

Finally, in the content section, you can select different color schemes from predefined choices which your Confluence administrator can create.

Aura Cards

So while all these features are nice, what do they mean when it comes to structuring Confluence pages? Since the settings (parameters) are all the same on every card you use, you can display these beautiful cards identically throughout pages by simply using the same settings or copying and pasting the card from page to page. With this in mind, if you have a good card created on one page, you can reuse it on other pages. This gives readers a familiar feeling when they navigate from page to page, enriching their Confluence experience.

Linking pages and Aura cards

You can take your cards to another level by using links within the content settings of the cards. 

The first and most popular link type is a Confluence page. Within each Aura card, you can set a link to another page in Confluence. To do this, in the editor mode, navigate to the content section of your Aura card.

Aura Cards

Think about a card based on a product. With this card type, you could then link to more documentation on the product from the card. 

Another use case is a card based on a product design idea, with the image embedded in the card. 

Aura Cards

You could link to a Confluence page detailing the decision and thought that went into that design for users to understand the process behind the design.

On top of links to Confluence pages, you can set links to Confluence blogs, attachments, and Jira tickets. 

Aura Cards

Outside of Atlassian tools, you can link to anything else with an internet address. 

Make the functional beautiful

While you go about editing your Confluence pages today, think about the value that Aura macros and specifically Aura cards could add to your site. With complete customizability from the admin side, you can maintain themes and branding throughout Spaces, pages, and sections. Whether it’s synchronizing the structure of content sections (cards) across your site or linking the sections (cards) to other parts of the site, functional content in Confluence can transform into beautiful functional content with Aura cards. 

If you need any help configuring, purchasing, or vetting Aura cards for your team, please feel free to contact us at Seibert Media.

 


Live demo and free test

Would you like to learn more? See examples or use cases or try out the new status feature directly? Then you can test it yourself  here to your heart's content or book a live demo. Or do you want to get started right away? Our Aura team gives a 90-minute online training course, which is great for getting to know the functional basics and using the product effectively.

Further information

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