Setting up a Confluence Server Sync

Guru's in-app Confluence sync works with Confluence Cloud. It can work with Confluence Server but it's not as "out of the box" and there are a few things you'll need to do:

1. Figure out if you have Confluence Cloud or Server.

2. Provision a user account that'll be used for the sync. Confluence Server's API uses actual usernames and passwords instead of API tokens. It's a best practice to make a service user account for the sync.

3. Set up the Knowledge Sync in Guru similar to how you'd set up a Confluence Cloud sync.

4. Make sure Guru's server can talk to Confluence Server. The Confluence server must be on a publicly accessible internet address. Your IT department may need to be involved to configure this properly.

5. Let us know how it went!

1. Figure out if you have Confluence Cloud or Server

In Confluence, go to Help → About Confluence:

That shows what it looks like for Confluence Cloud.

If you have Confluence Server, it won't say "Cloud" and it'll have a different version number, like this:

2. Provision a user account that'll be used for the sync

Confluence Cloud uses API tokens for authentication. Confluence Server uses your actual username and password to authenticate API calls. It's not ideal to tie the sync to an actual person's account, so often a "service user" account is created. This is just another Confluence account that is only used for the sync.

Make sure the service user account has permission in Confluence to access the space you want to sync.

Note: If you use an SSO provider to access Confluence rather than entering a username+password to sign in, the service user account will need to be set up in such a way that it has a password.

3. Set up the Knowledge Sync in Guru

In Guru go to Team Settings > Apps and Integrations > Knowledge Syncs > Confluence Cloud. You'll need to be an admin in Guru to configure this.

The UI says "Cloud" but this can be used with Confluence Server too. There are some differences noted below the screenshot.

• Confluence Subdomain for a Server sync is the full domain, like confluence.workblanket.com

• Confluence Space Key is the same as it normally is, typically something like HR or ENG.

• The field labelled API Token is actually the password for the service user account.

• The field labelled User Email is the username of the service user account, which probably isn't an email address and that's fine.

4. Make sure Guru's server can talk to Confluence Server

If you have to be on a VPN to access Confluence, there's a good chance your IT team will need to make an exception so Guru can access Confluence's API from the internet. There are some low-tech ways to test this:

1. If you are normally connected to a VPN, disconnect and try to access Confluence.

2. If you're on an office wi-fi network, try accessing Confluence from a different network (e.g. from your phone).

Try both. If you're unable to access Confluence in one of those scenarios, there's a good chance we'll experience the same issue when making API calls to Confluence.

5. Let us know how it went

Let someone from Guru know once you've gone through these steps.

If you cannot access your Confluence site from the internet, you'll need to engage your IT team for that and there's some information we'll need to provide.

If VPN access does not appear to be an issue we'll test the API access on our side. This might uncover an additional hurdle or it might work! If it works, we'll enable the sync and it'll start running. If there's another hurdle then we'll go on this adventure together and might require a meeting with additional folks (IT, Confluence Admins, etc.).