Why HipChat, Microblogs and Confluence Should Be Used Together

There are many different ways people communicate and develop content in an organisation. More traditional communication channels are meetings, telephone calls, and email.

The development of intranet software, chat tools, and blogs has improved and streamlined communication in a company.

All three tools cut down on the flood of email, allowing better collaboration and quicker resolutions of decisions and questions.

HipChat improves teamwork

HipChat and other chat software is ideal for getting answers to quick questions, screenshot requests, short demonstrations with screen sharing, and for making fast decisions within small teams.

It replaces many telephone calls, some in-person meetings and many email requests.

Video calls and team chat rooms are good for distributed teams, fostering a more natural and inclusive work environment.

HipChat in an agile team.

HipChat in an agile team.

HipChat is ideal for agile and fast-paced teamwork. Plus secure guest access improves customer relations with the company, allowing them to chat with employees who can answer their questions.

Confluence encourages collaboration

As a central place for all types of documentation, Confluence pages remove the problem where different versions of files were continuously bounced between employees by email - hidden from other employees.

Collaborative and transparent development now happens inside Confluence, the version history of the document is preserved, and email overload is reduced.

The following types of information would be stored in Confluence:

  • Confluence users collaborating on a Press Release.

    Confluence users collaborating on a Press Release.

    Detailed planning and project documentation.

  • Procedures from all areas of the business.
  • How-to instructions and check-lists for common tasks.
  • Meeting agendas and press releases.
  • Unchanging records such as meeting minutes, quarterly and annual reports.
  • Archives of presentations, papers published, patent requests.
  • Inventories and equipment lists.

Any document that remains relevant, should be collaboratively written, or needs to be archived is best stored in Confluence, and not lost in email.

Microblogs make an intranet comfortable

Microblogs are an interesting and recent development. The mixture of both formal and social usage makes an intranet feel more natural to all users.

Microblog posts can replace many group emails, especially those which aren't urgent or high priority.

The ability to comment on microblog posts is more transparent than if the same conversation occurred inside HipChat, or by email. This is useful for team decision making.

Microblog post examples

  • Example microblog in Confluence.

    Example microblog in Confluence.

    Daily project updates, with links to tasks in JIRA or documents in Confluence.

  • Non-urgent requests for comments on ideas or decisions.
  • Reminders when you'll be out of office, with instructions on who to contact.
  • Notifications when a feature is ready to be tested, with requests for bug reports.
  • Comments and feedback requests about business-related news, such as competitors products, useful apps or books.
  • Reports of positive feedback or reviews from customers.
  • Non-urgent but time-sensitive notifications, such as "Server maintenance will be finished by 5pm," or "Leave a comment by noon if you want to join us for lunch."
  • Post screenshots, images and videos.

See many more use cases for enterprise microblogs here.

//SEIBERT/MEDIA's Microblogging for Confluence add-on is available from the Atlassian Marketplace. SWIFT, our instant hosting service for Atlassian products, offers a useful option for evaluation of all three tools.

Further information

All //SEIBERT/MEDIA add-ons in the Atlassian Marketplace
New version of Microblogging for Confluence: Editing microposts, better performance and more
HipChat in Large Enterprise: tips and tricks, pitfalls and threats, project elements

 

ATTENTION!
Our blog articles reflect the situation at the time of writing and are not updated. It is therefore possible that the contents are outdated and no longer correspond to the latest developments. We do not accept any liability for this.
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