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Upcoming umWiki Changes

The existing umWiki (Confluence) system will be shutting down December 15th, 2023.
The driving factor in this decision is a change by the vendor related to the available licensing options which significantly increase the cost associated with the Confluence product. The Confluence service will be replaced with BookStack. BookStack is an open-source wiki alternative to Confluence. 
 

Confluence vs. BookStack

The primary difference between Confluence and BookStack is how information is organized. Confluence organizes content in Spaces. Each Space contains pages and subpages. Confluence supports infinite nesting of pages. Permissions are managed at the Space level and can be granted by group/role and/or specific users. Pages within a Space can have additional restrictions. BookStack’s structure is simpler. There are Shelves, Books, Chapters, and Pages. A Book can have infinite Pages. Those Pages can optionally be grouped by Chapters but there is no nesting of Pages. A Book can be on multiple Shelves (or none). Permissions can be set at each level (Shelves > Books > Chapters > Pages). However, permissions are role-based only.
 

Migration

We have developed a process to migrate existing umWiki/Confluence Spaces to BookStack.
This process works by exporting the Confluence Space then using the BookStack API to import the data. When Confluence exports a Space to HTML, it ‘flattens’ the nested pages to be at a single level. It then creates an index page that visually represents the original nesting in a bulleted list format.


The import process creates a BookStack Book for each imported Confluence Space. The Book is named to match the original Confluence Space name. The first Page in the Book is called ‘Page Directory’. This is the page generated by the Confluence export process that represents the original bullet list hierarchy. The links on this page are updated to point to their location within the new BookStack Book. 
Each Page created in BookStack will include any relevant attachments – both embedded images and downloads. This includes any Gliffy Diagrams created in Confluence. Links to pages within the same Space are updated to link to the relevant new BookStack Page. Links to other Confluence spaces will still be present as there is no way to correct these as they might or might not be in BookStack. 
Although this is not a perfect process, it does provide a viable option for bringing over existing umWiki data to the new system. 
If you would like to migrate your umWiki/Confluence Space, you can request here. Once migrated, the original umWiki/Confluence Space will be updated with a header that includes a link to the new BookStack location. The Space will also be updated to be read-only in umWiki/Confluence.
 

Timeline

  • BookStack Availability: Now
  • umWiki/Confluence Availability: Until 12/15/2023
  • Voluntary Migration to BookStack: 6/2023 - 10/1/2023
  • umWiki/Confluence System-wide read-only: 10/1/2023 - 12/15/2023
  • Starting 10/1/2023, any umWiki/Confluence Spaces that have not been migrated to BookStack will be exported from Confluence and archived. They will be available for future migration if requested.
     

More Information

UofM BookStack environment
User Documentation
For Gliffy Diagram Users: umWiki is the university document share and collaboration tool powered by the Atlassian Confluence (JIRA).

This tool is available for active faculty, staff, and students use. umWiki can be used to create documents and web pages and share them with others for viewing and/or editing. umWiki Documentation

Current umWiki — Until 12/15/2023

Where Do I Begin?

umWiki can be accessed from any web browser or mobile device by using your university UUID and password.

Dashboard, Basic Content Creation

The dashboard is the main page for umWiki. This brief video goes over its main items and shows how to create basic content.

Permissions Searching and Viewing Content

You can give permissions on almost anything created within the Wiki. Knowing how is where to start.

Additional Information