Feature differences between Scaffolding Data Center and Scaffolding Cloud

Versioning/License

Version support

Migration of Scaffolding data is supported for Scaffolding 8.25.0 and later.

Migrate to the Scaffolding cloud using the steps at Migration Path.

License

Available through Atlassian Marketplace

Available through Atlassian Marketplace. Monthly subscriptions are the default option, however, discounted annual subscriptions are available upon request to our Atlassian Sales team.

Access/Security

Authentication type

Authentication is based on your current setup.

Confluence Cloud protects your data with encryption in transit and at rest and provides administrative controls to enforce organization-wide protection such as SAML SSO, enforced 2FA, and SCIM. 

Confluence Differences

Structure editing

• inserting input field macros

Input field macros are called directly on a page. Some macros interact with each other and have to be nested inside other macros.

Open

Input fields are drag-and-dropped after adding a Field Group macro on a page. You build the structure of the page inside this macro by choosing the input fields from the left-hand panel and drag-and-dropping them into the editing area.

Open

Content editing

• filling up the forms

Clicking Edit Content opens a separate Scaffolding content editor.

Clicking Edit Content changes the Page View to become an editable area. 

Scaffolding settings

Scaffolding includes an administrator setting, which allows Confluence administrators to set the default setting for the Edit Contents mode.

For details, see Accessing Scaffolding's Administrator Settings

All limit settings are preconfigured. No further configuration is needed in the cloud.

Previous Scaffolding XML versions

Scaffolding allows users with the proper permissions to view Scaffolding data history on a page that contains Scaffolding metadata.

All changes to pages with Scaffolding macros are recorded in the Page History, including Scaffolding structure changes and data changes. Users are able to restore page data to an earlier version through the Confluence Page History.

Integration with other macros

Since Field macros are called directly on a page as macros, this means that users can add any other Confluence macros inside this page along Scaffolding macros.

Confluence server supports nested macros as well which means Scaffolding macros can easily be nested and integrated with other Confluence macros.

Scaffolding supports integration with most reporting macros/apps, including

• page property report macros (Atlassian Confluence macros)

• Reporting app (Appfire app)

Field Group macro is a standalone macro that reveals a separate editor where you can build your page structure. While this editor supports most Confluence page functions, it does not support other complex macros and third-party macros

Confluence Cloud currently does not support nested macros (See CONFCLOUD-68323), which means integration with other apps via nesting is limited.

Currently, Scaffolding Cloud does not support integration with reporting apps such as page property report macro. 

Macro Differences Overview

Data Center Macros 

Cloud Macros

We have simplified our cloud Scaffolding application to focus on some key macros. This means that data migrated will be handled totally differently in Cloud.

Review and understand the following: 

• look out for icons highlighting how the data will be migrated

  •  – Unavailable

  •  – Partially available

• for macros that are migrated but are unsupported, the following applies

  • Overall unsupported Macro

    • You might see a blank space where the macros were originally positioned in the documents

  • Unsupported Macro parameters

    • migration will contain the data

    • your parameter values are available in the Content Properties

    • the function of those parameters is not available

    • the macros will behave differently in View & Edit content mode 

      • for example, if you have a page with Number Data with decimal and minValue set, that data in cloud

        • will lose its decimal value on View content mode

        • upon Edit content mode, no minValue is set

• Attachment Data  

• Attachment Options (partially available migration)

• Content Options

• Date Data

• Eval Data  (unavailable migration)

• Excerpt Data  (unavailable migration)

• Get Data  (unavailable migration)

• Group Data

• Hidden Data  (unavailable migration)

• Label Options 

• List Data

• List Option

• Live Template

• Number Data

• Repeating Data   (partially available migration, introduced in versions 8.30.0 and 9.1.0)

• Set Data  (unavailable migration)

• Table Data

• Text Data

• User Options

• Field Group

  • Short Text

  • Paragraph

  • Number

  • Date Field

  • Attachment Upload

  • Dropdown List

  • Page List

  • User List

  • Files List

  • Labels List 

  • Table Field

• Live Template

Macro Differences Breakdown

Data Center Macro

Cloud Macro

(or closest equivalent)  

Data Center

Cloud

Attachment Data

Allows users to specify an attachment to upload or select a previously uploaded attachment.

Attachment Upload

• accepts required, include and exclude as filter criteria for the attachments

• the Required, Include, and Exclude parameters are supported and work similarly to the Server version

Attachment Options

Creates a list of options linked to the attachments on the specified content. Must be contained inside a List Data macro.

Files List 

• accepts  content, include and exclude as filter criteria for the attachments

• supports the Page parameter: the location of the page with the attachment(s)

Content Options

Generates a set of options linking to Confluence content (e.g. pages, blog posts, etc).

May be filtered in several ways. Must be contained inside a  List Data macro.

Dropdown List

• accepts space, parent ancestor, labels, etc as filter criteria for the content to be displayed as option

• accepts space as filter criteria for the content to be displayed as option.

Date Data

Allows editing of dates with a date picker pop-up menu, or via keying in directly into the fixed format field.

Date Field

• accepts minDate, maxDate & Display format as Date field criteria.

• accepts no parameter

Group Data

Allows data to be grouped within a named data set.

Field Group

• acts as a bucket of Field macros to be easily referred to later. The name field is required.

• acts as the main macro to do Structure editing. Field group name is required.

Repeating Data

Label Options

Creates a list of labels to attach to the current page.

Must be contained inside a List Data macro.

Labels List

• the name field is required

• must be contained inside a List Data macro

• accepted parameter: Labels

You can add labels which are currently being used in the Confluence instance by selecting them from the dropdown list.

You can also add new labels to the list by typing or pasting them in.

List Data

Allows selection of one or more options from a specific list.

Must contain option-generating sub-macros, for example  List Option, Content Options,  User Options,  Attachment Options or  Label Options.

Available as a combination of 

• Dropdown List

• Page List

• User List

• Files List

• Labels List 

• define output to be a dropdown list. Requires other Field macros to work

• dropdown settings are defined here, such as Required, Allow multiple, Separator, etc.

• list data that contains multiple types of options
  

• all dropdown macros are called individually depending on their function

• allow Multiple and Required setting is set in each individual macros

• in cloud, the type of options is its own separate macros and therefore cannot be combined. 

• if this scenario happens, only the topmost option will be migrated. In this example, only User Options will be migrated to cloud.

List Option

Generates a single, simple, list option.

Must be contained inside a  List Data  macro.

Dropdown List

• accepts text value in the dropdown options, can be modified to output other rich text formats such as Status or Emojis

• have sorting mechanism

• accepts custom texts (that may contain emoji) or Statuses as value and output of the dropdown list.

Live Template 

Live Templates use either Confluence Global templates, Space templates or even other regular Confluence pages as templates.

Live Template

• accepts Page, Space or Global Templates, and Scaffolding Blueprint as templates

• location of pages are assigned manually with the following format (SPACEKEY:Page_Title)

• accepts Page, Space, or Global Templates, and any Confluence Blueprint as templates

• location of Page/Template/Blueprint is chosen from a dropdown field. Space name and Page name field are separated

Find Limitations at Limitation for Live Template in Confluence Cloud

Number Data

Allows editing of numbers in either a text box or a list item.

Number

• accepts decimal, minValue, maxValue, format display, etc as filter criteria for the number value

• does not have further criteria for the number value

Repeating Data

Allows the dynamic addition and deletion of repeating sections.

Table field

• accepts Initial Rows and Order as parameters for the repeating data

• does not take any further parameters

• A Repeating Data macro cannot be nested inside another macro. A Repeating Data macro must be at the root level of the page structure.

• A Repeating Data macro cannot contain a nested:

  • Repeating Data macro

  • Table Data macro

  • Live Template macro

  • Non-migratable Scaffolding macro - an Eval Data, Excerpt Data, Get Data, Hidden Data, or Set Data macro.

  • Non-Scaffolding third-party macro.

  • Confluence macros, including a Confluence table

• A Repeating Data macro can contain only migratable Scaffolding macros - Attachment Data, Attachment Options, Content Options, Date Data, Group Data, Label Options, List Data, List Option, Number Data, Text Data, and User Options.

Table Data

Allows dynamic addition or deletion of rows in a table.

Table field

• accepts Initial Rows and Order as parameters for the table data

• does not take any further parameters

• nesting table data does not work in Cloud

  • in server the following table appears as a nested table 
    

  • Confluence Cloud does not support nested macro related functions.

  • If this scenario happens, the data inside the table will not be migrated. I.e Agenda, Notes, Status, and Actions column will not be migrated.

Text Data

Allows editing of free text data. 

Short Text, Paragraph

• accepts area, line, or password as Type, and richtext, text, etc as the content type

• accepts language, minLength, maxLength, etc as parameters for the Text data

• text data: accepts Placeholder to help users input their data

• paragraph: does not take any further parameter

• migrating text data with type area will be migrated as paragraph while type line and password will be migrated as text data

• text data with type Password will be migrated as Short Text macro and will not have masked view on page view

• rich Text content is only partially supported

  • Find limitations at Limitations of Rich Text content of Text Data Macro (Server) migration to Paragraph Macro (Cloud)

User Options

Creates a set of list options linking to users matching the filter options. Must be contained inside a List Data macro.

User List

• accepts groups, spaces, users etc , to scope the list of users as options

• accepts user groups to scope the list of users as options