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Hello Team!
Summary of Project
We are planning to launch Confluence whiteboards to our customers. Currently a closed set of EAP customers (~300 customers) are testing the whiteboards and are getting incremental updates regularly. In one of the upcoming updates, we’ll be integrating whiteboards as a new content type within existing creation and navigation structures, including the page tree. This update would impact API responses for some of our existing APIs, and we’re mindful of the potential effects on your apps. We deeply value our partnership with you and would like to invite you to validate these changes in a staging environment to assess any impact on your apps. Your collaboration and feedback are essential to us as we work together to deliver a seamless experience to our mutual customers.
- Publish: Apr 28 2023
- Discuss: ~Jun 22 2023
- Resolve: ~Jun 29 2023
Problem/Opportunity
Whiteboards are coming to Confluence!
We are excited to announce that we are introducing whiteboards as a new content type in Confluence, alongside pages and blogs. This new addition aims to enhance collaboration and foster better brainstorming sessions within your Confluence spaces. Check out the community announcement here: 
Introducing Confluence whiteboards! 
Currently, whiteboards are available to a closed group of EAP customers (~300 customers) and we are shipping new features and updates to these customers through regular releases. We are hoping to go for wider Beta release in July. It would be an opt-in program, where site-admins can choose to enable whiteboards on their tenants.
Proposed Solution
In this post, we will provide important details about this upcoming change and what you need to know as an ecosystem developer.
What is changing in upcoming release?
In one of the upcoming releases, whiteboards would be added to Confluence’s current navigation structure. Here are the most relevant changes:
-
Whiteboards in the Content Tree (currently known as Page Tree)
- The current Pages section would be renamed to Content
- Whiteboards would co-exist in the page tree with other pages and can be added as either a parent or a child to the tree.
- Whiteboards can be a parent node for both pages and other whiteboards.
- Whiteboards can be added as a child to pages.
-
Content Actions (in the content tree) available for whiteboards
- Several content actions such as Move, Delete, Copy, and Archive would be available in the upcoming and future releases.
- Move and Delete would be available in the next release
- Copy and Archive would be added in future releases.
- Move and Delete would be available in the next release
- Content Actions would work similarly as they currently work for Pages (including both Parent and Child nodes).
- Several content actions such as Move, Delete, Copy, and Archive would be available in the upcoming and future releases.
-
Whiteboard Creation
- Whiteboards can be created similarly to pages’ creation mechanism
- Whiteboards can be created both through the top navigation ‘Create’ button, and
- through the “+” button next to Content in the space sidebar.
-
Whiteboard Permissions
-
The whiteboard permissions model would be similar to the pages model i.e.
- “Anyone can view and edit”
- “Anyone can view, some can edit”
- “Only specific people can view or edit”
-
Whiteboards would also inherit permissions from the parent in the content tree, if applicable.
-
When will this change take place?
As previously mentioned, these updates are being rolled out incrementally to the whiteboard EAP participants. We would like to provide you with more details on the timeline and availability.
-
EAP Release Timeline:
- The above changes will be released to our EAP customers in the upcoming weeks, specifically at the end of May or early June.
-
Whiteboards Beta Release:
- Once the whiteboards Beta becomes available for all customers (exact timeline TBD but tentatively July onwards), Confluence site administrators will have the option to opt-in and enable whiteboards for their users.
- Along with the whiteboards, the associated changes in the navigation structure and content tree will also become available to those who opt-in.
- It’s important to note that customers who choose not to opt-in for the whiteboards Beta will not see the above changes until whiteboards are officially released in General Availability (GA) later this year.
Actions
How it may affect you?
With the upcoming changes, some of our APIs would be updated now and in-future to include whiteboard-related information in the response. Examples of such APIs are:
-
Rest APIs
- Endpoints that return children/descendants and ancestors for a Content that support the following expand parameters will be affected. E.g.
i.ancestors
- will now return whiteboards and pages in the response.
ii.childTypes.all- this will not be impacted immediately but will include whiteboards in the future (when we GA) - Endpoints under Content - children and descendants will not be impacted immediately but we will include whiteboards in the response when we GA.
/wiki/rest/api/content/{id}/child
/wiki/rest/api/content/{pageId}/move/{position}/{targetId}
/wiki/rest/api/content/{id}/child/{type}
/wiki/rest/api/content/{id}/descendant
/wiki/rest/api/content/{id}/descendant/{type}
/wiki/rest/api/content/{id}/pagehierarchy/copy
/wiki/rest/api/content/{id}/copy - Content body expand will be empty for whiteboards
/wiki/rest/api/content/{id}/expand=body.storage
- Endpoints that return children/descendants and ancestors for a Content that support the following expand parameters will be affected. E.g.
-
GraphQL APIs
ConfluencePage.ancestor
Our current focus for EAP/Beta is to ensure that there is continuity with your apps with any introduced changes in the existing APIs. We are building fallback options in case of an adverse impact.
PS: We are currently not planning to support any whiteboards-specific APIs immediately and will include/announce them for GA.
How can you help?
As we prepare to go live with the upcoming changes for our Early Access Program (EAP) customers, we would like to seek your collaboration in validating and mitigating any potential impact that these changes may have on your applications.
- To facilitate this process, we will provide you with all required changes in your Developer Canary Program. This will allow you to thoroughly test your applications and report back any impact or issues that you may encounter.
- The timing for providing access is currently being finalized. We anticipate that it will be available in the second week of May. I would update the post with additional details as we have the staging environment ready for testing.
If your application is impacted by the changes, we are looking forward to working together with you to resolve any issues before releasing the whiteboards Beta to our shared customers.
EDIT
Important Update (reposting @KaiMunechika 's comment):
For those who have the Developer Canary Program App installed and enabled on your tenants, you will begin to see the new whiteboard features and accompanying updates. These include whiteboards in content tree, search features, and more. Please refer to our above post for a detailed overview.
Urgent Next Steps:
We ask that you now test these updates within your apps and notify us of any potential impacts. Over the next two weeks, until June 28, if any issues arise, please comment below and we will provide a temporary fix while together we can work towards updating your app to work with the changes.
We will be launching an whiteboards beta program in July where any customer can opt-in and enable whiteboards on their tenant. Hence your feedback, especially from those directly impacted, is crucial. This will help us identify any impacted apps and develop a suitable contingency plan before customers enable the whiteboard features.
We appreciate your patience and cooperation during this period, and look forward to your valuable input.
Thank you!
Added Context: