Personal Training for your diagrams

We’ve all seen it – a bad diagram. One that is overcomplicated with lots of symbols and text (and, dare I say it, emojis), where it’s not clear which direction the process flows, the start and end are not easy to distinguish, and what the diagram is actually supposed to represent went missing long ago.

Can you spot all the mistakes?

Diagrams are meant to convey complex information quickly, clearly and concisely. They lose their intended message when they are cluttered, have poor layout, are ambiguous and inconsistent, and don’t provide enough context.

Whether you’re creating a simple flowchart, or more complex ERD and UML diagrams, in this blogpost we’ll show you how to make your diagrams, faster, more accurate, and more powerful, while avoiding common mistakes when building them.

1. Know your diagram goal

Before you start building your diagram, it’s important to first determine what the goal of your diagram is. Is it to show a process from beginning to end? Is it to show the relationships between employees in an organization?

Knowing the goal of your diagram allows you to choose the best diagram type for your needs. It also helps you initially refine ideas, so that the scope of your diagram isn’t too broad.

All steps within the process should be sketched out with this initial goal in mind.  You may find at this stage that you have multiple processes that link together. In this case, it is helpful to break these down into processes and subprocesses.

To avoid trying to display all of the processes together and cluttering up your diagram, it is a good idea to separate them out across different pages. draw.io enables you to have multipage diagrams, where you and your team can see each subprocess on an individual page, while the entire process is stored in one central diagram embedded in Confluence.

A multipage diagram

2. Know who your spectators are

Another key question to consider beforehand is: who will be accessing your diagram? Will it be developers, project managers, internal or external stakeholders? Your diagram should be tailored to your audience, and their level of specialist knowledge regarding your diagram content.

For example, it is likely that a UML diagram you create will not be appropriate for project managers or other non-technical departments. In this case, it is helpful to present the information in a different way in a separate diagram, to make this accessible to these groups.

The same diagram with varying levels of detail

3. Only the highlights: choose the right level of detail

Following on from defining your diagram audience, one common problem when creating diagrams is overcomplication, and including too much information in one go.

However, the opposite is also true: oversimplifying your diagram can lead to misunderstandings. For example, in a user flow diagram, what happens when the user doesn’t perform an action? Without a decision split in this case, it’s unclear what happens in both eventualities: when the user does perform the action, and when they do not.

Use decision splits to show paths a user can take, depending on whether or not they perform an action

The key here is to be aware of which information your audience actually needs to know, for the diagram to make logical sense.

In draw.io, you can use layers to manage the level of detail your diagram displays. This makes your diagram interactive, allowing viewers to toggle layers on or off, depending on whether they need to view more or less information.

For guidance on how to add layers and a template for you to download, see Interactive diagrams with custom links and actions.

4. Consistency: The real MVP

Consistency is key with diagrams. Having a uniform color scheme, even and sufficient spacing between shapes, appropriate connectors, and a clear structure, all contribute to your diagram expressing exactly what you want it to.

Knowing which shapes to use and when is also a critical factor in order to represent things like delays in a process and decision splits. These are often signified by the shape type themselves, saving your diagram from becoming inundated with text. For information on which shapes to use for a standard flowchart, see How to create flowcharts in draw.io.

If you want a headstart on a clear and consistent layout, draw.io’s templates will get your diagram up and running in no time. When you create a new diagram, the template library will open by default. Use the search bar on the left to locate a specific diagram type, or use our Smart Templates to add your specifications and produce an AI-generated diagram.

Use the search bar to quickly locate diagram templates

If you are building technical diagrams, UML, ERD, and BPMN for example all have specific notation and shape conventions to follow. Luckily, draw.io has extensive and up-to-date shape libraries that conform to these notation standards, including UML 2.5 and BPMN 2.0.

UML 2.5 and UML shape library

5. Instant diagram replay

Last but not least: it’s vital to keep your diagrams up-to-date! This ensures anyone in your Confluence space accessing the diagram knows that they’re viewing the latest version.

draw.io’s Revision History, and Confluence’s Page History, will do a lot of the work for you. Anyone with the correct permissions can go into a draw.io diagram on a Confluence page, and see when this was last updated. If they go into edit mode in the diagram itself, the revision history will show them when it was last modified.

draw.io Revision History

Confluence Page History

A great idea is to set a reminder in your work calendar to periodically check on those important diagrams that other teams and stakeholders are actively using as a reference or collaborating on. Depending on the diagram, this could be set as a monthly or quarterly reminder.

Game, Set and Match

Employing these tips will ensure your diagrams have a clear purpose, a defined audience in mind, the right level of detail, are consistently formatted, and are up-to-date. This will make your diagrams even more powerful and convey the exact message that you want to get across.

For more industry-specific on how to optimize your diagrams, see:

• I draw.io – Three ways to improve your UML diagrams
• 3 tips to improve patient workflows with draw.io

Want to dive deeper into the world of draw.io? Access our linktr.ee page to follow us on social media and learn how others use draw.io, as well as pick up some helpful tips and tricks.

Get your head in the game

Team Playbooks are a great way to orchestrate workshops, and get colleagues on board and involved in discussions. Their purpose is to provide a framework for teams to work on specific areas, such as holding retrospectives, and dependency mapping.

With Atlassian’s Roles and Responsibilities Playbook, at the click of a button you have a Confluence Template loaded and ready for your team workshop on defining roles and responsibilities.

In this blogpost, we’ll show you how adding draw.io diagrams to your Playbooks will take them to the next level, and provide the platform for an efficient meeting that keeps a full track record of what’s been discussed and decided as a team.

draw.io and Team Playbooks: a perfect match

When you add diagrams to your Playbook Confluence Template, you provide your team with everything they need to participate in a workshop that is visual and productive. Here’s how:

• Everything is stored in your single source of truth: your draw.io diagram, along with the documentation from your roles and responsibilities workshop, is all stored centrally within the Confluence, available for anyone to access and edit at any time.

• Empowering real-time collaboration: you and your team are able to work on the diagram simultaneously. This is particularly useful for Playbook workshops with remote and hybrid teams working across the globe.

• Revision history keeps a record of all changes: consult the revision history in your draw.io diagram to see all previous versions of that diagram. Here you are able to see what’s changed and when, for example, if you want to locate information that went missing during the collaboration process. Plus, the good news is that if you revert the diagram to a previous version in draw.io, the Confluence Template and page history it is stored within will remain unaffected.

How to add a RACI Chart to your Template

The example below shows a RACI Chart that has been created at the top of the Roles and Responsibilities Confluence Template. This RACI Chart was the outcome of a roles and responsibilities workshop, and all the information that was used to inform the Chart is available below in the Confluence page.

To add a RACI Chart to the Roles and Responsibilities Template:

1. In your Confluence space, click on Templates, locate the Roles and Responsibilities Play, and then click Use template.

2. The Confluence Template looks like this:

3. Gather your team and follow the Instructions for running this Play.

4. When you want to add a draw.io whiteboard to the page, in the Confluence edit mode, start typing “/draw.io” and select draw.io Board.

5. To create a table, head to the plus (+) icon in the left sidebar, hover over Table, and choose the number of columns and rows you wish to have.

6. Invite your team to collaborate on the diagram, in real time or asynchronously.

Teammates collaborating on the RACI Chart in real time

7. The example below shows the finalized RACI Chart, built from the outcome of the team workshop.

The completed RACI Chart, embedded in the Confluence page

Recording the highlights

The Roles and Responsibilities Confluence page now serves as a full record for your team: capturing the workshop discussion, and the resulting RACI Chart that will be used to further define the individual roles within the team.

Tip: If you want to save this diagram as a template to use time and time again in future meetings, see our related blogpost, Add draw.io diagrams into Confluence page templates.

By seamlessly integrating draw.io diagrams into your Confluence Playbook Templates, you empower real-time collaboration and ensure that all team members are on the same page at every step of the way. With draw.io’s revision history, you can track changes and refer back to previous versions as and when needed. What’s more, everything is securely collaborated on and stored in your single source of truth: Confluence.

So, what are you waiting for? Take your Playbook Templates to the next level with draw.io diagrams!

Kick off your draw.io journey

Want to dive deeper into the world of draw.io? Access our linktr.ee page to follow us on social media and learn how others use draw.io, as well as pick up some helpful tips and tricks.

Adapting to your teams’ needs

If you’re planning on migrating from Server to Cloud or Data Center, this is the time to consider your options and reevaluate the current tools you are using. Maybe you are paying a lot for an app that isn’t delivering enough value for you and your teams, or you have a legacy app lying around that is no longer used, and no one’s quite sure what it does… The key is you want apps in your toolset that are intuitive and adapt to the needs of your team, so that you’re not faced with having to create more and more workarounds to achieve exactly what you want.

In this final blogpost of our migration campaign, we look at the process of migrating from Gliffy to draw.io. We look at how easy it is to make the switch, and provide information on determining which app is right for you, specifically regarding how the two apps compare.

Migrating from Gliffy to draw.io is simple

Let’s face it, it’s often a pain to migrate from one system to another, whether that’s from Server to Cloud, or from one diagramming tool to a new one.

We understand this at draw.io, and with this in mind we’ve designed our Gliffy mass import tool to be as straightforward as possible. Our troubleshooting guide will see you right, plus, we’re always on hand to support if you have questions or run into any stumbling blocks.

If you have decided to migrate to draw.io from Gliffy, our mass migrator tool will convert all your diagrams in a few simple steps.

Pre-migration

Some key things to check, before you begin:

• Have the latest version of draw.io and Gliffy installed.
• Ensure the Administrator performing the migration has the necessary write permissions across all spaces beforehand.
• Perform the mass import in a test instance first!

During migration

Once you’re ready to migrate, it’s best to perform the actual migration outside of your company’s working hours, to keep diagram and Confluence page edits to a minimum during the process.

Post-migration

Once you have migrated, all of your data is preserved in Confluence. A new page version is created, with Gliffy macros replaced by draw.io macros containing the converted diagram. The original files are still attached to the Confluence page and remain unchanged, meaning even after migrating and converting your diagrams, the page revision history where the diagram is embedded is still preserved.

For a full step-by-step guide to follow as you’re migrating your diagrams, see our related post, Mass import from Gliffy to draw.io.

Which app is right for you?

When switching diagramming apps, you want to make sure that your decision to switch to draw.io is the right one.

We are known and trusted in the Atlassian Ecosystem as the number #1 diagramming app for Confluence and Jira. We are the top-reviewed Confluence app in the whole Marketplace, and in the current year 2024, we have over 68K installs of draw.io for Confluence Cloud (in contrast, Gliffy has less than a third of this, with just over 22K). We also offer a competitive price-performance ratio.

We are constantly innovating and updating:

• In addition to our diagram editor, customers can use our whiteboarding macro at no extra cost. This gives you the choice to diagram using the classic editor, or the whiteboard editor for a more streamlined interface. This is ideal for processes like brainstorming ideas, as well as Agile frameworks like check-ins, and Inspect and Adapt.
• Last year also saw the advent of:
  • Smart Templates, empowering users to generate custom diagramming templates using AI and machine learning. Specify your parameters and build custom diagrams in seconds: flowcharts, ERDs, Sequence Diagrams, and more.
  • Dark mode, enabling users to diagram the way that they want – to reduce strain on the eyes, save some battery, or simply for the aesthetics.

For an extensive comparison of draw.io and Gliffy that covers features and usability, see our guide here: Diagramming in Confluence – A comparison of the two leading diagramming apps draw.io and Gliffy.

As a consequence of this innovation, we have seen sustained growth. Recently Contegix assessed which apps have grown the most over the past month in order to, “…shine a light on products that more and more customers are finding value in while also acknowledging the outstanding vendors fueling this vibrant marketplace.”

The numbers speak for themselves:

Source: Contegix, Fastest Growing Paid Atlassian Marketplace Apps – February 2024.

What our users have to say

Last but certainly not least, we look at what our users say who made the switch from Gliffy to draw.io:

“We used Gilffy for 10+ years and as of January 2021 we decided move to draw.io. We migrate all our 6000+ Gliffy diagrams in our Confluence workspaces to draw.io and we are ready to go – very fast, smooth and transparent migration path. There is a number of reasons for this decision and we are happy that we are making this move. Its not just much more friendly pricing for large teams but also excellent support, rich features, stability and good performance with large diagrams what we are going to benefit from in the years to come.”

– Peter Kobes

“We were missing some important features when using Gliffy. To create diagrams that included our corporate identity font, we had to use Visio. Using two applications at the same time was too cumbersome and too expensive. So we looked for a solution where we could store our font, our icons and our company colors. To be considered, a replacement application had to perform more efficiently.”

– Nina Breu, Senior Software Engineer

Weighing up the pros and cons

Ultimately, the apps you decide on need to work for you. When switching diagramming apps, it’s important to weigh up the factors for and against each tool, to make an informed decision on which app is going to benefit your teams the most in the long term.

draw.io stands out because:

• We hold the top position in the Atlassian marketplace, earning the trust of numerous users.
• We consistently innovate, e.g. introducing features like whiteboarding and Smart Templates.
• We offer the highest diagramming security and customer support.
• Users who have made the switch know and love draw.io, and have never looked back.

Once you’re ready to make the switch, our mass importer will quickly get all of your Gliffy diagrams converted to draw.io.

If you’re thinking of making a switch and want to compare, start your free 30-day trial today, and discover how draw.io’s enables teams to visualize the way they want.

Want to dive deeper into the world of draw.io? Access our linktr.ee page to follow us on social media and learn how others use draw.io, as well as pick up some helpful tips and tricks.

The Number #1 rated app

draw.io has a number of impressive feats, including:

• 99% of the Fortune 500 use our app;
• We have more installs and more users than any other Atlassian app;
• We are the #1 rated diagramming app on the Atlassian Marketplace for Confluence and Jira.

The underlying reason for this is that people know and trust our app: they know that their data is in safe hands, and expect a versatile tool that delivers, as well as high-quality support with their diagramming and visualization needs.

If you’re thinking about switching tools and are looking for a solution that can do it all, then read on! Below, we take a look at why so many users choose draw.io in Confluence and Jira over other diagramming tools that are not in the Atlassian ecosystem:

Visualize in your single source of truth

The primary reason that many companies use Confluence and Jira is not just because they are powerful knowledge and project management tools, but because they abide by high security standards. For organizations looking to ensure their data remains secure, and to maintain audit trails for compliance purposes, Confluence and Jira offer the perfect solution.

When using the draw.io app, your diagram data is stored as attachments within Confluence/Jira. This keeps all your diagrams secure, embedded within your single source of truth. It also saves you time and money in the long run by eliminating the pain point of having multiple apps to fulfill a purpose.

If you want to visualize within your Confluence/Jira space, and keep these visualizations within the Confluence documentation or Jira issue that they belong to, you can. Your colleagues will thank you too, as it cuts out the frustration of having to locate diagrams stored elsewhere on other platforms or webpages.

Choose to create a new diagram from scratch, or embed existing diagrams that you have created in other Confluence pages.

Choose to create a new diagram, or embed an existing one

If you embed an existing diagram in multiple Confluence pages and want to make changes, you will be taken to the original version of the diagram, and any changes will automatically apply to all the other embedded versions.

Clicking on the Go to containing page icon will open the Confluence page containing the original diagram in a new window

Secure diagramming

A big concern for users is ensuring their diagramming data is safe. For small and large enterprises alike, company data is precious. The risk of data mismanagement and security breaches increases the more tools you use. Therefore, the reassurance that their number one visualization tool is keeping their diagrams and whiteboards safe is why so many users choose draw.io.

We conform to the highest enterprise-grade security and privacy standards, so users can rest assured that their data is in safe hands. When you work on a draw.io diagram in Confluence/Jira, Data Center or Cloud, you have full control over your data, as this is stored as page attachments within the Confluence page or Jira issue that the diagram or whiteboard is embedded in.

Revision history

This is also a powerful feature for your audits. In addition to Confluence’s in-built page history, there is versioning in the draw.io app itself, enabling you to see exactly who made changes and when. You are then able to revert diagrams if someone has made unwanted changes to a diagram, without affecting the Confluence page the diagram is embedded in.

Revision history in draw.io

Access control

Another problem users face is controlling who they share diagrams with. Often, the platform they are using provides an “all-or-nothing” solution: either everyone has access, or no one does.

People want full control over their diagrams and the information that accompanies them. Especially on things like Confluence pages for example, which contain sensitive information that not everyone in the company requires access to.

Fortunately, with your draw.io diagrams stored on specific Confluence pages, you are able to control on a granular level who has access to which information. Choose who has editing access, or who only has viewing access, to the relevant Confluence pages and embedded diagrams – this can be done on an individual or team-wide level.

Control who has view/edit access to a specific Confluence page

Diagramming or whiteboarding? Why not both?

With draw.io, you don’t have to choose between diagramming or whiteboarding capabilities. When you use draw.io in Confluence/Jira, you have diagramming AND whiteboarding, all in one app. You have access to all the same features in both.

This suits teams across the board, from engineering and software development, right through to marketing and HR. Each individual in every team can use the editor that best suits them: the original diagram editor or our whiteboard editor, depending on their visualization needs and which interface they prefer.

The “classic” draw.io diagram editor

The whiteboard editor

Search for text within diagrams

Easily find your diagrams using Atlassian’s in-built Confluence Search function. Text you add to your diagrams is indexed and searchable, so you can use the Confluence search bar to locate diagrams using specific search terms.

Tip: use the advanced search and filter by Type > draw.io Diagrams to bring up diagram-related searches only.

Search for text in your diagrams using the Confluence search bar

Cloud-specific advantages

Data residency:

Atlassian has implemented data residency options for Confluence and Jira Cloud. This means that all of the primary data stored in your Confluence and/or Jira instance will reside on servers in your chosen region.

For more information, see our blogpost, Introducing Data Governance in our Standard draw.io plan for Confluence Cloud.

Lockdown data:

If you want to prevent all data traffic apart from that between your browser and your Atlassian Cloud server, you can use the Lockdown function in the draw.io configuration to do so.

Invite guests to Confluence:

Working with users outside of your organization? You can invite up to 5 guests per paying user to collaborate in Confluence.

For more information, see Invite guests to use draw.io with you in Confluence Cloud.

Collaborative editing:

Collaborate on diagrams with your colleagues synchronously. Any changes made by multiple teammates are saved automatically. “@-mention” your teammates on Confluence pages containing your diagrams, to add a comment and notify them.

Notify your teammates in Confluence pages using “@-mention”

Data Center-specific advantages

Everything behind your firewall:

If you opt for Data Center, your data is stored in a self-managed environment, behind your firewall. This gives you full control over everything like security controls, update releases, and infrastructure choices.

Control over updates:

You have control over what happens when, as you are responsible for manually installing any maintenance and version upgrades.

The one tool for every team

draw.io’s standing in the Atlassian Marketplace is very much built on the trust of its users. If you are looking for a solution for your company that:

• stores your diagrams and whiteboards within your single source of truth (Confluence or Jira), without needing to leave the platform you’re working in to access these;
• is a versatile tool that allows you to diagram, whiteboard, and visualize the way that you want;
• offers tight security, protecting your diagramming data while allowing you to collaborate with specific members in and outside of your organization;

then draw.io is the solution for you and your team!

Want to try draw.io for free?

Making peace with Atlassian Server end of support

To commemorate Atlassian Server coming to an end, and all the years it has been a steadfast companion for many Confluence and Jira users, we decided to build a Zen garden, in its memory. Support for Server products will end on February 15, 2024 – find out what this means for you.

Server has been instrumental for all sorts of companies from non-profits to global tech giants for decades, offering them an on-premise, secure solution to document and share knowledge, boost productivity, and perform at scale. It’s transformed how we build, deploy, and manage applications today. For Atlassian specifically, it’s laid the foundations to develop their Cloud-first strategy as well as its Data Center provision.

Getting started

With end of support taking place this week, it felt like an appropriate time to celebrate the importance of Server with a memorial. The Zen garden is situated in our office here in Wiesbaden, Germany. It will serve not only as a long-lasting dedication to Server, but also as a space for people to pause and reflect, and be an area that everyone can enjoy for their own reasons.

Rather fortuitously, the Zen garden build coincided with a visit from a couple of our colleagues from the US and Canada, who were also willing to get their hands dirty and lend a helping hand!

We learned a lot along the way of building the garden. Below, we take a look at the hard work that went into the planning and building, and what our key takeaways were from the experience.

The steps involved

Our first step was to work with our Space Creator Team to find the right space for the Zen garden. The result was a corner of the roof terrace, approximately 10 square feet in size, that would fit the bill.

Finding a place for the Zen garden

The next step was deciding on the right plants and decoration for the garden. Of course color, maintenance, and how much the plants will grow were all factors considered – but most importantly – which will thrive in the variable and inclement German weather conditions! We also decided on a lantern ornament in keeping with the overall theme, and to tie the garden together.

The space we used had very specific dimensions in a right-angled alcove, so to visualize our Zen garden we turned to the one tool that could serve our purposes – our very own draw.io!

Planning the Zen garden layout and features in draw.io

With the location decided and a blueprint of the garden, we turned to our trusty Subject Matter Expert, Basti who, it turns out, is also a subject expert on Zen gardens! He took a trip to the DIY store to purchase the supplies we would need.

Our more practical team members then got building the Zen garden foundations.

A Ryoba saw seemed very fitting for the occasion!

Once the foundations were down and the gravel and soil added, it was time to roll up our sleeves and get potting!

As members of the team potted the plants, it was interesting to see who in the team seemed to be more experienced with gardening – some would carefully break up the roots and embed the plant deep into the soil; others just popped the plant straight into the ground!

Putting our new-found friend, “Drake”, to good use

The final touches

With the Zen garden complete, it was time to take stock and see how our hard work had paid off.

Our Social Media Coordinator, Charis, took the final video footage of the finished Zen garden, which felt uncannily like some kind of technological baptism for the garden.

The completed Zen garden

A time to pause and reflect

We learned a number of things along the way: the value of hard work, and the pride we can all feel in the finished piece from the fruits of our labor. That teamwork makes things go much more smoothly, and lastly, that the Zen garden is an ongoing process that will require regular upkeep to remain pristine and decluttered.

There are certainly parallels to be drawn between building a Zen garden and ensuring a smooth migration: taking stock of the current landscape; identifying which apps are still useful and which need a good pruning; and performing a pre-migration data cleanup to ensure you’re not carrying any excess baggage with you. All of this leaves your new Confluence/Jira instance decluttered and ready-to-go, and regular maintenance will ensure it stays that way.

Some personal takeaways:

• It’s better to plan where any small potted plants will go, before actually planting them.
• Fargesia is very heavy.
• Lastly: It’s rather cold in Germany – perhaps it’s better to build a Zen garden in summer!

Looking ahead to the future

Four years ago, Atlassian announced the discontinuation of Server products. For companies big and small, we know people have done amazing things with Server-based tools, and Atlassian’s products have laid the foundation for much of the SaaS products we use today.

Atlassian’s pledges for Server, i.e. a secure solution to document and share knowledge, boost productivity, and perform at scale, still persist today for Atlassian Cloud and Data Center. These pledges are also very much at the heart of draw.io: we offer live, real-time collaboration on diagrams (in Cloud) to help teams work together effectively. Our enterprise-grade security and privacy standards mean your diagrams are always secure – we don’t see or track your use of draw.io.

As we say farewell to Server, we look forward to seeing how lives will be improved with the new era of Cloud and Data Center.

If you are migrating from Server and wish to find out more about your options, please see our related blogpost: What does the future of draw.io look like after Server EOL?

Grow with draw.io

Want to dive deeper into the world of draw.io? Access our linktr.ee page to follow us on social media and learn how others use draw.io, as well as pick up some helpful tips and tricks.

Unpacking the right information

There’s a lot to think about when it comes to migrating deployments, but fortunately, the process is generally straightforward. The key is to be well-prepared and know what to expect.

In this blogpost, we’ll be looking at the different options for changing deployments: from on-premise (Server or Data Center) to Cloud, or from one Cloud instance to another.

The good news is, whichever deployments you are migrating from and to, you won’t need to worry about the draw.io diagrams you have previously created. These are stored as attachments in your Confluence or Jira instance, and so when migrating they will be unaffected. There are a couple of things to be aware of that will make migrating much smoother, so be sure to check out the respective Confluence and Jira sections below!

What’s more, our migration steps do not involve migrating any data. Your draw.io data stays entirely in your browser; it is stored securely and exclusively in your Confluence or Jira instance, and only in Atlassian products and services.

Migrating from on-premise to Cloud

Server

We are part of the Atlassian Dual Licensing program. This program has been extended to also include Server, provided that users purchase a subscription before February 15, 2024. This program entitles users to receive ongoing Server support until February 15 2025, provided that they purchase a draw.io for Confluence Cloud subscription. More details can be found here.

Please note: we are going to provide draw.io support for all Confluence Server versions 8.5 and above only.

So we recommend that you update to Confluence Server 8.5 and above and the corresponding draw.io version, which is 12.2.1.

Recommended: Perform a test migration

When migrating from on-premise to Cloud, your existing diagrams will be deleted and replaced with a Cloud-compatible format.

This is a one-way operation – the changes cannot be undone. It is therefore strongly recommended that you perform the operation in a test environment first, to identify any issues that may come up before you migrate your diagrams. Fortunately, Confluence Server and Data Center both allow you to set up a sandbox environment that mirrors your live deployment, at no extra cost.

Confluence

Confluence stores your draw.io diagrams as page attachments. When migrating Confluence, the page attachments transfer across, and so your diagrams therefore automatically migrate as well.

Migrating from on-premise to Cloud

Migrating from on-premise to Cloud is a great way to keep all your information in Confluence centralized and instantly accessible to the right people who need to view or edit.

When migrating from Confluence on-premise, you can use our updated macro within our migration path to ensure your diagrams are embedded and linked properly.

Below is an overview of the key migration steps from Server/Data Center to Cloud:

Detailed information on how to do this can be found here, Migrating with draw.io from Confluence Data Center/Server 8.0 to Confluence Cloud.

Migrating from one Cloud instance to another

Important: Export your PageIDs

When migrating from one Cloud instance to another Cloud instance, a key step you’ll need to take is to export your PageIDs, before migrating. This is to ensure that Confluence has correctly indexed all page attachments in the source instance, and so that your diagrams will work smoothly post-migration.

Below is a step-by-step overview on what is required at each stage:

For more detailed information and step-by-step instructions, see Migrate draw.io from one Confluence Cloud instance to another.

Jira

Migrating from on-premise to Cloud

Normally migrating between Jira instances happens automatically, the only exception is when migrating from Jira Server or Jira Data Center to Jira Cloud.

Like in Confluence, draw.io diagrams are stored as attachments, but in this case to Jira issues. In Jira Server and Data Center, draw.io diagrams are zipped into a package that contains all previous versions and revisions of the diagram.

To migrate from on-premise to Jira Cloud, your diagrams must be processed into the non-binary, single revision format used by draw.io in Jira Cloud.

Detailed information on Jira migration can be found here, Migrate draw.io from Jira Server or DC to Jira Cloud.

Embark on your migration journey with confidence

To sum up, armed with the right knowledge, migrating becomes a straightforward process. Moreover, our migration steps prioritize the security of your data: your draw.io data stays safely within your browser, stored in your Confluence or Jira instance within the Atlassian ecosystem.

With draw.io, you can embark on your deployment migration journey with confidence, knowing that your diagrams and data are in safe hands. If you need any support during your migration journey, be sure to get in touch.

Want to dive deeper into the world of draw.io? Access our linktr.ee page to follow us on social media and learn how others use draw.io, as well as pick up some helpful tips and tricks.

Out with the old, in with the new

With Server EOL around the corner, if you’re planning on migrating to Cloud or Data Center, now is the perfect time to pause and take stock of your current Atlassian setup. Is it set up the way that you want, and is it still meeting your team’s needs?

In this blogpost, we’ll be looking at the question of whether or not to migrate in the first place, followed by an overview of each stage of the migration process, to guide you on how to be fully prepared before taking the leap.

Whether you are making the big move from Server to Cloud/Data Center, or switching to draw.io from another diagramming app, remember: we’re here to help. If you need support or have questions about the migration process – before you begin, when you’re in the thick of it, or post-migration – just get in touch.

The big question

The big question to address when planning to migrate is: is it worth changing a system that is already up and running?

Sometimes the answer is clear e.g. if you’re using Confluence Server, you’ll need to migrate pretty quickly before EOL on February 15th 2024. But sometimes it’s less clear-cut, for example considering moving from one diagramming software tool to another.

Often, it feels easier to stick with what you know and avoid changing an established system. However, in the long term this can result in unnecessarily high costs. Even worse, it can result in productivity and efficiency costs too, preventing you and your teams from using alternative, better tools that serve your needs. Therefore, we would argue in many cases, it is worth changing the status quo, and evaluating your apps to ensure you’re getting the most out of them.

Your migration path might be simple or complex, but the key to a successful migration is the same: it lies in careful planning and being informed.

Let’s look at how to plan out a successful migration and the steps involved:

1. Compare

What are you migrating from, and what are you moving to? At this stage, you’ll want to weigh up the pros and cons involved in moving. For instance:

• Moving from on-premise to Cloud:
  • Advantage(s): you will benefit from all the latest updates and new feature releases in real time.
  • Disadvantage(s): as your data will move from behind the firewall to the Cloud, you may lose some control over how your data is hosted. Fortunately in the case of draw.io, your will data remains secure – all your primary data is stored in the Confluence/Jira instance of your chosen region.

For more information, see Introducing Data Governance in our Standard draw.io plan for Confluence Cloud.

• Moving from Gliffy to draw.io:
  • Advantage(s): update shape links when migrating from one Confluence deployment to another, create diagrams with AI, and more!
  • Disadvantage(s): none*

*In all seriousness, you can view a full Gliffy Comparison breakdown here.

2. Plan

The next stage is to map out your migration plan, and have this visible somewhere centrally for stakeholders, e.g. as a Jira roadmap.

You’ll want to determine:

• What steps are required to complete the process effectively?
• Who will be responsible for which phases, and how you will communicate with each other during the process?
• What are your estimated timeframes for each stage? This should be relatively flexible, allowing extra time for if any part of the process ends up taking longer than estimated.

You’ll also want to find out what support is available for your migration:

• Atlassian has the Atlassian Migration Program (AMP) which provides step-by-step guides, free migration tools, a dedicated migration support team, and a free Cloud migration trial for the length of your remaining server maintenance up to 12 months.
• draw.io offers migration support, along with clear documentation and guidance, depending on whether you’re migrating between deployments, or from a competitor to draw.io. For more information, see our Whitepaper, The Great Migration.

Atlassian also provides some handy checklists with everything you need to know before migrating. This includes recommendations like which Assistant version is best to use when upgrading, ensuring that your number of Confluence/Jira users doesn’t exceed your limit (if you do want to increase this number, you need to do this before migrating), and making sure the people responsible for migration have the right access permissions in your instance. You can view the checklists here:

1. Confluence pre-migration checklist
2. Jira Cloud Migration Assistant pre-migration checklist

3. Prepare and test

It’s a good idea at this stage to set up a sandbox environment to test how things will function post-migration. To this end, Atlassian offers a free Cloud migration trial, allowing you to explore the latest cloud-only features in a testing environment.

Once you’ve ensured the people, data, and instances are all ready to migrate, your data is backed up where possible, and any issues during testing have been fixed, it’s onto the migration phase.

4. Migrate

If you’ve completed the previous steps thoroughly and there are no blockers, then, there’s nothing stopping you – it’s time to migrate!

5. Monitor

After the migration process, it’s time to check that everything is working as expected. With draw.io, you shouldn’t have any issues… if you followed our guidance in Step 3… you did follow our guidance in Step 3 – didn’t you?

Issues unfortunately can and do crop up, sometimes straight after migrating, or over time. Monitoring systems post-migration, and letting other colleagues and teams know where to go to get support if they spot anything amiss, will help nip any problems in the bud.

A final key point is to keep good documentation throughout the migration process in order to develop any key learnings. For example, what went well during the migration, and what could be improved next time? Did any stages take more or less time than was allocated, and if so, why?

Onto the next stage

Once you have decided to take the plunge and migrate: to Data Center/Cloud, or from another diagramming app to draw.io, it’s time to get cracking!

If at any stage you get stuck or have questions about migrating draw.io, contact us at any time.

Here’s to a happy migration!

Want to dive deeper into the world of draw.io? Access our linktr.ee page to follow us on social media and learn how others use draw.io, as well as pick up some helpful tips and tricks.

Your one-stop shop for templates

You should already be familiar with building custom diagram templates in draw.io, but what about incorporating diagram templates within a Confluence page template or blueprint (very meta), to use time and time again?

This is particularly useful for things like holding brainstorming or retrospective meetings with your teams. Often, as time goes by, you develop a routine for these meetings, optimizing the process and storing the knowledge and resources gained to apply to future meetings. Confluence and draw.io are the perfect combo for you to record what’s going well in your brainstorming and retrospective formats, to access in future meetings at the click of a button.

Here’s how it’s done:

Note: You must have already created and saved your draw.io diagram templates and stored them in a Confluence page, before creating a Confluence page template. To find out how to do this, see Leverage your draw.io user experience with custom templates.

1. To start building your Confluence page template, head to the Settings icon at the top-right of the page, click Global Templates and Blueprints, then Add Global Template.

2. Add any relevant text to your Confluence page template. You might want to add a meeting agenda for example, or include some explanatory notes on how the retro process works.

3. Add your existing draw.io diagram template by typing /draw and select either draw.io Board or draw.io Diagram.

4. Use the search bar to locate the draw.io template you wish to use, then click Create.

5. Once you’ve added the diagram, it will be stored in the Confluence page template. When you are finished, click Save to save your changes.*

*In the template view, you will not see a preview of your diagram. However, when you create a new Confluence page and load the template you have created, the diagram will display as expected.

6. Once saved, your template will display in the list of Global Templates and Blueprints. It’s helpful at this stage to add a description about the template for others who may want to use it in future.

When you’re ready to use your template

When you’re ready to use your template:

1. Create a new Confluence page in your team space.

2. Locate the template page you wish to use. If it’s a template you have created, click on My Templates to bring up a list of the ones you own. If it’s been created by someone else, browse through the list, or use the search bar to locate a specific template.

Hover over a template, to preview its contents.

3. Once you click on the template you wish to use, the Confluence page template containing your diagram will be loaded and ready to use:

Tabula rasa

After you have filled in the diagram for your retro and published the page, the changes you’ve made to the diagram and the Confluence page are preserved only on that specific page. When you create a new page and load the same template again, a new version of the Confluence page and diagram are created. So, no need to worry about overwriting your previous retro meeting notes, or the original Confluence template itself!

Want to dive deeper into the world of draw.io? Access our linktr.ee page to follow us on social media and learn how others use draw.io, as well as pick up some helpful tips and tricks.

The gold standard

The world of medical device compliance is a tricky one to navigate. At the top level, you have regulations from the FDA in the US, and the MDR/IVDR in Europe. Broken down, you’re then looking at sector-specific requirements like 21 CFR Part 820 in the US, and ISO 13485 + ISO 14972 internationally. Although not always a requirement, ISO 13485 certification is the gold standard, and having this certification allows companies building medical devices to operate in markets across the globe.

The good news is that there are tools out there that can help you along the way. In this blogpost, we’re diving into the world of MedTech, and how to make achieving certification like ISO 13485 and 14972 a much easier, faster, and overall better experience for teams in the industries of digital health and software as a medical device.

We’ll be looking at SoftComply, a QMS platform that seeks to automate regulatory compliance for medical device start-ups by integrating it into Atlassian Confluence and Jira.

We’ll also see how draw.io in Confluence and Jira allows you to create, edit, and customize the process flowcharts and visualizations you need, directly in your QMS space.

If you’re already using Atlassian tools like Confluence and Jira, SoftComply and draw.io are native Marketplace apps that operate seamlessly within your instance, enabling you to be more efficient and focus on the important stuff. They keep all your QMS documentation, templates, and graphic visualizations accessible and secure, as all your data stays directly in your Confluence or Jira instance.

Use SoftComply for all your QMS needs

SoftComply provides several tools for Confluence and Jira to simplify and automate compliance:

1. The SoftComply Document Manager is the only Document Management app on Atlassian Confluence Cloud with all the necessary modules. With the Document Manager app you can approve, sign, process, track and manage your electronic documents. The Document Manager has easy-to-use FDA 21 CFR 11-compliant e-signatures for document approvals.
2. The SoftComply eQMS has a Quality Manual, a Quality Policy, 25 SOPs and 77 document templates pre-filled to fast-track the development and implementation of your QMS. The SoftComply eQMS is compliant with both the FDA and the MDR regulations.

These tools cover the minimum needs of any company operating in the MedTech sector: a Quality System content and an Electronic Document Management system with electronic signatures.

Your QMS is your single source of truth

ISO 13485 itself is a process-based standard:

Source: ISO 13485:2016(en) Medical devices — Quality management systems — Requirements for regulatory purposes

And when you talk about processes, inputs, outputs and interactions, a graphical visualization is the best way to describe them.

Fortunately, you never have to leave your QMS to create the visualizations that you need: draw.io has you covered. Quickly and intuitively build and store your process flows, diagrams, and any other visualizations you can think of, directly within your single source of truth: Confluence or Jira.

The biggest advantages of creating and storing your diagrams in Confluence and/or Jira are convenience and compliance. Instead of resorting to an external app for your QMS needs, SoftComply keeps everything within your Atlassian tools. This same advantage applies to your draw.io diagrams stored within Confluence/Jira.

Having all your quality documents and diagrams stored within your QMS isn’t just a “nice-to-have” – it’s a must-have from a security, provisioning, and collaborative point of view.

Let’s take a look at some of the specific features below:

Diagramming in Confluence

Control your data and access permissions

You are in control of your data and privacy. The diagrams you create in your browser are saved in Confluence and/or Jira only – not on draw.io servers.

Customize your access levels, depending on your needs. SoftComply provides you with advanced document access control, and whichever documents you provide full, partial, or restricted access to, your draw.io embedded diagrams will follow the exact same settings.

Keep a clear path on your audit trails with revision history

draw.io assists you with your auditing and compliance requirements with its in-editor revision history. This lets you quickly see who edited what and when, and revert your diagram to a previous version if required.

Every change (or reversion) in Confluence and draw.io is captured, effectively providing a timestamp of each version of the page and the embedded diagram. It also ensures that revision history in both Confluence and draw.io are always telling the same story.

Real-time editing in Confluence

draw.io supports real-time collaboration and editing. In the same way that you can collaborate in real-time in Confluence pages, you are able to join your team members in the diagram editor and work together on a particular diagram.

A CAPA SOP. Diagram created in draw.io
Source: SoftComply eQMS

Diagramming in Jira

If you are using both Jira and Confluence, we recommend you try the draw.io app for Confluence, to take advantage of features like revision history, collaborative editing, and our whiteboard editor, which Jira doesn’t support.

If you are using Jira only, you can add and embed diagrams directly in Jira issues. This is ideal for cases where you want to store your visualized processes somewhere central. For example, you might want to store a risk management process (like the one below) in a Jira epic, for anyone working on that project to refer to, to ensure all steps in the process have been adhered to.

Cybersecurity Risk Management Process. Diagram created in draw.io
Source: AAMI TIR57: 2016 Principles for medical device security—Risk management

Export your diagrams as PDF files

By default, your diagrams exist as living files in your Confluence space. When you have finalized editing a diagram and wish to export this as an offline version, you can quickly convert your diagram to a PDF.

Export your draw.io diagram as a pdf

The best of both worlds

With the SoftComply Document Manager and eQMS, you will have all the required documents and templates to facilitate your QMS implementation, as well as the option to create your own custom forms, all within Atlassian Confluence Cloud.

For visualizations, draw.io is the perfect companion for managing diagrams in Confluence when compliance is required. No external storage and the ability to export to PDF and static versions of the diagrams are crucial to avoiding security and regulatory accidents.

In short, SoftComply and draw.io are two powerful and intuitive tools that will set you on track to achieve your compliance goals.

To find out more, you can get started with a free trial, or book a demo:

Optimizing your patient workflows

If you’ve been working with the same patient workflows for a while, consider: when was the last time you reflected on them? Are they still meeting your teams’ needs, as well as those of your patients?

As a healthcare provider, it’s important to re-evaluate your patient workflows regularly, and to question why the current processes are the way they are. This allows you to pinpoint what is going well, and what can be improved.

In this blogpost, we’ll provide you with some key tips on how to optimize your patient workflows in draw.io. Plus, we will help you ask the right questions to re-evaluate your current processes. This in turn will reduce inefficiencies and thus save you time and money. It will also improve the patient experience, and ensure your processes are the best they can be.

1. Identify pain points and inefficiencies in your workflows

Creating your patient workflows in draw.io allows you and your teams to view entire processes at a glance, but also to zoom in on specific steps in your patient workflows that you want to discuss.

You can collaborate as a team on your current flowcharts to:

• identify pain points and inefficiencies in those flows, such as missing or redundant steps;
• quickly edit your flows accordingly.

In order to identify these pain points, it is a good team exercise to view your current processes through a number of key questions.

Overview of the entire patient appointment scheduling flowchart.

Zooming in on a particular section of the flowchart.

2. Ask the right questions

Asking the right questions to scrutinize your current processes is a great way to test if they are robust enough, and continue to meet the needs of your teams and your patients.

Questions to raise while discussing your workflows and processes include:

1. What is the desired goal of the patient workflow?

The goal is the crux of your workflow, and all steps within the process must be written with this goal in mind. The goal should be in line with the overarching mission of your healthcare organization.

For example, your goal could be, “implement an easy-to-use, intuitive scheduling system for patients to book their appointments.”

2. Who is responsible for this process?

Once you’ve identified your goal, it is important to determine who within your team owns a particular workflow. This person will be responsible for overseeing the process, and regularly re-evaluating to see if it still meets your requirements. If it doesn’t, it’s time for the process owner to organize a team meeting to discuss the process and ways to further optimize it.

Often, this meeting doesn’t require the whole team’s involvement, but primarily the stakeholders, i.e. anyone actively applying specific steps of the process.

In our example, the scheduling system is regularly used by reception staff and the shift manager.

3. Is the current patient workflow comprehensible to everyone involved?

It’s easy to assume that everyone is on board and understands a given process, particularly if you’re responsible for that process. However, it might be the case that colleagues are following workflows that they don’t fully understand.

Flowcharts by design are meant to be intuitive and break down complex information in an accessible way. So if it doesn’t make sense to all stakeholders, this needs to be addressed before the current process is optimized.

Before editing a workflow, an initial check-in goes a long way. Ensuring that everyone collaborating on the workflow understands the process as it stands, and has the opportunity to raise any questions they have, will save a lot of misunderstandings and frustrations later down the line.

4. Does each step in the current process contribute towards this goal?

Once everyone is on board and understands the process, it’s time to evaluate the steps of the process themselves. Deciding on which steps to keep and which to drop can be a challenge in itself; it can therefore be helpful to apply lean principles at this stage.

If a specific step in the process is called into question, the first thing to address is: is it a necessary step? If it’s not, it’s probably time to discard it. If once you’ve updated the process, you find that the step you took out was in fact useful, this can always be added back in. Later on, we’ll see how draw.io’s revision history allows you to easily revert changes that have been made to a flowchart.

5. How regularly should a patient workflow be revisited?

The process owner normally decides this. Ultimately, it depends on the workflow and the steps involved. Some processes are unlikely to change regularly, whereas others might need frequently updating in light of new information.

3. Top draw.io features to use when building your patient workflows

The questions above will enable you to optimize your workflows through a critical lens.

The next step is to build out your workflows and give the right access levels to teammates, so you can jointly work on and edit these together. Below are some features that will give you the flexibility and security you need to truly collaborate on and optimize your patient workflows:

Editable diagrams

Using draw.io in Confluence allows you to create and embed flowcharts, diagrams, and other visualizations your teams require, that can be edited again and again as required.

Embed an existing draw.io diagram in a Confluence page.

The final, embedded diagram.

Revision history

See who edited what and when. If any changes were made to a process that weren’t agreed on within the meeting, you can revert the diagram back to a previous version.

Secure diagramming

Your draw.io diagrams are securely stored within Confluence, and are shared only with the internal collaborators and external guests that you choose.

Real-time or asynchronous collaboration

The teammates you share your diagrams with can collaborate on them quickly and easily. This might be in real time as a group, when brainstorming ideas to go into steps in a workflow for example, or asynchronously, e.g. when someone leaves a comment on a diagram for another collaborator to address when they are back online.

Real-time collaboration on a draw.io diagram.

Simply the best

Whether you’re optimizing existing patient flows or looking to implement new processes, we hope this blogpost will help guide your team discussions in a meaningful way.

By identifying pain points and asking the right questions, the result will be robust, working flowcharts and visualizations that have been informed by input from multiple colleagues. All of this serves to develop processes that are up-to-date, continue to meet the goals set, and ensure that they are the best they can be.

Want to dive deeper into the world of draw.io? Access our linktr.ee page to follow us on social media and learn how others use draw.io, as well as pick up some helpful tips and tricks.