draw.io in Confluence: your integrated diagramming tool

If you are a Confluence or Jira user currently using Visio, draw.io offers a fully integrated solution for you and your teams’ diagramming needs.

Seamlessly embed diagrams in your Confluence pages or Jira issues. This is particularly useful for cross-team collaboration on key documentation such as working on new starter onboarding flows, creating organizational charts, and visualizing any company process you can think of.

Here, we’ll be looking at the strengths of using draw.io within Confluence. For more information, see our side-by-side comparison of draw.io and Visio features, and discover why draw.io should be your go-to diagramming app in Confluence.

Everything everywhere, or everything all in one place?

It’s easy for businesses to end up with multiple drafts and versions saved in different formats all over the place. Streamline your documentation and processes by keeping everything in your one source of truth: Confluence.

By embedding your draw.io diagrams directly into the relevant Confluence pages, along with cross-team collaboration this also means:

• your diagrams and data are all stored in Confluence, not in draw.io servers
• yours, along with any diagrams on company-wide Confluence pages, are searchable using the global Confluence search bar.

Everyone has front row seats, not just a select few

With draw.io in Confluence you are not bound by individual seats, or editing rights for only a select few. Everyone across your company has a seat at the table and gets to collaborate, edit diagrams, and share their ideas. With the revision history you can quickly see who’s worked on what, compare different versions, and even revert changes to a previous draft.

Easily import multipage diagrams

You can easily import diagrams with multiple pages from Visio. Simply export your diagram in .vsdx format, then drag and drop the file onto a blank draw.io canvas. See how this works in practice in this video.

Invest in your teams and save in the long run

When you purchase draw.io from the Atlassian Marketplace, you are investing in your whole company.

In many cases, draw.io works out better when purchasing for all your teams from a cost point of view. Check for yourself: use the Atlassian Marketplace listing calculator, to compare.

Even if draw.io works out slightly more expensive, it has the additional advantages we looked at earlier:

• Confluence and draw.io are made for collaboration by design. Keep Confluence as your single source of truth, and add the power of visualization by embedding diagrams within your Confluence pages.
• Your data is only stored as page attachments within Confluence, nowhere else.
• Everyone has the opportunity to edit, share their ideas, and add value.

Confluence and draw.io are made for collaboration

Above are just some of the reasons to choose draw.io for your teams. For a comprehensive breakdown of all the key features, see A comparison of the two diagramming apps draw.io and Visio.

Hilfswerk Salzburg is a division of Hilfswerk Österreich, one of the largest providers of social services in Austria. To guarantee standardized and always up-to-date documentation of IT services and visual communication with external partners, they use Atlassian Confluence and draw.io.

Revolutionizing project management with Confluence

Hilfswerk Österreich, a non-profit organization, employs over 11,000 people worldwide. Their largest areas of operation are nursing and care for the elderly, childcare and youth work, social work, and counseling and education. Hilfswerk is the market leader in the field of mobile care at home, while Hilfswerk International is active as an aid organization in crisis areas around the world.

With such important work on their shoulders, we were grateful to sit down with Adnan Reh, the head of Hilfswerk Salzburg’s IT department, to talk about Confluence and draw.io.

“We are very happy to be able to use your plug-in in such a cost-efficient way,” Adnan said of draw.io. The IT department is currently running a Confluence Data Center instance, and uses draw.io mainly for IT service management, creating workflow and network diagrams.

Adnan’s plan is to extend Confluence to the entire organization, and revolutionize project management throughout the company using Jira and Confluence. This is a daunting task given the size of the organization – every province in Austria has its own Hilfswerk, and Hilfswerk Salzburg alone has more than 1,400 employees in almost 160 teams. Many of our readers will know what a challenge it can be to roll out Confluence in such a large organization: adopting Confluence for internal documentation, relying less on email, working with skeptical people who haven’t used an internal wiki or intranet before, and so on!

But Adnan and Hilfswerk are up for the challenge. Hilfswerk’s strategy is to provide its employees with the best possible tools for easy digital collaboration across teams. Adnan’s department aims to make the digital workplace as efficient and intuitive as possible in order to ease the burden on employees.

Adopting draw.io across teams

At the same time that Adnan will be rolling out Confluence to the rest of the organization, he also plans to extend draw.io to other departments. So far, because other teams do not yet have Confluence, and thus draw.io, diagrams are only created within the IT department and exported for viewing by other teams, for example in management presentations that show IT roadmaps.

Once Confluence is fully rolled out, Adnan can well imagine collaborating with other teams on draw.io diagrams – from diagrams for the customer portal to org charts for the HR department. The application is so diverse that it won’t be hard to find a helpful place for draw.io in every team.

From Visio to draw.io

Today most departments of Hilfswerk Salzburg use Visio for their diagrams, since the teams are currently using Microsoft office suite. The plan is to migrate the Visio diagrams into draw.io as the organization switches over to Confluence.

Migrating Visio diagrams to draw.io is an intuitive and technically simple process, so the IT department shouldn’t have any problems. But just in case they do need help, our team at draw.io is always ready to offer support!

Exploring draw.io features

As part of our conversation, we asked Adnan if there were any features his team had found missing from draw.io.

“No, nothing is missing,” Adnan said, “maybe some IT icons and the app for Android and iOS.” Luckily, the integration of custom libraries into draw.io is so easy that we were able to quickly show Adnan how to import them himself with just a few clicks. We also explored draw.io’s whiteboard feature, which further enhances the kind of collaborative work done at Hilfswerk.

Finally, we talked about some other apps from Seibert Media that Hilfswerk Salzburg might also be interested in, including social intranet app Linchpin, Aura and Blueprint Creator. And as a true IT guy and Jira user, Adnan was also interested in the documentation for Agile Hive.

“I am grateful for this brilliant software,” Adnan said of draw.io. “Thank you so much for letting us use it!’

Of course, we would like to thank Adnan even more for the interview, and the whole Hilfswerk Salzburg team for the trust they have put in our tool. It’s a pleasure to help an organization that puts helping others as its number one goal.

We wish you good luck in rolling out Confluence and have fun diagramming with draw.io, Adnan!

Do you like 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 and hopefully pick up some tips and tricks.

Creating a flowchart

One of the most useful of all diagrams is the humble flowchart. We’ve all seen them. You’ve most likely used them. A flowchart is one of the easiest and most effective ways to visualize how to get from A to B (and all the steps in between).

Want to see how draw.io can help you with that? Here you go:

Creating a mindmap

The basic concept of mindmaps goes as far back as Porphyry of Tyros (look it up) in the 3rd century A.D. It’s a great way to organize information and visualize connections between words, concepts, and images around a central thought, theme, or topic.

…and like any form of visualization, it’s easier with draw.io:

Cross-functional flowchart tables

Now that you’ve mastered the basic flowchart, it’s time to explore the world of cross-functional tables. In addition to the A-to-B depiction created in a basic flowchart, the cross-functional flowchart takes things one step further. By making use of a table format, it doesn’t just show what happens. You can also see who makes it happen each step of the way.

It works like this:

Connectors

Diagramming isn’t just about shapes and images, though. Connectors are the glue that holds it all together, and there are countless ways to customize your connectors in draw.io and easily put them where you need them to really make those flowcharts flow. So many ways, in fact, that we’ve got an entire playlist of quick, informative videos to walk you through it all.

You’ll find them all here.

Linking

Sometimes the topic of your diagram can be complex. Complex diagrams can become unwieldy and overwhelm viewers with information overload. So, how do you tame those large diagrams and present those masses of information in a way that’s both easy to follow and non-migraine-inducing?

Links.

Clickable links in draw.io can keep the amount of information on the screen at any given time to a minimum. Your diagram can span multiple pages, and with a simple click of the mouse, your viewers can be guided through every twist, turn, and cul de sac of your information highway. They get the big picture without having it blasted into their brains all at once.

Here’s a little playlist to show you how it’s done.

Custom libraries

Custom libraries are a great way to keep the shapes you use on a regular basis all together and easily accessible. Do you often use shapes or images unique to your corporate style or color scheme? Custom libraries can hold those as well. Our final video selection show you how to easily keep everything you need close at hand so you never have to waste time searching or repeatedly importing images for your draw.io diagrams:

Still have questions? Visit our YouTube Channel, or book a free demo to learn more about the limitless ways in which draw.io can make life easier and more productive for you and everyone in (and outside) your company!