User's Guide

This guide is for Confluence users who want to understand how Content Retention Manager affects their content and how to use the app's end-user features.

Info

The features described in this guide are available to non-admin users in Standard edition only. In Lite edition, the app is only accessible to admins.

Accessing Content Retention Manager

In the Confluence left side navigation, select Apps, then select Content Retention Manager.

Opening Content Retention Manager from the Confluence Apps menu

What You Can Access

What you can do depends on the permissions your Confluence admin has configured:

• Content Byline and Panel: view retention status, applied policy, and classification level on individual pages you have access to, and change the classification level on pages you have edit access to (if the admin has enabled user classification permissions).
• Flags: mark a page or blog post as needing removal, an update, or review, and clear a flag, if your admin has enabled flags for users.
• Content Audit tab: view retention status and act on content you have access to, including classifying, archiving, and deleting.

Admins control which of these capabilities are available to regular users through the User Permissions sections on the Policies and Classification tabs.

Understanding Retention Status on Your Content

Every piece of content in Confluence has a retention status that reflects where it is in its lifecycle. See Retention Statuses and Discoverability for the full definitions.

The statuses most relevant to you as a user are:

• ENDING: Your content is approaching the end of its retention period. Review it and contact your admin if you believe it should be retained longer, or allow it to expire.
• ENDED: Your content has expired. Depending on your organization's automation settings, it may already be deleted or scheduled for purging. Contact your admin if you believe this content should be retained.
• EVERGREEN: An indefinite extension is applied. This content will not expire under any retention policy.

Content Byline and Panel

Confluence pages show a summary from Content Retention Manager directly in the page byline, next to the author, reading time, and reactions: the classification level, applied policy code, and retention status, separated by | (for example, Public | RET7Y-COMM | Retained). Click this summary to open the full panel, showing up to four cards side by side — Retention Status, Policy, Classification, and Flag — described below. When a page is flagged and you can see flags, the summary also ends with a flag symbol and the flag's name.

Retention status, policy, classification, and flag in a page's byline

Retention Status

The Retention Status card shows the page's current status as a badge, with a short description of what it means. See Understanding Retention Status on Your Content above for what each status means for you.

Policy

The Policy card shows the applied policy code, a description of what it requires, and a source line explaining where it comes from (for example, a space rule, a per-content override, or the site default). This card only appears if your admin has enabled policy visibility for users, and is replaced by the Retention Status card alone when an extension (Extended or Evergreen) is active, since the extension supersedes whichever policy would otherwise apply.

Per-Content Classification

The Classification card shows the current classification level, a description, and a source line explaining how it was set (for example, a classification rule, a per-content override, or a user).

Changing the Classification Level

You can change the classification level from this panel on any page you have Edit permission on, provided your admin has enabled user classification permissions:

1. Use the dropdown in the Classification card to select a new level, or search for a level by name.
2. The selected level is saved immediately and overrides any space rule or global default for this page.

If you're not sure which level applies, click Ask Classification Agent below the dropdown to open Rovo chat with the Content Classification Agent for guidance. This button only appears when Rovo is enabled for your site.

The Classification card with the list of classification levels open

Tip

Selecting Use inherited removes your per-content override and restores the effective classification from space rules and the global default. If Use inherited isn't available for your current level, or another level doesn't appear in the dropdown at all, your admin has restricted non-admin users from removing or assigning it.

AI Classification Suggestion

If your organization uses automated classification, the Classification card may show an AI-suggested level. The card shows Set by AI Agent and prompts you to confirm or reject the suggestion.

The Classification card showing an AI-suggested level with Confirm and Reject options

• Confirm: saves the AI-suggested level as your own classification. The Classification Source updates to User.
• Reject: dismisses the prompt and shows the standard dropdown, letting you select a different level.

Flagging Content

Flags are available in Standard edition only. The Flag card appears only when your admin has enabled flags for users.

Use a flag to tell admins that a page or blog post looks stale or needs another look. A flag is a suggestion. It doesn't delete anything or change the retention policy.

To flag a page or blog post you can read:

1. Open the panel from the page byline.
2. In the Flag card, open the list of flags. Each flag shows its color icon, name, and description.
3. Select a flag. It saves right away.
4. To explain your choice, type a reason of up to 255 characters in the box that appears, then click Add reason. Click Skip if you don't want to add one.

Choosing a flag in the Flag card

The card then shows the flag, who flagged the page or blog post, and an expandable Reason. A page or blog post has one flag at a time, so choosing a different flag replaces the current one. To add a reason later, clear the flag and flag again.

Clearing a Flag

To remove a flag, follow these steps:

1. Open the page and click the summary in the page byline to open the panel.
2. In the Flag card, open the list of flags.
3. Select Clear flag, which appears at the top of the list while the content is flagged.

The flag list, with Clear flag at the top

This option appears only when your admin lets users view and clear flags. If the card tells you that you don't have permission to flag this content, you can see flags but can't set them.

A flag also clears by itself after someone edits the page or blog post, because an edit shows that someone still maintains it. This can take up to 24 hours.

Content Audit

The Content Audit tab shows content where you are the creator, contributor, or owner, along with each item's retention status, classification level and source (if your admin has enabled classification visibility), and applied policy and its source (if your admin has enabled policy and policy-source visibility, independently of each other). The Relationships column shows which of these roles you have on that item.

Content you have access to but haven't interacted with won't appear in the Content Audit tab. Only content where you've taken an active role is listed here.

If your admin lets users view flags, the table also has a Flag column, and you can filter by Flag to find content that has been flagged. See Reviewing Flagged Content. Use the filter toolbar and Search to narrow down to specific items, and Export to download the current view as a CSV.

Content Audit tab in Content Retention Manager for Confluence

Additional columns, such as Policy Source and Classification Source, are hidden by default, and some date columns can be switched between absolute and relative formats. Click Columns to choose which ones to display.

Column Settings dialog for the Content Audit tab

Classifying Content

Select one or more items and click Classify to set a classification level in bulk. This requires your admin to have enabled user classification permissions. Like the per-content panel, a bulk classification overrides any classification rule or global default for each selected item. Levels your admin has restricted from non-admin assignment won't appear as options.

Archiving and Deleting Content

Select one or more items to archive or delete them directly from the audit view.

• Archive: moves selected content to an archived state. Requires Confluence Premium or Enterprise.
• Delete: moves selected content to the trash. Content remains recoverable by space and Confluence administrators.

Each button opens a confirmation dialog listing the selected items before it proceeds.

Archive contents confirmation dialog

Delete contents confirmation dialog

Reviewing Flagged Content

Flags are available in Standard edition only. The Flag column and filter appear only when your admin lets users view flags.

The Flag column and filter help you find your own content that someone has marked for attention.

1. In the Content Audit tab, click More filters and select Flag.
2. Open the Flag filter, click Clear selection, then check the flags you want to review, such as Removal. All options start checked, including Not flagged.
3. Hover over the icon in the Flag column to see the flag's name, its reason, who flagged the content, and when.
4. To act on flagged content, select it and use the buttons described in Archiving and Deleting Content.
5. To remove a flag, open the content from the Title column and follow the steps in Clearing a Flag.

Editing a flagged page also clears its flag, which can take up to 24 hours.

About

As a non-admin user, your global page only shows the Content Audit and About tabs. The About tab provides a quick reference for your installed version and links to helpful resources. It displays the app name and version number. Use this version number when contacting support so the team can assist you more effectively.

About tab in Content Retention Manager for Confluence, as seen by a non-admin user

Under Resources, you'll find links to documentation hosted on this site:

• User Guide: This guide.
• How It Works: Overview of how Content Retention Manager works under the hood.
• Quick Start: Step-by-step guide to get up and running quickly.
• Release Notes: Changelog for all past and current releases.
• Glossary: Definitions of key terms used throughout the documentation.

Under Support, you'll find a link to the Opus Guard Support Portal where you can submit tickets or browse existing knowledge base articles.

Under Feedback, you'll find a link to rate Content Retention Manager on the Atlassian Marketplace.