Inherit Edit Restrictions for Confluence: documentation

Install it from the Atlassian Marketplace: search for "Inherit Edit Restrictions" in your Confluence site's app settings. Free for up to 10 users. Privacy policy · Support

What the app does

Confluence Cloud passes view restrictions down to child pages but not edit restrictions. This app makes edit restrictions stay in place: once a page has a list of editors, pages created, moved, copied or restored under it get the same editors automatically. You can also apply a page's editors to its existing tree, see every change in an audit log, undo changes, and optionally keep trees in sync when a parent's editors change.

Install

1. Install from the Atlassian Marketplace (Confluence admin). Free for up to 10 users; 30 day trial otherwise.
2. Approve the permissions the app asks for. They are read access to pages, spaces and users, write access to content restrictions, and app storage. The app does not read page content and nothing leaves Atlassian.
3. Inheritance is on for every space by default. Change the site defaults under Confluence settings > Apps > Inherit edit restrictions, or per space under Space settings > Integrations > Inherit edit restrictions.

Automatic inheritance

When a page is created, moved, copied or restored under a page that has edit restrictions, the app gives it the same editors within a few minutes (Confluence delivers events to apps with a short delay).

Rules:

• The source is the nearest page above with edit restrictions. Open pages in between do not block it.
• Pages that already have their own editors keep them, and pages below them inherit from them. Space admins can change this to "replace" for moved and copied pages.
• The creator of a new page stays an editor of it (default). Turn "Keep page creators as editors" off for strict trees. Without it, someone outside the editor list who creates a child page is locked out of their own page the moment it is published.
• The app adds its own user to each list it writes. That is how it can keep the page in sync later. Remove the app user from a page to stop automation for that page.

Apply to an existing tree

1. Open the page at the top of the tree. It must have edit restrictions, and you must be able to edit it.
2. Choose Inherit edit restrictions from the page menu (the three dots at the top right).
3. Review the editors that will be inherited and the number of pages below.
4. Preview changes: lists every page with what would happen and why. Nothing is changed.
5. Apply: makes the changes. Large trees run in the background; you can close the dialog and come back, or cancel.
6. Results show Changed, Already in sync, Kept own restrictions, and Failed, each with a reason.

Option "Replace restrictions on pages that have their own edit restrictions": gives every page below exactly the top page's editors, including pages you cannot edit yourself. Space admins only.

Keep trees in sync (auto re-sync)

Off by default. When on for a space, changing the editors of a restricted page updates every page below it that the app set and nobody has changed since. Removing the restriction from the parent opens those pages too. Pages that someone changed by hand are left alone. Every change is logged and can be undone.

Turn it on when a team owns whole trees and expects the parent to be the single place to manage editors. Leave it off if people regularly fine-tune editors on individual pages.

Audit log and undo

Confluence settings > Apps > Inherit edit restrictions shows every change across the site: when, page, result, why, and the editors before and after. Space admins see their space's log in the space settings tab. Undo restores the editors a page had before that change, provided nobody has changed the page since. Entries are kept for 365 days.

When the app cannot see a page

Confluence hides view restricted pages from apps the same way it hides them from people. If a tree is view restricted and the app user is not on the view list of the top page, the app cannot read or update the pages below it. You will see this under "needs attention" in the settings pages.

Fix: open the top page, choose Inherit edit restrictions, and click "Give the app view access to this page". That adds the app user to the page's view list (as you, so you need edit permission on the page). The app never removes anyone from a view list, and never adds a view restriction to a page that has none.

The app user's account id is shown on the admin page if you prefer to add it by hand.

Settings reference

Each space can follow the site default or set its own value.

Limits and known behaviour

• Pages and live docs only in this version. Folders, whiteboards and databases are not changed; pages inside a folder still inherit from the nearest restricted page above the folder.
• Blog posts have no page tree, so the action is not available on them.
• Confluence requires editors to be able to view the page. If an editor in the inherited list cannot view a view restricted child page, Confluence refuses that page and the app reports it as failed with the reason.
• Trees of several thousand pages take a few minutes to apply. The app paces its requests to respect Confluence rate limits and resumes automatically if it is throttled.
• Space admins and Confluence admins can change settings; anyone who can edit a page can run preview and apply from it, the same rule Confluence applies to the lock icon.

Data and privacy

The app stores, inside Atlassian's Forge storage in your region: page ids and titles, space keys, account ids and group ids of editors, timestamps, and settings. It never stores page content and never sends data outside Atlassian. See the privacy policy at https://tidyfieldapps.com/confluence/privacy/.

Support

Email support@tidyfieldapps.com or use https://tidyfieldapps.com/support/. Include your site URL, the page id if relevant, and a screenshot of the audit log row. Responses within one business day, faster for anything that blocks editing.