Collaborative editing service - FAQ's

Question: How can I enable collaborative editing?

Answer: Please refer to this source: How to enable Collaborative Editing

Question: What is einstein.excellentable.net? 

Answer: https://einstein.excellentable.net is an Addteq service that provides Collaborative editing features within Excellentable.

Question: Excellentable cannot contact https://einstein.excellentable.net. 

Answer: Excellentable needs outbound connections to https://einstein.excellentable.net from the confluence server to enable collaborative editing. Please refer to this article: Troubleshooting Collaborative Editing. Check with to your network team if you are not able to connect.

Question: How is the collaborative editing enabled by https://einstein.excellentable.net ?

Answer: Collaborative editing uses our cloud service to provide functionality. Confluence Server connects to einstein.excellentable.net and establishes a secure connection. On a successful connection, it notifies the confluence server to enable collaborative editing by providing a security token.

Question: What data is sent to the Einstein service?

Answer: The following data is sent to when connecting to the external service for the first time

CONFLUENCE_ID: A key representing a Confluence uniquely 

Einstein service will register the instance and respond with the following

• A Unique URL with CONTEXT PATH where all the future content will be stored for the Confluence instance
• An API key and PUBLIC_KEY for authentication and authorization
• A STATUS with 1/0; 1 -> enabled, 0 -> Disabled

The following data is sent when connecting to Einstein service on every subsequent excellentable edit.

1. Excellentable_Id: E.g. exc-13132565-5b89-482e-83d8-71eca3f7d26b
2. UserKey: User editing the Excellentable i.e. the currently logged in user
3. content: Excellentable content in JSON
4. CONFLEUNCE_ID:  A key representing a Confluence uniquely

Question: What happens to the data? 

Answer: The data is purged every 60 days, or whenever the collaborative editing is disabled by the Confluence Administrator.

Question: Collaboration editing is enabled but it is not working. How do I troubleshoot this? I am having difficulty enabling collaborative editing how do i enable it?

Answer: Please refer to this article: Troubleshooting Collaborative Editing 

Question: What happens to the data if I disable collaborative editing?

Answer: Once collaborative editing is turned off, all sessions and data are purged from Firebase.

Question: Can I manually purge the data? 

Answer: Yes you can by disabling collaborative editing. Then the data is purged from the Firebase. Even if you do not purge the data manually, this data is purged every 60 days (or whenever you turn off the collaborative editing). 

Question: We cannot connect to external services due to compliance/legal issues. Can we enable collaborative editing behind the firewall?

Answer: We are building collaborative editing behind your firewall without the need to connect to the Einstien server. It should ideally be available in Q4 2020.

Question: Collaborative editing for Confluence Cloud?

Answer: We are building collaborative editing for the Confluence cloud as well. It should ideally be available in Q4 2020.

Question: Is the third party server used for collaborative editing a FEDRAMP server? 

Answer: Yes. We use AWS Lambda, AWS API Gateway, and AWS DynamoDB. https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/services-in-scope/. 

Question: How does AWS Lambda, AWS API Gateway, and AWS DynamoDB play a role in supporting the Excellentable Plugin?  Wouldn’t you use the Confluence database to store, import, and export data?

Answer: The confluence database is used for storing all Excellentable content. We use AWS to implement the Collaborative Editing feature. 

Question: Does your environment hold an ATO/ISO Certification? 

Answer: Yes since the collaborative editing service is on AWS. Refer to this link regarding AWS ISO certification and the AWS services that are covered under the certifications: https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/iso-certified/  

Question: When collaborative editing is enabled, the data is transmitted securely to Einstein. What level of encryption does this process hold? 

Answer: The data is compressed and is transmitted through secure HTTPS websocket connection.

Question: What are your procedures for Federal Client with a Record Retention Policy?

Answer: For Collaborative Editing hosted by we have a three-month record retention. However, we are also developing Collaborative Editing On-Prem, so you will be able to handle the data using their own retention policies. 

Question: Which firewall ports need to be open to enable an outbound connection from our confluence server to einstein.excellentable.net for collaborative editing?

Answer:  Since einstein.excllentable has https, please open just port number 443.  If it has http, then you will have to open port number 80. 

Question: When will collaborative editing be available for Confluence Cloud? 

Answer: This feature will be avialable when we release version 1.6.0. We are on target to release this version on October 23 2020. 

Question: I am using Excellentable Cloud (version 1.5.0 or below). How do I ensure that only one person can edit at a time so that content is not overwritten by others' entries? 

Answer:  Until we release version 1.6.0 Cloud, both users need to be cautious of overwriting each others' work when there are multiple user icons.  

Question: Will there be any additional infrastructure required for me to run it behind the firewall?

Answer: Yes, there will be any additional infrastructure required. It will require a server to be setup for which we'll provide some instructions to run. The server is referred to as collaborative editing server (CES). This CES will be setup inside the infrastructure behind the firewall, instead of a publicly available firebase url. It can run on the same server too on which confluence is running. The server will require a DB too; if you wish to use the existing DB, you will be able to do so. We'll provide all the instruction manual. 

Question: Our license is expiring soon. Can we use the application without renewing it as we are not using collaborative editing. How does it impact the functionality of the plugin?

Answer: For Server, once the license expires, you will still be able to view and edit Excellentable. However, Atlassian is ending support for Server soon. Once the support ends, you will not be able to update Excellentable. Your employer will have to purchase either Excellentable Data Center or Cloud afterwards. 

Question: Regarding the beta collaborative editing behind the firewall feature, I have been made aware there will be infrastructure changes. If the customer already has a valid license, will they need to upload or purchase a new license?

Answer: No, the customer should have the ability to upgrade till the maintenance end date. 

Question: We are in the process of installing Newton. Our Confluence datacenter app nodes are WINDOWS 2016 servers. Do you have specific documentation for that ?

Answer: I have been advised the first approach from the document, the docker approach, will work for your current set-up. https://www.addteq.com/products/excellentable/help/installation-and-configurations/newton-collaborative-editing-server-setup-instructions