MARS App Profile:
App: MacroSuite – Content Formatting Macros
Vendor: Caelor
Primary Category: Publishing
Secondary Category: Documentation
Platform: Cloud
Active Instances: 2,946
Users: 316,126
Competitors: Content Formatting Macros for Confluence (Adaptavist), Aura (//SEIBERT/MEDIA – AppAnvil)
MARS™
One of our unique offerings at Blended Perspectives is our Marketplace Analytic Research Service™ (MARS™) database of Atlassian Marketplace 3rd party apps.
MARS™ is a unique and unbiased data engine on the Atlassian Marketplace. Through MARS™ we are able to help our customers navigate the vast array of Marketplace apps, provide insights to the Atlassian ecosystem, optimize add-on selection, and much more.
MARS™ contains a vast array of data from instances, reviews, and pricing, to platform, app growth, and version releases. This is all tied together at the top level through our meaningful app categorization in which, for every app over 500 instances, we carefully assigned our own categories based on the primary functionality of each app. We do this instead of using Marketplace app categorizations which are somewhat meaningless due to vendor self-selection. This means that MARS™ can give us a completely unique perspective into which apps are really excelling and driving forwards in the Marketplace.
Every month we like to highlight the app that we think has stood out the most over the previous month, and in August that app was MacroSuite – Content Formatting by Caelor.
MacroSuite: The Fastest Growing App of 2021
In a space that has long been dominated by Content Formatting Macros by Adaptavist, in late 2020 and across 2021, MacroSuite by Caelor experienced a growth explosion. As Figure 1 shows, MacroSuite grew by nearly 400% over 2021 from a few hundred instances to close to 3,000. For apps with over 500 instances, this made MacroSuite the fastest growing app on the entire Marketplace.
Figure 1: MacroSuite Growth vs Competitors (Built with Custom Charts for Jira – Reports)
MacroSuite, like all Caelor apps, runs on the Atlassian cloud only. This cloud first approach is an interesting strategy and has clearly paid off when looking at MacroSuite’s growth since its release. As more and more customers (especially larger ones) migrate to the cloud and with 90+% of Atlassian’s new customers landing on the cloud, optimizing your app for the go to platform is a clever strategy. Looking at the Atlassian Marketplace on a broader basis, Figure 2 shows that apps that only run on the cloud have grown significantly faster than those running on other platform configurations (e.g. any combination of Cloud, DC, Server).
Figure 2: Growth of Cloud Only Apps vs Other Platform Configurations
Even a quick peek at the MacroSuite app reveals that the Caelor team has justified our high expectations. The app has undergone a significant UX and UI makeover, making it even more user-friendly and intuitive. It’s important to note that Caelor also expanded its already wide-ranging and extensive macro offering by rolling out new features and adding new macros to the MacroSuite app.
To provide a better understanding of the MacroSuite app usability, we’ve highlighted its key features, followed by the use cases suitable for various business solutions. But, before we get to that part, let’s first offer some general information for those who are new to this powerful content formatting app.
MacroSuite Key Features
How you structure your Confluence makes a huge difference in terms of efficient information delivery. MacroSuite, as its name suggests, contains a number of Confluence macros with the variety of macros offered by MacroSuite being one of its main features. MacroSuite provides a powerful and versatile kit that includes Button, Tabs, Cards, Announcements, Panels, Page Divider, and other macros that allow you to format your content to a high degree of individuality all in one place.
Furthermore, with the popularity of Confluence growing among new and less technical users, Caelor have ensured that MacroSuite is optimized for use by users of all levels of expertise. What’s more, the app allows you to mix and match the various macros it offers for better outcomes, such as higher engagement and enhanced readability. One macro doesn’t fit all, but a collection of macros will most likely fit everyone.
MacroSuite macros can be easily tailored to fit any requirement an organization may have while ensuring you’re able to create stunning Confluence pages and dashboards in no time. MacroSuite macros don’t just create beautiful pages, they are also optimized to ensure efficient and clear information delivery.
The most recent additions to the already rich macro offering of MacroSuite, such as the Announcements and Cards, help users transform their Confluence into a one-stop workplace, enhancing efficiency, teamwork, and information exchange.
Pre-designed templates and the MacroSuite library have further improved the app’s functionality.
Users can store all of their customized designs in the library ensuring team members can easily access and reuse them whenever they want.
Furthermore, the MacroSuite app templates have been carefully designed and can be used for various use cases, allowing you to do more in less time. Additionally, since they are ready-made, no prior design experience is necessary. This really helps open up MacroSuite to Confluence users from a range of experience levels and help them proudly and quickly showcase their ideas in a trendy and engaging style.
The simple-to-use macros configuration, which is very similar to native Confluence features, makes it possible to build and format pages in a matter of seconds. With its smoothly integrated look and feel many users may struggle to realize that MacroSuite is not Confluence native.
Use Cases
Since MacroSuite provides a tool set that users can use to format whatever they want in Confluence, it does not have a standard set of use cases. However, some typical ways MacroSuite is used include:
- Confluence dashboard
- Space overview page
- Knowledge base
- Company style guide
- Hardware collection
- Employee and onboarding handbooks
- Product pages
- Partner portal
What’s Coming from Caelor and MacroSuite
At the moment the Caelor team are currently working on a major UX and UI makeover of one of their most widely used macro: Page Builder.
Although Page Builder is essentially a MacroSuite macro, thanks to its direct interaction with the Content Viz app (another Caelor Confluence application), this drag and drop macro bridges the gap between content formatting and content visualization by offering a variety of MacroSuite and Content Viz macros in a single place (a separate paid Content Viz license is required to access all features).
At Blended we’re very excited to see these new changes implemented and watching how Caelor develops their apps going forward.
Summary
Thanks to the number of versatile and diverse macros available within the app, MacroSuite has excellent functionality and a wide variety of potential use cases. However, what we think will most stand out to new users is how visually pleasing pages designed with MacroSuite are.
MacroSuite can help ensure that people want to visit your organization’s Confluence pages and that they don’t become places where good ideas go to die. With its intuitive macros, MacroSuite can help breathe new life into plain Confluence pages and drive more user generated content.
Congratulations to the team at Caelor!
If you have any questions regarding MARS then get in touch with us at hello@blendedperspectives.com.