Paperlatch
Employee policy acknowledgement: a template, and how to track it in Confluence
Guide · Checked against Atlassian's documentation on 20 October 2026
An acknowledgement is a short statement an employee confirms after reading a policy. On its own it is just a sentence. What makes it useful — to HR, to a manager, or to an auditor — is the record around it.
Below is a statement you can copy, the fields a usable record needs, and three ways to collect it if your policies live in Confluence.
The statement
Keep it short. People confirm what they can read in five seconds.
I confirm that I have read and understood the [policy name], version [version or date], and that I will comply with it. I understand that I can ask [team or role] if anything in it is unclear.
Variations people use:
- For a new hire: add "as part of my onboarding".
- For an update: "I have read the changes in version [X]" — so the record shows which version someone agreed to, not just that they once read an earlier one.
- For a security policy: name the policy owner, so questions go somewhere.
This is a template, not legal advice. If a policy has legal or contractual weight in your jurisdiction, have it reviewed.
What the record needs
A signed sentence is not enough if you cannot later show what was signed. A usable acknowledgement record has five fields:
| Field | Why |
|---|---|
| Who | A named person, not a shared account |
| What | The policy and the exact version they saw |
| When | A timestamp you did not type in by hand |
| Who should have | The audience — so you can list who has not acknowledged |
| History | Earlier rounds kept when the policy changes, not overwritten |
The fourth field is the one most forms miss. A list of who signed is half the answer; the list you act on is who didn't.
Three ways to collect it in Confluence
1. A table on the page. Ask people to add their name and date to a table at the bottom. Free and immediate. But anyone can edit anyone else's row, the version is not recorded, and nothing tells you who is missing.
2. A form tool, linked from the page. A Microsoft or Google form records names and timestamps reliably. But it lives outside Confluence: when the page changes, the form does not know, and you match the two by hand at audit time.
3. A confirmation app on the page. Confluence has no built-in acknowledgement step, so this means a Marketplace app. The established ones are QC Read and Understood and Comala Read Confirmations; several newer ones exist.
We make Confirm & Chase. You add a confirmation button to the policy page and pick the group that must confirm. Readers confirm with one button, "I have read and understood" — put the fuller statement above on the page itself, just above the button. One dashboard lists who confirmed and who is outstanding across every space, and the CSV export contains all five fields. When the policy changes, a new round starts and the earlier one stays on record. It is free for up to 10 users.
Paperlatch makes Confirm & Chase.