How to customize your navigation experience

The navigation appears on the left-hand side of the desktop experience. Any navigation customizations you make apply only to desktop and do not impact the mobile app. Mobile navigation customization will be available in a future release. 

This article covers the core elements of navigation and how you can customize each element. Understanding how each one works will help you confidently customize the experience for your users. To read an overview of our navigation refresh and view FAQ's, we recommend reading the article, Simpplr One navigation refresh overview. 

Who it is for: App Managers 

Jump to a section: 

• Navigation elements and definitions 
• Customize branding: page layout 
• Customize branding: navigation look & feel 
• Customize primary navigation 
• Customize secondary navigation 
• Add additional navigation sections 
• Recently visited: turn on or off 
• Create in navigation: left-hand navigation or move to the header
• Customize the people naming convention 
• Customizations and segments
• Inspiration  

Navigation elements and definitions

To get a feel for the elements listed below, we've created this interactive walkthrough. 

Primary navigation 🔸 The first level of navigation is always visible. This is where users access core areas such as Home, Sites, People, and Favorites. Depending on permissions, users may also see Manage Features, Analytics, and Manage Application.

Secondary navigation 🔸 The second level of navigation can be expanded or collapsed. When a user selects an item in the primary navigation (for example, Sites), the secondary navigation displays the list of items within that section.

Recently visited 🔸 A set of personalized shortcuts that helps users quickly return to content, sites, or people they’ve recently accessed. There are three types of recently visited items, and this can be enabled or disabled in Manage Navigation. 

1. Home: shows 5 recent people, sites, or content that you’ve accessed. Shows up when you are on the Home landing page. 
2. People: shows the 5 recent people that you’ve accessed. Shows up when you are on the People listing page. 
3. Sites: shows the 5 recent sites that you’ve accessed. Shows up when you click on the Sites listing page.

Create modal 🔸 Represented by a “+” icon inside a circle. This is where users can create content such as pages, feed posts, recognition, newsletters, and more. What appears in the Create modal is personalized based on app settings and audience-based access controls. For example, if content submissions or feed posts are disabled, those options will not appear.

Modern vs. classic page layout 🔸 This setting controls the layout of dashboard pages:

• Modern: uses a clean, white background. Recommended setting when we deploy home experiences. 
• Classic: allows for a custom background image or background color.

Manage navigation 🔸 Where you configure and customize which items appear in the primary and secondary navigation.

Manage branding 🔸 Where you configure your primary colors, and where you can customize the look and feel of your navigation, and choose your page layout. 

Customize branding: page layout 

Modern v. classic page layout: This refers to the area that contains your dashboards. You can choose a modern layout, which will have a white background, or you can choose classic, which will allow you to add a custom image or background color to your dashboards.

• Click on Manage → Branding 
• Click on Page
• Click on Modern or Classic   

Click Done, then Publish to make your updates live to all employees.

Note: Both App Managers and Branding Managers can update branding settings. 

Customize branding: navigation look and feel 

The header, footer, primary and secondary navigation can be branded independently. You can choose from Default, Primary or Custom themes. If you have segments enabled and Segment personalization is set to "Managed per segment" then you caBradning configured to: "Managed by segment"

• Default settings: These are default Simpplr settings. 
• Primary color: This will update based on the primary color set in your brand settings. 
• Custom: This option will open up a modal for you to customize your primary and secondary navigation. 

 To customize either your branding on the primary or secondary navigation, follow these steps: 

• Click on Manage → Branding 
• Click on Navigation
• Click on Custom
• Choose your colors for the following items: 
  • Primary background color 
  • Primary item background color (active) 
  • Primary icon color 
  • Primary icon color (active) 
  • Secondary background color 
  • Secondary icon color 
  • Secondary text color 
  • Create button color 
  • Create icon color 
  • Notification color   

Click Done, then Publish to make your updates live to all employees. 

Note: Both App Managers and Branding Managers can update branding settings. 

The colors that show up when you select “Custom” are set up in your Brand settings under Color palette. The items that have “Primary” listed in the customization option will update the look and feel of the top-level menu with icons (or the vertical black bar) of your navigation. The items that have “Secondary” listed in front of the customization option will update the look and feel of the nested menu, which appears when you click on top level menu icon. 

Customize primary navigation 

The primary navigation provides quick access to key areas. Choose the default navigation or customize by adding, removing, and reordering items. To customize the primary navigation, you will follow these steps: 

• Click on Manage → Navigation
• Click on Navigation
• Click on Primary navigation
• Click on Custom
• Choose what appears in your primary navigation
• Toggle items on or off 
• Add an item by clicking Add item 
• Add a group by clicking Add group  
• Click Done and Publish to save your changes and make them available for all employees. 

Note: App Managers can customize primary navigation settings. 

Types of items or groups that can be added: 

• Content, Site, Site category, Link, App default 

You can add, remove, rename, or switch App default and custom navigation items on or off. To rename an item, click on the Pencil icon next to the item. To remove an item, click on the Trash icon next to the item. To switch or reorder an item, drag and drop the item up or down.

Any changes you make only affect how items appear in the navigation and do not impact the feature themselves. Your primary navigation can show up to 8 items (including Manage Features, Analytics, and Manage Application). Any items placed below the line move into a “More” overflow navigation, and once you add more than 8, the extra items are added to “More” automatically. 

• Note: Home cannot be turned off or re-ordered. 

Customize secondary navigation 

The secondary navigation is used for navigating through items while on dashboards or other features. Choose the default navigation or customize by adding, removing, and reordering items. The customizations that you make in your secondary navigation will apply to the “Home” landing page experience for all employees. 

To customize the primary navigation, you will follow these steps: 

• Click on Manage → Navigation
• Click on Navigation
• Click on Secondary navigation
• Click Custom
• Choose what appears in secondary navigation
• Toggle items on or off 
• Add an item by clicking Add item 
• Add a group by clicking Add group
• Click Done and Publish to save your changes and make them available for all employees. 

Note: App Managers can customize secondary navigation settings. 

Types of items or groups that can be added: 

• Content, Site, Site category, Link, App default 

You can add, remove, rename, or switch app defaults and custom items on or off. To rename an item, click on the Pencil icon next to the item. To remove an item, click on the Trash icon next to the item. To switch or reorder an item, drag and drop the item up or down. 

Any changes you make only affect how items appear in the navigation and do not impact the features themselves. You can add an unlimited number of items to your secondary navigation.

Add navigation sections 

Add optional navigation sections below the secondary navigation. You can group items together within each section and can add an unlimited number of sections to your navigation. Additional navigation sections will appear on the Home secondary navigation experience. 

To add additional navigation sections, you will follow these steps: 

• Click on Manage → Navigation
• Click on Navigation
• Click on Additional navigation sections 
• Click Add section 
• Choose Section title from the dropdown
  • Quick links 
  • Discover 
  • Locations 
  • Custom  
• Add an item by clicking Add item 
• Add a group by clicking Add group
• Click Done and Publish to save your changes and make them available for all employees. 

Note: App Managers can customize adding navigation section settings.

To delete a section, click on the Trash icon next to the section. To edit a section, click on the Pencil icon next to the section.

Recently visited: turn on or off  

Show the users' last 5 visited items. Toggle this on to allow this section to appear on Home, Sites, and People navigation. 

• Click on Manage → Navigation
• Click on Navigation
• Click on Recently visited  
• Click Toggle to turn on or off 
• Click Publish to save your changes and make them available for all employees.

Note: App Managers can customize recently visited navigation settings.

Create in navigation: left-hand navigation or move to header  

Switching this off will move the create button to the header. We recommend keeping this toggled on, so it stays in the left-hand navigation. 

• Click on Manage → Navigation
• Click on Navigation
• Scroll down to Create in navigation  
• Click Toggle to turn on or off 

Note: App Managers can customize secondary navigation settings.

Click Publish to save your changes and make them available for all employees.

Customize the people naming convention 

The People tab offers flexibility in differentiating your organization’s culture through tailored labels. To customize the naming convention of how the People App default is named, follow these steps: 

• Click on Application settings → Application → Setup → Personalization 
• You should see a page that says Naming → People name  
• Click on Custom
• Click on Manage custom labels
• Add a Singular label and a Plural label 
• If you have multiple languages enabled, then also add the Singular and Plural labels for each of your selected languages. Toggle on custom for each language. 
• Select Confirm 
• Click Save  

Note: App Managers can customize people naming convention settings.

After you click save, your changes will be published for all employees. 

Customizations with segments 

If you have segments enabled and you are customizing your navigation, some elements can be unique, based on your configurations. 

• If you have segments enabled and Segment personalization is set to "Managed per segment," then you can configure unique navigation branding for each segment.

The primary and secondary customizations, however, are a global setting and will not be customizable per segment. This is something the team is actively working on and we will update this article when that functionality becomes available. 

Inspiration 

A preview of how you can customize your navigation using custom navigation branding, the classic, or modern page layout, and custom secondary navigation.