Forum Discussion
Introducing a SharePoint app bar that features global navigation
Microsoft is introducing a SharePoint app bar in SharePoint online that will feature global navigation in your SharePoint modern communication and team sites.
The SharePoint app bar brings a consistent navigation experience to every site on your intranet, featuring quick access to important sites across the organization with global navigation, personally relevant sites, news feed and the files.
Enabling and customizing global navigation in SharePoint requires a home site.
Read more about:
- SharePoint app bar experience
- Key Highlights
- Impact of SharePoint app bar on page customizations
- How to disable the SharePoint app bar?
- How to enable the SharePoint app bar?
- Release Timeline
Link to article: Introducing a SharePoint app bar that features global navigation
You can disable the SharePoint app bar temporarily using PowerShell until October 31, 2021.
To run the PowerShell commands you will need either Global administrator or SharePoint administrator privileges. Follow below steps:
- Download the latest version of SharePoint online PowerShell
- Then, run the following command with administrator privileges:
Set-SPOTemporarilyDisableAppBar $true
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67 Replies
- Dirk-OfficialBrass Contributor
Still not rolled out on our European tenant, targeted release.
Current https://www.microsoft.com/en-ww/microsoft-365/roadmap states are inconsistent.
- Viva Connections Desktop shows as rolled out - For us it's current ability is showing a SharePoint page in Teams - frankly speaking that's something that's been possible before.
- SharePoint: App Bar shows as "in development" and to be rolled out in May. And of course not on our tenant. https://ganeshsanapblogs.wordpress.com/2021/02/24/introducing-a-sharepoint-app-bar-that-features-global-navigation/ that it should have been rolled out by mid March for targeted release. - well it's not.
- The global navigation feature... - well if I'm an SP admin and don't see "Global Navigation" on the home site's settings - it guess, it hasn't been rolled out.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/viva-connections as well as numerous MS marketing articles all convey that it's all there - it has been like this for weeks and we are definitely not the only ones.
- Joni_KirkBrass Contributor
Dirk-Official They have postponed the rollout. You can see the current status here: https://ganeshsanapblogs.wordpress.com/2021/02/24/introducing-a-sharepoint-app-bar-that-features-global-navigation/
- Dirk-OfficialBrass ContributorThat means Viva Connections currently is just a SharePoint page in Teams.
Obviously postponing the rollout doesn't mean postponing the marketing. 32.5k users have visited the article "Install Viva Connections today" - no word about a postponed rollout - just numerous frustrated comments. Not a good start...
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-viva-blog/install-viva-connections-today/ba-p/2245410
Looks like Microsoft delayed the rollout of SharePoint app bar and global navigation to make some additional changes before standard rollout. Note from Microsoft:
- Jens SkovCopper ContributorI have had a home site set up for some time (and it shown up as an icon in the SP app), but I still do not have to Global navigation option under settings.
Appbar is not disabled.
Does anyone have an idea why?- Mary F HarveyIron ContributorWe have a demo tenant and a dev tenant and the bar has not shown up in either even though they are marked as "early release". But it has shown up in our production tenant. I find that very odd that the "first release" tenants do NOT have it yet.
- Mary F HarveyIron Contributor@Jens - a quick update - I submitted a ticket to see if there was a tenant issue, and MSFT responded that according to the roadmap, this feature is still in development. Once it gets to the fully launched stage, then we can worry about it not being available in a given tenant.
- im_thereCopper Contributorattacker ran global as local use webkit
- BrianChanCopper ContributorWhen will this be available on my tenant? I am in Asia Pacific.
I have already set our communication site as Home Site, and it has been more than 48 hours, we still don't see Global Navigation as one of the settings on our Home Site. - Abhimanyu SinghIron ContributorI don't see the app bar nor the global navigation option link. Although we are on targeted release for everyone in the tenant. I wonder the use of targeted release any more!
- Clint LechnerIron ContributorI find the negative comments surprising. Global navigation that spans all sites has been a huge ask since modern arrived. Because of the header and other possible info on the top of the page, a left-hand nav sytem like the appbar is a very good design decision. If you look around at other Office 365 products you'll see that type of navigation everywhere already (Teams, admin.microsoft.com, Outlook actually minimizes that way, Planner, etc).
What I do have an issue with is not being able to turn off Sites/News/etc. There is information there that not all tenants use, and if it's blank or we don't want all our sites readily available, well, we're out of luck now unless I want to use some SPFX magic.- Hasse EdqvistBrass ContributorI´d argue it WAS a good design decision before Edge suddelny got vertical tabs too. now that just looks silly and is very confusing. 2 bars side by side on the left. what were they thinking?
- lance-augheyIron Contributor
Clint Lechner I cannot speak for others, but my comments, however one chooses to view them, have less to do with the introduction and advancement of "features" and more to do with Microsoft's inability to recognize their one-size fits all approach is flawed. I'm not arguing that the introduction, existence and use of this nav bar is pointless for one, some or many. My concerns run much deeper than this.
I struggle to understand/comprehend how or why any entity providing a service to its customer base considers it an acceptable practice to introduce something NEW in an "on" or "active" state and, feature depending, provide no, one or multiple ways of de-activating it, temporarily or permanently, for those who deem it unneeded, unnecessary or those who may want/need a little more time to understand and/or determine its relevancy and how its integration into their portfolio will affect other aspects of the environment (I.e., customizations). It's as if engineers at Microsoft have a dartboard "of choices" in which to offer the subscriber - and we are forced to accept whatever the outcome is. I've stated in many other posts, if you can dream up a way to make it happen, consideration must be given to make it not happen.
Additionally, this mention of "temporary" causes me further concern -- what is coming our way (in October) that we should prepare ourselves for? What will Microsoft wow us with then? I'm sure we'll find out a week or two out. I've marked this in my calendar (because I hate surprises).
For those environments with dedicated resources directed at monitoring, reviewing and vetting any/all Microsoft service introductions, changes, etc., this may be "no big deal", we'll just inject some custom code into the platform to hide, disable, etc. Let's not forget this fluffy Microsoft cloud was originally crafted for those little companies needing the same technology (functions) as the big companies...security, storage, email, chat, etc., and yet all Microsoft seems to focus on now is the larger entities wanting boundless and endless navigation, sharing and collaboration -- and the fluff that goes along with it...most of which is USELESS and UNNECESSARY for the many small, single facility, departments of "one" (IT, HR, etc.), companies that exist today.
Lastly, all one has to do is pay a visit to the many UserVoice sites that Microsoft identifies for each of their services and it's clear their emphasis is placed upon annoying little "features" (nav bar) instead of critical "functions" (PDF integration).
- mattchowellIron Contributor
lance-augheyMsft always does what they think is "best" regardless of user opinions. If they understood anything about basic ux, they'd know that something as visually obtrusive as this app bar, HAS to come with an "off" switch.
- lance-augheyIron ContributorJust another whacked out "feature" that annoys and destroys a good product for SMALL business. You know, the ones who don't have employees all over the planet. Global navigation...for an organization that has one SharePoint site. USELESS.
- Hasse EdqvistBrass Contributor
lance-aughey AFAIK Global navigation is dependant on the existence of a Home Site. if you dont designate any site as Home Site the Global Navigation bar doesnt show up. If anyone knows different, please let us know.
- GrassolCopper Contributor
Hasse Edqvist I have made a Home site and there is a Home icon now on the Mobile SP app as well so I know it is all working as expected - however...no Global Navigation in the Settings, only the Hub Site Navigation. I have searched for weeks on this topic and can't see why the option does not exist when the Home site was clearly created successfully, it's not an associated Hub site the Hub site is the Home site, so everything was done accordingly.
- mattchowellIron ContributorHow do we turn this off? It's visually distracting, unnecessary and hasn't been approved by my company yet.
- PhilineVonIron ContributorAs in the article above
How to disable the SharePoint app bar?
You cannot disable the SharePoint app bar permanently. However, you can temporarily disable the SharePoint app bar in your tenant using PowerShell until October 31, 2021.
To temporarily disable the SharePoint app bar:
Download the latest version of SharePoint Online PowerShell.
Then, run the following command with administrator privileges:
Set-SPOTemporarilyDisableAppBar $true- Guilleni2050Copper ContributorThe Set-SPOTemporarilyDisableAppBar $true is not working
- PhilineVonIron ContributorCurrently looking into replacing our homepage (which is a page in a modern Team Site, with lots of subsites) to a comms page, to accommodate the new global navigation.
As described here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/modernize-classic-team-site
Has anyone here had experience in doing this? What can go wrong? Does this just create a comms style page which I can set as homepage and nothing else in that site collection changes?
thanks