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Introducing a SharePoint app bar that features global navigation

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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.

 

sharepoint-app-bar-in-sharepoint-online.png

 

Read more about: 

  1. SharePoint app bar experience
  2. Key Highlights
  3. Impact of SharePoint app bar on page customizations
  4. How to disable the SharePoint app bar?
  5. How to enable the SharePoint app bar?
  6. Release Timeline

Link to articleIntroducing a SharePoint app bar that features global navigation 

 

67 Replies
I 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.

@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).

@nlundqvist If you are a Home site administrator, it should work for you & show the global navigation properly.

 

Is it still asking for permissions or your issue solved?

I realized that our homesite isn't our root site. I.e I need to update permissions there and/or change root site :)

So yes I have it under control although it was a bit curious to realize that the root site is involved in this also.

@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.

I´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?

@Hasse Edqvist No home site designated here and it showed up. I assume it will appear for everyone, and if there's no home site you get the awful SP home page mess instead.

@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.

@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. 

I have the same problem in my tenant. I have no global navigation option even though I have a working Home Site. I thought the app bar and Global Nav would be available for all beföre we got the Viva Connections app working in Teams.
I 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!

@matt howell @Hasse Edqvist 

Global navigation (Home) tab will be shown by default when you see app bar on your SharePoint sites. By default it redirects users to the SharePoint start page.

 

To enable & customize global navigation, you must set up a home site in SharePoint Online.

 

You can find more information about how to enable & customize global navigation in SharePoint at: Enable and Customize Global navigation in the SharePoint app bar 

When 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.
attacker ran global as local use webkit
I 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?
We 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.
@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.

Looks like Microsoft delayed the rollout of SharePoint app bar and global navigation to make some additional changes before standard rollout. Note from Microsoft:

 

SharePoint App bar delayed.PNG

 

Still not rolled out on our European tenant, targeted release.

Current 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. Someone claims here 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. 

This docs.microsoft article 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.