How to create custom Navigation Menu in Confluence

If you’re feeling lost in your company’s Confluence space, take heart – it’s not you. It’s just that you haven’t been introduced to the Navigation Menu, the newest feature of Caelor’s dynamic and powerful content visualization app – Content Viz. So, without further ado – we give you the Caelor’s “road marker” for Confluence, which will point you in the right direction and make your work app-solutely easy! Read on to find out more about the navigation menu and how to use it to streamline your internal processes.

Navigation menu – key to a seamless Confluence Cloud experience

Let us start with a brief definition. A navigation menu is a list of links that helps users quickly and easily find important pages. In other words, it enables you to highlight already-existing material that would otherwise require a few extra steps to access. With all of this in mind, it is easy to see how having a clear, well-designed navigation menu can significantly improve anyone’s Confluence experience, especially when it comes to onboarding.

Content Viz: Navigation preview

Content Viz Navigation Menu – your ally in finding your way around Confluence

If you’re an experienced Confluence user, a native navigation bar will probably suffice. After all, you already know the ropes and where to look for the required information. However, things might be a bit different and more challenging for those who are new to this magical workspace.

Picture this. It’s your first day at work. You’ve just logged into your company Confluence, and you already feel like confused John Travolta.

You frantically start browsing through all the pages and spaces in your line of sight. Then, in a fit of panic, you begin to bookmark all the pages you find meaningful and important. You have no idea where you are, how you got there, or how to get home. Well, it happened to all of us. Only now, with the Caelor Navigation Menu at your hand, you no longer need to feel so lost and alone in your Confluence space. In fact, as you will quickly learn once you start using it, navigating your company’s Confluence as a newbie can be quite a pleasant and stress-free experience. So, be sure to keep this in mind next time you start onboarding your new employees. 

Also, let us remind you that each Confluence site might have important pages you want your (new) employees to access easily, such as onboarding materials, employee handbooks, task descriptions, and project overviews. Because that’s precisely what we had in mind when we developed our Navigation Menu – to make knowledge easily accessible to everyone. And speaking from experience – it’s a real game changer when it comes to speeding up internal processes!

Content Viz: Navigation configuration

Content Viz Navigation Menu in a nutshell

As mentioned above, the Content Viz Navigation Menu was designed to bring a more streamlined and customized navigation experience to the Confluence Cloud. And we can proudly say – mission accomplished! Thanks to this new, powerful feature, you can quickly find everything you need to have a more productive workday.

Users can now access content directly on their Confluence site by clicking the Content Viz Navigation Menu elements. These elements include navigation menus and dropdown submenus that link to other relevant Confluence pages or external resources, making them more visible. Speaking of visibility, it’s important to note that users can easily access “main” pages presented in the menu, regardless of their current location, because the Navigation Menu is available everywhere in Confluence.

It bears mentioning that, assuming that not all Content Viz users will want to use it, the Navigation Menu is disabled by default. So, in order to get started, a Confluence admin must first enable the Navigation Menu by clicking a toggle button, thus deciding whether or not to make the Menu visible for all users. Besides that, a Confluence admin also gets to specify which users or groups have permission to change the Navigation Menu configuration.

Content Viz: Navigation settings

How to create a custom Navigation Menu in Confluence

Adding menus and submenus with the Content Viz Navigation Menu is pretty simple. Your most significant Confluence pages, categories or topics, external links, and even unique links like Jira, HR tools, or your social media can all be added. Let’s now look at how to create a custom Navigation Menu.

1. To create and configure the Navigation Menu, you must be logged in as a user with Confluence admin permissions.
2. Go to the Apps on the Confluence navigation bar and choose Content Viz. The Navigation Menu structure will appear on the left sidebar.
3. Choose “Settings” and enable Navigation Menu by using the toggle.
4. Create a new navigation menu entry by clicking “Add entry.”
5. Each new navigation menu entry contains four elements that can be further customized and easily edited – icon, name, description, and link:
   Choose an icon from one of the four available categories: Atlaskit, Bootstrap, Font Awesome, and Material Design.
   Enter the name of your menu entry.
   Add a description to your menu entry to make it more informative.
   Add a link to your menu entry. Select between Pages, Direct Link, or Email to quickly redirect your readers to the location of your choice and click the “Save” button. Your newly created navigation menu will appear on the left sidebar.
6. Click on the arrow (>) next to your freshly created navigation menu entry to add as many submenu entries as you wish.
7. Click on the submenu entry card. Edit icon, name, and description categories and insert a link to the link box. Press the “Save” button.
8. Add a new navigation submenu entry or simply click “Publish” to finish creating your Navigation Menu.

Content Viz: Navigation demo

What’s next?

It should be easy and quick to find and access the pages that are most important to your day-to-day work. Now that we crossed that off our list, we’re onto new challenges! So stay tuned and keep an eye on our LinkedIn to keep up with upcoming releases and new features. In the meantime, feel free to reach out and let us know your experience with our Navigation Menu.