Menus – custom navigation for workspaces
Menus tailor the left navigation to the daily work of employees: instead of only "Overview" and "Data Lake", blocks such as "Time tracking" or "Accounting" appear with exactly the dashboards, start events and tools needed there. Every employee reaches their work with one click, without having to know the developer tools.
What is a menu?
A menu is a block in the left navigation with a heading and any number of entries. Each entry opens something that already exists in Pantarey:
| Entry type | What a click opens |
|---|---|
| Dashboard | A deployed dashboard, as a page of its own without a back button |
| Start event | The start form of a process, for example "Request vacation" |
| Tool | One of the classic navigation items such as "Data Lake" or "Process Explorer" |
| Page | A page of the workspace: the Overview as before, My work (start processes on the left with search, favorites and groups, the open tasks on the right with a filter per task, sorting and batch processing; the rail shows the number of open tasks) or Activity (running cases with status on top, the history by day with period and search below) |
When the overview is placed as an entry in a menu, it is not repeated at the top of the rail. A menu can hide its caption; its entries then sit directly below the overview, like the top level of the navigation.
A click on the caption folds or unfolds a block, including the "Tools" block. Pantarey remembers this per user in the browser. When the current page lies in a folded block, its caption is highlighted.
Menus are created in the Dashboard Designer under Menus and are published like dashboards. An account can have any number of menus, for example one per department.
Who sees a menu?
A menu is assigned to groups, individual users or all users. Only assigned people see the block in their navigation.
Within the block an additional rule applies: an entry appears only when the person may open its target.
- A dashboard appears only when it is assigned to the person or one of their groups.
- A start event appears only when the process is dedicated to the person.
- A tool appears only when the person holds the matching role.
A menu therefore only arranges, it grants no rights. Members of several groups see all menus of their groups one below the other; a block without a visible entry is hidden.
Nothing disappears
The classic navigation items stay. As soon as at least one menu is visible they are listed under the heading Tools in their usual order. A tool contained in a menu is not repeated there. Without a published menu the navigation looks exactly as before.
Restricting the "Tools" block
The "Tools" block behaves like a built-in menu: it is listed first in the menu list and its assignment can be changed. The default is All users. Restricted to the group "Developers", for example, every other employee with a menu sees only the overview and their menu blocks.
This is useful when an employee needs a role for technical reasons only, for example because a widget jumps into the data lake, but the tool "Data Lake" should not appear in their navigation.
Two rules apply:
- The restriction affects only users who see at least one menu block. Without a menu the navigation stays unchanged.
- Only the display changes. The pages remain protected by roles and reachable by their address.
Removing the last assignment or choosing Back to all users restores the default.
Landing page and overview
The card Settings in the menu list applies to the whole account, but only to users with at least one menu block:
- Show the overview automatically at the top: switched off, the overview appears only where it is placed as an entry in a block.
- Landing page after login: the overview or an entry of a menu, for example the dashboard "Customers". If a user does not see the entry, they land on the overview.
Without a menu everything stays as before for all other users. Both settings are saved immediately.
Back to the starting point
Whoever starts a process or completes a task from "My work", a dashboard or a menu entry returns exactly there afterwards, also when cancelling and, in batch processing, after the last task. On the phone the form's header shows the starting point, for example "My work".
Forms opened from the overview lead back to the overview as before. A redirect defined in the process after a task still applies.
Creating a menu
- In the Dashboard Designer click Menus.
- With New menu enter a name, an icon and a position. The position defines the order of the blocks: a smaller number is shown higher up.
- On the right under Add entries pick dashboards, start events or tools. Each entry appears in the list on the left and can be sorted by dragging or with the arrows.
- Adjust gives an entry a custom name and icon, for example "My hours" instead of the dashboard's name.
- Under Assignment define who sees the menu: groups, users or All users.
- Publish makes the menu visible in the navigation of the assigned people.
Like a dashboard, a menu is edited by one person at a time. While it is open elsewhere, a note shows the name; Release lock takes over the editing.
Changes are saved automatically as a draft. They become visible with the next Publish; the status shows whether unpublished changes exist. Unpublish removes a menu from the navigation again, the draft is kept.
The preview next to the entry list shows how the block looks in the navigation. Struck-through entries point at a target that no longer exists or is not deployed; they appear for nobody.
Example
A craft business creates two menus:
- Time tracking (position 10, assigned to All users): dashboard "My hours", start event "Request vacation".
- Management (position 5, assigned to the group Management): dashboard "Key figures", tool "Analytics".
A technician sees "Overview" and the block "Time tracking" in the navigation. The managing director additionally sees the block "Management" at the very top, then "Time tracking" and, under "Tools", the remaining items that match their roles.
Notes
- A dashboard must be deployed and assigned to the audience, otherwise its entry stays invisible for those people. Dashboards can now be assigned to several groups, users or all users.
- When a dashboard is deleted or undeployed its entry disappears from the navigation automatically. The menu designer marks it as "Target not found" so it can be removed.
- New or changed menus appear for signed-in users at the latest when they next open the overview or sign in again.