Create Common Navigation Menu across top sites in SharePoint Online
Applies to
Microsoft SharePoint Online
About this document
This document describes the creation of a common menu for different top site. This is mostly useful when you would like to link different site that have been created using Microsoft Teams.
Requirements
- Microsoft Online Tenant Administrator Credentials
- Microsoft SharePoint Online Management Shell :
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35588
Create the Main Menu
Open the Terms Store Management page
- Go to Office365 Portal
- Open the Admin Panel
- Under Admin Centers, select SharePoint
- In the Classic SharePoint Admin Center: Select Term Store.
- In the New SharePoint Admin Center: Select Classic Features, then under Term Store click Open
The page URL should look like this:
https://contoso-admin.sharepoint.com/_layouts/15/TermStoreManager.aspx
Declare the administrator as Term Sore Administrator
- Click on Taxonomy on the left sidebar
- Set the Administrator as Term Store Administrator
- Click Save (scroll down to see it)
Create a group dedicated to sites Navigation
- Right Click on Taxonomy and click on New Group
- Name the group: Navigation
Create the new term set that will serve as Main navigation menu for all sites
- Right click on Navigation and select New Term Set
- Name the term set: Main (as for Main Navigation)
Set the Term Set so it could be used for Navigation
- Click on the new term set
- On the main panel, select the Intended use Tab
- Activate: Use this Term Set for Site Navigation
Create your menu structure
- Click on your term set (Main, on the left sidebar) and select “Create Term”
- Name the term: Home
- Click on the term “Home”
- On the main panel, select the Navigation Tab
- Activate Simple Link or Header under Navigation Node Type
- Paste the main SharePoint site in the textbox.
E.g.: https://contoso.sharepoint.com/
You can create other links with the same procedure.
Also, should you want to create a sub-menu, create an empty term and then click on it to create a term that will appear underneath.
Custom Sort
By default, your term set will sort the terms alphabetically. You have the possibility to change the order by using custom sort order.
- Click on you term set (“Main” in our case)
- On the main panel, select the Custom Sort Tab
- Select Use custom sort order
- Give each term a priority
Activate Site Customization for each site
As you may understand, this action must be performed on each site that has been previously created.
You will need to activate a few features to be able to assign you custom navigation to the sites. Some of the modification might take time to get activated (up to 24 hours) but this could be overcome using a few PowerShell commands.
Go to Site Settings
Go to The Site Setting Menu and click on Select Site Information
Select Site Settings
Activate SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure
Under Site Collection Administration, go to Site Collection Features
Scroll down the page and Activate SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure
Wait for the page to reload as the activation process takes some time.
The you should see that the feature has been successfully activated.
Activate SharePoint Server Publishing
Go back to Site Settings
Under Site Actions, click on Manage site features
Scroll down and activate SharePoint Server Publishing
Disable DenyAddAndCustomizePages setting using SharePoint Online Management Shell
Start SharePoint Online Management Shell from your computer
Enter the following line to establish the connection:
Connect-SPOService -Url https://<tenant_name>-admin.sharepoint.com
Press enter and login using your tenant administrator account.
Disable the feature using the following command :
Set-SPOSite https://<tenant_name>.sharepoint.com/sites/<site_name> -DenyAddAndCustomizePages 0
Enable Custom Navigation for each site
Again, this will have to be performed for each site.
Go back to the Site Settings page
Under Look and Feel, click on Navigation
Under Global Navigation, select Managed Navigation
Under Managed Navigation: Term Set, browse and select the navigation term set you’ve created.
Under Structural Navigation: Editing and Sorting, you can edit the current navigation should you don’t want people to see links to parts of the site you don’t want them to look at.