Everything You Need To Know About Dashboard and Navigation Customization 🎨

📌Note: Only Workspace Admins can make these customizations, and they apply to all users in the workspace.If you're unsure about your permissions, reach out to your platform admins or our team at support@haystackteam.com.

Get to Know Your Dashboard

The dashboard is your company's internal front page, the first stop in your employees' day, and the first impression for new hires. It is built from unique cards—like digital building blocks—housing different information, uploaded content, or live activity.

💡 Visibility Tip: Navigation is strictly global (everyone sees the same header), but dynamic dashboard cards adjust based on group membership. Because admins often see more content than end-users, always test new dashboard layouts with a non-admin account or within a private test group.

Core Card Library

We add to your card library frequently, so check your workspace for the latest updates:

Featured Post Carousel / Post Carousel: Showcase featured news and posts (Sizes: S, M, L)
Recent Posts: See recent posts from your groups
Upcoming Events / Event Calendar: See upcoming events from your groups
Name Game: Put names to faces and climb the leaderboard in an interactive game
Upcoming Anniversaries: Celebrate team members with upcoming work anniversaries
Upcoming Birthdays: See and celebrate upcoming birthdays
New Hires: Get to know new hires joining the team
Links / Featured Links: Highlight important internal or external links set by workspace admins
Resources: Display top resources from your All Company group
Static Card: Add custom title text, rich body text, and images
Banner: A scrolling, narrow "news-ticker" banner for VIP announcements
Static Image: Showcase a visual banner or graphic (Sizes: S, M, L)
Map Location: A map-view card focused on the physical office address of your choice
Featured Events: A scrollable list of events highlighted by workspace admins
Featured Group: Highlight and showcase a specific group from your workspace
Featured Person: Highlight and showcase a specific team member
Countdown: A live countdown clock for an upcoming event, product launch, or announcement
Search: Search bar for discovering content across the workspace
Simple Polls: Ask questions and collect live votes (e.g., Is a hot dog a sandwich?)
Video: Embed video streams, sizzle reels, brand announcements, and all-hands recordings
Tableau & Looker: Embed business ops dashboards to keep teams aligned

Prerequisites & Setup Strategy

Build Content First: Always publish your pages, articles, groups, and forms before building dashboard cards or navigation items that point to them.
Editorial Review: Treat the dashboard as the "front page" for highlighting fresh updates, and navigation as the "header menu" for evergreen resources.
Content Balance: Aim for a 50/50 mix of static content (stock tickers, core bookmarks) and dynamic content (news carousels, event feeds) to keep the page feeling alive.

Adding and Hiding Cards

Adding Cards: Scroll to the very bottom of your dashboard and click the Add Card button. Choose what you want from the library.
Hiding Cards: If a card isn't serving its purpose, click the three-dot button in the top right corner of the card and select Hide.

🛑 CRITICAL WARNING: Hidden cards are removed permanently along with their custom setup. Always copy body text or take a screenshot of your configuration before hiding a card so you can easily recreate it later! Hiding a card immediately updates the live dashboard for all users.

Rearranging and Resizing

Rearranging: To drag and drop, simply click and hold on any card and drag it horizontally or vertically to rearrange the order.
Cards in motion will appear transparent until dropped into place.

Resizing: Cards marked with S, M, or L (Small, Medium, Large) can be resized. Click the three-dot button and choose the size that best fits your layout.
- S means 1/3 width of the dashboard
- M means 2/3 width of the dashboard
- L means the full width of the dashboard

The Scrolling Banner

The Banner is a unique, narrow card that automatically scrolls—perfect for major VIP announcements that need to stand out.

Add the Banner: Scroll to the bottom and click Add Card, then select the Banner option.
Set Up: Click the three-dot button on the banner and select Setup.
Customize: Choose a color (including a bright red Haystack Danger for emergencies), add a link if needed, and write your text (you have a max of 280 characters, but emojis are welcome!).
Click Save.

A few additional notes:

The banner card has a max of 280 characters, but you can include emojis!
The text in a banner can be updated as many times as you'd like
You can add an unlimited amount of banners to the dashboard

Customizing Your Workspace Navigation

The navigation bar at the very top of your workspace is the user's primary guide. Customizing it helps ensure everyone uses the terminology your team recognizes and finds those crucial internal and external links quickly.

Organizing Links and Dropdowns

Direct Header Items: If an item doesn't require a dropdown (e.g., a direct link to "News"), add it as a single navigation item rather than creating a folder.
Folders (Dropdowns): Create folders to house dropdown links. To avoid clutter, keep navigation to roughly 5–6 folders wide and 6–10 items deep. Note: Header navigation is intentionally designed without subfolders to keep scanning simple.
Workspace Features vs. Custom Links:
- Choose Workspace Feature to link to standard platform pages (e.g., Org Chart) using default naming.
- Choose Link to customize the display label (e.g., renaming "All Posts" to "News") or link to external tools. Enter the display name on the left and destination URL on the right.

💾 CRITICAL STEP: After making changes to navigation folders or links, you MUST click Save in the Admin Console header. Unsaved changes will be completely lost if you exit the page!

Setting Your Primary (Default) Page

The Primary Page is the very first page users see when they sign in or click your workspace logo.

Click the dropdown arrow in the top right corner and select Admin Console.
In the lefthand menu, click Customize Navigation.
Use the dropdown menu at the top of the page to select the page you want to set as the default (most teams leave this as the Dashboard).
Click Save at the bottom of the page!

And there you have it! Go forth, customize, and make your intranet the most brilliant, functional, and well-organized digital space it can be! 🖌️

Maintenance & Best Practices

Six-Month Audits: Every 6 months, review site analytics and search query data to prune unused navigation links and bring missing, high-volume search topics into the header.
Future Roadmap: Group-based custom navigation and targeted group cards are on the product roadmap to support complex, multi-audience organizations in future updates.