Portal navigation has always had a flat ceiling. Every page you added to the main navigation menu sat at the same level as every other page, so a Portal that served more than a handful of destinations became a long, undifferentiated list. Navigation menus for work Portals now support single-layer submenus: you can create a group that acts as a parent menu item for one or more pages listed beneath it. It is a small addition to the authoring experience with a disproportionate effect on how a busy Portal feels to use.
What it means
A group is a navigation item that holds pages rather than pointing at one. You give it a name, an icon, and a visibility setting, then add the pages that belong under it. In the rendered Portal, the group appears as a parent item and its pages appear in a submenu.
The qualifier that matters is single-layer. A submenu can list a single level of pages, and those pages cannot themselves open further submenus. One level of nesting, and no more. Read that as a deliberate constraint rather than a gap: deep menu trees are precisely where Portal navigation tends to go wrong, and the product is not offering you the rope.
What it does
Four things follow from being able to group.
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A shorter top level. Related pages collapse behind one parent item, so the main menu stays scannable as the Portal grows.
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Grouping by meaning, not by order. Previously the only organising tool was sequence — drag the related pages next to each other and hope the adjacency reads as a relationship. A group states the relationship explicitly.
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Group-level identity. Each group carries its own name and icon, so the parent item communicates what sits beneath it before the user opens it.
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Group-level visibility. Visibility is configured on the group itself, which means one condition governs whether the whole branch appears for a given user.
The preview on the right side of the work area reflects the changes as you make them, so the shape of the menu is visible while you are building it rather than after you save.
How it works
This is Portal authoring in Pega Infinity Studio, and it is entirely configuration — no rule editing, no custom UI.
Open the Portal. In the navigation pane of Pega Infinity Studio, click Channels. In the Current Channel interfaces section, click the icon representing the Portal whose menu you want to edit. On the Portal page, on the Content tab, click the Main navigation category. The Main navigation section in the centre of the screen displays your current menu setup.
Create the group. Click Add group. In the Add navigation group dialog box, name the group and configure its icon and visibility. The group is created empty.
Populate it. Click the Add icon next to the group name to add pages to that group and list them in its submenu. Note the distinction: Add item at the top of the section adds a page to the menu itself, at the top level. The Add icon beside a group name is what places a page inside that group.
Arrange and prune. Drag pages to change the order in which they appear. Click the Remove icon next to a page name to take it out of the menu.
The Create menu section below is separate and unchanged: it defines which Cases a user can create, and accepts parent Cases only. The Features section remains the place to hide the notifications bell, the recents list, or the header search box. Click Save when the menu is right.
What to remember
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One level, and that is the design. A submenu lists a single level of pages. If a client asks for a three-deep tree, the answer is to rethink the information architecture, not to look for a workaround.
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A group is a container, not a destination. It is defined by name, icon, and visibility — not by a target page. Do not plan navigation that depends on the parent item itself opening something.
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Visibility on a group gates everything under it. This is useful and it is also the first place to look when a page that should be visible is not. Check the group condition before checking the page.
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Add group and Add item are different actions. Pages added with Add item land at the top level. Pages only enter a submenu through the Add icon next to the group name.
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Standard work Portals. This applies to the main navigation menu of a standard work Portal, which is created automatically when you create the Portal.
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Use it to retire the scroll. The clearest win is on Portals that accumulated pages over several releases. Grouping those into three or four named branches is usually a half-hour of configuration and a noticeable change in how the Portal is perceived.
Technical documentation: Organizing the main navigation for a standard work Portal
