Can Add Ins create new menus in NXT?

Jim Ballou
Jim Ballou
Fifth Anniversary
in SKY Developer General Discussions
Hi everyone!  Is it possible for a custom developer to create a new menu item in NXT/SKY?  For instance, if I wanted to create a PowerBI reporting experience in NXT, could I add an <Custom> menu item that would sit alongside Reporting, Security, Workcenter, etc?  What about submenu items, if I wanted it to show up under Workcenter, for instance?

 

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  • Ben Lambert
    Ben Lambert
    Ninth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant
    Hi Jim,


    Great question!  Unfortunately, at the moment the answer is "no".  There is no extensibility support for 3rd-parties within the "omnibar" component (the horizontal bar at the top of the page that is always visible) and the menu/navigation system today.  It's something we've discussed, and is an area of interest for us, but we don't have a native solution available today.


    Currently, as a design pattern, the menus and submenus found within the omnibar are focused on *navigation* rather than *action*.  The menu items generally navigate the browser to some other page/SPA within the Blackbaud application.  While technically possible, the menu items don't generally perform an action (like showing a modal form).  So while 3rd-party developers can create new SPAs (hosted on their own servers), they currently cannot participate in the omnibar menu/navigation.


    Part of the reason for the lack of extensibility in this area is that it's not clear what the expectation would be - if you were able to inject a <custom> menu item, where would you expect to navigate (another page in the Blackbaud application, or a page is an external system, etc.)?  What would that page look like?  It might use SKY UX for good visual continuity, but it won't have the omnibar component (which at the moment is reserved for internal Blackbaud use only).  So there wouldn't be any menu/navigation continuity between the Blackbaud application and the external site's page/SPA.


    An alternate solution you might consider is to leverage the "Development Office Home Page Action" extension point, which allows you to inject a custom button onto the Home page within NXT (the button will be rendered as a new task within the Tasks tile):
    https://developer.blackbaud.com/skyapi/docs/addins/concepts/extension-points#home-page


    So while you can't currently inject a menu item into the Blackbaud application menu/navigation, you can inject a link to your site onto the Home page.  Your Home page add-in could simply navigate the parent application to your site (using the `addinClient.navigate()` method).  


    Another option you might consider is, rather than navigate the browser you can launch a full-screen modal from your Home page add-in.  This would somewhat mimic the user experience of navigating to another page, but would still keep the user within the Blackbaud application.


    That said, I'd definitely be interested in any thoughts/feedback for future enhancements we could make to provide some extensibility in this area.

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