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The Sidebar is Disco’s persistent left-hand navigation that gives every member instant access to the core areas of your Academy, and gives admins powerful management tools within a single click.

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Overview

The Sidebar runs along the left side of every page in Disco. It organizes your Academy into dedicated views so members can move between the academy home, learning, events and chat without losing context. Admins see additional controls that are hidden from regular members. You can configure which items appear in the Sidebar through your Appearance settings.
  • Home
  • Learning
  • Events
  • Chat
  • Admin
Home is your Academy’s social hub. Selecting it opens the main academy feed, where members can browse posts, join discussions, and navigate to specific sections your team has set up. The Home view also includes a dropdown navigation that surfaces all the Sections and Apps you have built inside your Academy.
Learning takes members directly to their enrolled Programs and any available catalog. From this view, members can see their progress, pick up where they left off, and browse new Programs to join.
Chat opens direct messages and channel-based conversations. Members can start one-on-one conversations or participate in group channels set up by your team. Chat is designed to keep communication in context, alongside your community and learning content.
Events is a rolled up view of all events a member has access to. This acts as one focused view for events happening across the academy, individual programs, etc. It also hosts previous event recordings for handy access.
Admin is visible only to members with admin permissions. It surfaces the full suite of management tools, including member management, appearance settings, analytics, billing, and more. Admins can access everything they need to run the Academy without leaving the platform.
The global Add button appears in the Sidebar and gives admins a shortcut to create new content, start a post, or kick off other actions, depending on the context. It is designed to reduce the number of steps needed to add something new to your Academy.
Your profile avatar appears at the bottom of the Sidebar. Clicking it opens your profile settings, where you can update your name, photo, notification preferences, and account details.

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Configure Sidebar Visibility

Admins can control which items appear in the Sidebar for their members.
  1. From the Sidebar, select Admin.
  2. Navigate to Appearance.
  3. Select Sidebar.
  4. Toggle the items you want to show or hide.
Changes take effect immediately. Hidden items are removed from the Sidebar for all members but remain accessible to admins. If you accidentally hide an item, return to Admin > Appearance > Sidebar to re-enable it.
Disco recommends keeping the Sidebar focused on the items your members use most. If your Academy is learning-focused, you may not need to surface every item by default. Use the visibility controls to create a cleaner experience.

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What Admins See vs. Members

The Sidebar adapts based on the member’s role. Regular members see Community, Learning, Chat, Saved, and their Profile Avatar. Admins see the same items plus the Admin section. This keeps the experience clean for members while keeping management tools close at hand for your team.

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FAQ

No, the Sidebar items are fixed system views and cannot be extended with custom tabs. If you want to surface custom content, use the Community navigation instead. From the Community view, you can create new Sections and add Apps (such as a Collection or Content App) that members can access from the Community dropdown.
Yes. Go to Admin > Appearance > Sidebar to toggle individual items on or off. You can show or hide most of the default Sidebar items to match your Academy’s focus.
Go to Admin > Appearance > Sidebar and toggle the item back on. Changes apply immediately.
The Sidebar items use system labels by default. Check Admin > Appearance > Sidebar for any available label customization options for your Academy.
The Sidebar provides top-level views across your entire Academy: Home, Learning, Chat, Saved, and Admin. The Home navigation is a secondary level of navigation that lives inside the Home view and lets you organize content into Sections and Apps. Use the Sidebar for major destinations and the Home navigation for organizing content within those destinations.
All members see the same set of items, with the exception of Admin, which is only visible to users with admin permissions. Visibility settings you apply in Admin > Appearance > Sidebar affect all members.
The Sidebar order is set by Disco and cannot be rearranged manually at this time.