Understand the workspace sidebar and app rail

The left rail is your main map

The left app rail (the sidebar) is how you get almost everywhere in the workspace. It's always on screen, and it's organized into a few clear groups so related tools sit together. Learning its shape once means you'll never hunt for an app again.

The three groups

From top to bottom, the rail has:

1. Workspace — the two navigation home pages:
- Dashboard — your control room (the workspace root).
- My Apps — the full app catalog and launcher.
2. The category groups — six expandable categories, each holding the apps that belong to it:
- Operations — CRM, Books, Tasks, Schedule, Calendar, Meet, Projects, Wire, Automate.
- Content & Creative — Docs, Sheets, Pages, Design, Forms, Drive.
- Commerce & Growth — Shop, Social, Analytics, SEM, Brand monitoring.
- Comms & Legal — Mail, Contracts, Support.
- Platform & AI — Code, Dev, GPT, Search, Learn, Vault.
- Brand & Domains — White Label, Domains, StretchWP.
3. Account — Services, Billing, and your Account profile.

Expanding and collapsing categories

Each category is a collapsible section. Select a category's name (for example Operations) to expand it and reveal the apps inside; select it again to collapse it. A small chevron on the right shows whether a group is open.

The rail is smart about this: whichever category you're currently working in opens automatically, and the app you're in is highlighted so you can always see where you are. Selecting a category name also takes you to that category's overview page (see Use the app categories and category pages).

Reading the active state

The app or page you're viewing is shown with a highlighted (active) style in the rail. If you navigate into a sub-page of an app, the parent app stays highlighted so the rail keeps your place. This is the quickest way to answer "where am I?" at a glance.

At the very bottom of the rail you'll find:

Your signed-in email address.
A switch-workspace icon (a circular-arrows/refresh icon) that opens the Select a workspace screen — useful if you belong to more than one organization.
A sign-out icon.

The top bar

Above the content area, the top bar complements the rail:

A breadcrumb reading StretchSuite Workspace › your workspace name — confirms your active organization.
The theme toggle (light/dark).
A notifications bell.
Your account chip showing your initials, name, and role.

A quick example

You're in Payne Coaching and need to email a newsletter. You look at the left rail, expand Comms & Legal, and select StretchMail. The Comms & Legal group stays open and StretchMail is highlighted, so you always know where you are. When you finish, you expand Operations and jump to StretchTasks to mark the campaign task done. Later, to move to your other organization, you use the switch-workspace icon at the bottom of the rail.

Tips

Categories match everywhere. The same six categories appear on the Dashboard and in My Apps, so the rail's structure is the workspace's structure.
Let the rail auto-open. You rarely need to expand categories manually — navigating into an app opens its group for you.
The footer is for context and exit. Switch workspace and sign out both live there, away from the apps, so you won't hit them by accident.

Troubleshooting

"A category won't stay open." Categories collapse when you move to a different one — only the group you're working in stays expanded. This is by design to keep the rail tidy.

"I don't see an app I expected in its category." The rail shows apps for your workspace. If something is missing, open My Apps to see the full catalog and the app's status, and confirm you're in the right organization.

"The rail is highlighting the wrong app." The highlight follows the URL. If you used the browser Back button rapidly, refresh the page to resync the active state.