M365 Changelog: Rollout continues for structural navigation caching for optimized page performance

MC227859 – We’re continuing to optimize page performance for publishing-enabled SharePoint sites that use structural navigation with a caching model as outlined in MC194438 (October 2019) and MC207740 (March 2020).

When this will happen

• We gradually began rolling this out to customers in late March 2020.
• We expect the rollout to be complete by the end of March 2021.

How this will affect your organization

When this rolls out to your tenant, site owners on your publishing-enabled SharePoint sites will see a new option to control the caching of navigation items. End users will experience faster page performance when structural navigation caching is enabled.

When structural navigation caching is enabled, the navigation items will automatically refresh daily when there are changes. If needed, site owners can manually refresh navigation items within their settings.

What you need to do to prepare

Structural navigation caching will be on by default. Disabling this new default site setting will have a negative impact on page performance. You might want to update your SharePoint site owner training and documentation.

Should your SharePoint site owners need to refresh the cache or disable caching:

1. From site Settings, select Site information, View all site settings.
2. Under the Look and Feel heading, select Navigation.
3. Scroll to the Structural Navigation: Caching section, and select the appropriate option.

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Learn more: Structural navigation and performance