Mastering Navigation and Shortcuts in Puzzle

Navigating and building processes in Puzzle is faster and smoother when you know the navigation sidebar, folders, keyboard shortcuts, and global search.

Whether you’re a beginner exploring Puzzle for the first time or an advanced user optimizing your workflow, these shortcuts and tools will significantly improve your experience. Mastering navigation and key commands allows you to build, edit, and manage workflows effortlessly, helping you work more efficiently and collaborate seamlessly with your team.

This guide walks you through Puzzle’s sidebar, folders, Command-K global search, essential shortcuts, and best practices to streamline how you work.

Benefits of Using Puzzle’s Navigation Features

🚀 Increased Efficiency: Shortcuts and sidebar toggles save time by reducing the number of clicks needed for everyday actions.

🤝 Enhanced Collaboration: Easy access to comments, multi-select, and global search makes team collaboration quicker and more intuitive.

⚙️ Streamlined Process Management: Sidebar, folders, and shortcuts enable faster, more organized editing — whether adding new steps, creating sections, or transferring workflows between workspaces.

🎯 Consistency in Workflow Design: Using sidebar organization and shortcuts ensures uniformity in process structures, valuable for onboarding new team members and maintaining standards across projects.

How To Navigate Puzzle

🖱️ Mouse, Trackpad & Keyboard Shortcuts

Puzzle offers several ways to move around and interact with your workspace, depending on your device.

Using a Mouse:

Click and drag to pan around the canvas
Scroll the wheel to zoom in and out

Using a Trackpad:

Two-finger swipe to pan
Pinch to zoom out, reverse pinch to zoom in

Keyboard Basics:

Hold SHIFT + Click for multi-select across canvases

Multi-Select for Bulk Actions

Hold SHIFT + Click on each object to include in your selection. Multi-select works across Puzzle canvases, allowing you to select multiple items such as steps, sections, tools, people cards, or roles.

When multiple items are selected, Puzzle displays a bulk action bar with available actions based on the object type:

Steps support Move, Duplicate, Edit, Clear Connectors, and Delete
Sections support Move, Duplicate, and Delete
People Cards support Clear Connectors, Bulk Edit Type, Bulk Edit Status, Bulk Associate Roles, Bulk Associate Tools, and Delete
Roles on the Teams Canvas support Clear Connectors, Bulk Associate People to Roles, and Delete
Tools support bulk deletion and bulk cost updates via MCP

Bulk changes prompt confirmation — Puzzle displays a confirmation modal when performing multi-item actions such as bulk deleting selected steps, roles, people cards, or tools, helping prevent accidental changes.

Essential Keyboard Shortcuts

Action	Shortcut	Description
Navigation
Toggle Sidebar	Cmd + \ (Mac) / Ctrl + \ (Windows)	Expand or collapse the left sidebar
Global Search	Cmd + K (Mac) / Ctrl + K (Windows)	Search across workflows, teams, people, tools, Changelog, Assets
Workspace Management
Add New Step	N	Quickly add a new step to your process
Add New Section	S	Add a new section to structure workflows
Cancel Actions	ESC	Exit or cancel the current action
Editing
Open Comments Sidebar	C	Access the comments for team collaboration
Delete Selected Items	BKSP / Delete	Removes selected steps, roles, people, and tools across canvases
Multi-Select Items	SHIFT + Click	Select multiple items for bulk actions
Tag Tools, Roles, and Step Types	@ (inside step descriptions)	Opens a dropdown to tag essential tools, team members, or step types directly inside the step
Undo	⌘ + Z	Undo layout moves, step creation, or deletion
Redo	Shift + ⌘ + Z	Redo an undone action
View Control
Pan Around Canvas	Click + Drag	Left click on the canvas to pan
Zoom In	⌘ + Scroll Up	Zoom into the workspace
Zoom Out	⌘ + Scroll Down	Zoom out of the workspace
Open Template Gallery	T	Quickly open templates for new workflows

🧭 The Navigation Sidebar

Puzzle’s navigation lives in a collapsible navigation sidebar that houses everything you need to move through your workspace — Workflows, Teams, People, Tools, Changelog, Share, settings, and more.

🎯 How to open and collapse the sidebar:

Press Cmd + \ (Mac) or Ctrl + \ (Windows) to expand or collapse
Or click the navigation sidebar toggle icon at the top-left of your workspace

🗂️ What’s inside the sidebar:

Main sections (top):

🗺️ Workflows — Open your workflow canvases
👥 Teams — Open your Teams canvas
🙋 People — Open your People canvas
🛠️ Tools — Open your Tools canvas

Bottom icons:

📝 Changelog — Open your decision log
🔗 Share — Create or manage Shared Views
🌙 Dark Mode — Toggle light/dark mode
⚙️ Settings — Workspace and organization settings
👤 Profile — Your account view

🔀 Switch between workspaces from the top of the sidebar.

➕ Plus button: Click to open the Create New option — quickly create new Workflow tabs, Teams tabs, People tabs, Tools tabs.

💡 Hover over any main section (Workflows, Teams, People, Tools) to add a new tab or create a folder within that section.

📂 Folders: Organize Multiple Tabs

Folders let you group related tabs together within any canvas — great for larger workspaces where you have multiple tabs per canvas (e.g., Sales, Marketing, Operations folders within Workflows).

🎯 Create a folder:

Hover over Workflows, Teams, People, or Tools in the sidebar
Click ➕ Add folder
Name the folder (e.g., “Sales Processes,” “Executive Team,” “Marketing Stack”)
Drag any tab into the folder to organize

✏️ Rename a folder:

Hover over the folder and click Rename
Enter the new name and save

🗑️ Delete a folder:

Hover over the folder and click Delete
Confirm in the modal

💡 Why folders help: For workspaces with many tabs per canvas (e.g., 10+ Workflow tabs), folders keep related processes grouped so your sidebar stays scannable.

⌨️ Command-K: Global Search

Find anything in your workspace in seconds with Command (⌘)-K.

🎯 How to use it:

Press Cmd + K (Mac) or Ctrl + K (Windows) anywhere in Puzzle
Type what you’re looking for
Hit Enter to jump directly to the result

🔍 What you can search:

Workflows (tabs, sections, steps)
Teams and roles
People and tool associations
Tools and tool groups
Changelog entries
Assets

💡 Faster than clicking through tabs: Command-K is the fastest way to find a specific step, section, person, tool, Asset, or Changelog entry in a large workspace.

⏪ Undo & Redo

Puzzle’s Undo and Redo features help you confidently manage structural and layout edits in your workflow canvas — from moving steps to reversing accidental deletions.

🔄 Keyboard Shortcuts:

Undo: ⌘ + Z (Mac) or Ctrl + Z (Windows)
Redo: ⇧ + ⌘ + Z (Mac) or ⇧ + Ctrl + Z (Windows)

🖱️ On-Screen Controls:

Located in the bottom toolbar, near the Zoom controls
Buttons become active only when there’s an action to undo or redo

🧠 Supported Actions:

Moving steps or sections within the canvas
Creating or deleting steps (single steps only)
Repositioning elements for layout clarity

📌 Important Notes:

Limit: Supports a limited number of undo/redo actions per session (verify with Brian for current limit)
Scope: Applies only to structural layout changes such as moving steps or sections, or creating and deleting single steps. It does not cover changes to step notes, roles, or tools
Session Reset: The undo/redo history clears when the page is refreshed

🌙 Dark Mode

Reduce eye strain and match your working environment by switching Puzzle to dark mode. The setting applies across your workspace and organization views.

🎯 How to toggle dark mode:

Look for the 🌙 moon icon at the bottom of the navigation sidebar
Click the moon icon to switch to dark mode
Click again (the icon becomes a ☀️ sun) to switch back to light mode

🖥️ What dark mode covers:

Workflow, Teams, People, and Tools canvases
Sidebars, modals, and Nova chat
Organization and workspace views

💡 Available anywhere in Puzzle. The toggle stays visible in the navigation sidebar so you can switch themes on the fly.

Video Guide

🔗 Related Guides

Mastering Tabs in Puzzle — Organize workflows with tabs and manage tab permissions (Enterprise)
Workflows: View & Edit Your Process Diagrams — Includes the new Default Connector Style setting in Workflow Settings
Structuring the People Canvas — Bulk actions on the People Canvas
Designing Teams: Plan and Organize Roles — Bulk actions on the Teams Canvas

If you have additional feature requests, feel free to submit them on our Feature Request Board.

Conclusion

Puzzle’s sidebar, folders, Command-K search, and keyboard shortcuts work together to help you navigate even the largest workspaces with ease. Expand only what you need, search anything in seconds, and group tabs the way your team actually works.

Start exploring the canvas, open the sidebar, create your first folder, and press Cmd + K to see how fast navigation can be!