Admin Settings Overview

One-stop tour of every Admin Settings surface in Sparko.

Sparko's admin settings are split into 12 pages, grouped into three sections you'll see in the left sidebar when you enter admin mode. This guide walks through what each page controls and where to find it.

Entering Admin Mode

When you click your profile in the sidebar (bottom-left), the dropdown menu includes an Admin Settings option (visible only if you have admin permissions). Clicking it navigates to /admin/settings/company and swaps the sidebar to admin mode — the left rail now shows only admin pages, with an ← Exit link at the top to return to the main app.

The admin sidebar is grouped into three sections:

Section What lives here
General Company Settings (name, logo, locale, MFA enforcement, password policy)
Module Settings One page per HRIS module: People · Career · Performance · Compensation · Recruiting · Onboarding · Time & Leave · Engagement
Security & Compliance Roles & Access · Audit Logs · Data Requests

General

Company Settings (/admin/settings/company)

Five tabs in one page:

  • General — Company name, logo, size, timezone.
  • Privacy & Security — Authentication (MFA enforcement, password policy, session timeout), Data Protection (retention policy, privacy & terms URLs), and Employee Data Visibility (equity toggle, pay transparency tier).
  • Modules — Per-module enable/disable. Use this to hide a module from your sidebar if you're not using it (e.g., disable Recruiting if you don't hire externally through Sparko).
  • AI — Master switch for AI features + per-module AI toggles (Recruiting AI, Performance AI, etc.). Toggling the master off hides ALL AI features regardless of per-module state.
  • Approvals — Skip-level approval delegation. When on, a senior manager can approve requests (PTO, comp changes) on behalf of any manager in their reporting chain — useful when a manager is OOO. The audit log records both the approver and the bypassed manager.

Save behavior: The "Save changes" button at the bottom of the page only sends fields you actually changed. The dot indicator turns amber when you have unsaved changes.

Module Settings

Each module has its own admin page that surfaces only the company-level policy for that module. Module-internal config (e.g., individual PTO policies, individual review cycles) lives inside the module, not here.

People (/admin/settings/people)

  • Field visibility — Four DEI toggles (ethnicity, gender, veteran status, disability status). Today these save but the backend filter isn't fully wired yet (see roadmap R3); a callout on the page makes this transparent.
  • Holiday calendars — Enable holiday calendars + link to the in-module page where you assign calendars to employees.

Career (/admin/settings/career)

  • Employee report visibility — Three toggles controlling what each employee sees on their own career intelligence report: readiness score, time-to-ready estimate, AI narrative.
  • Skill graph automation — Auto-build skill graph when a new hire is created.

Note: Career Settings exposes only the 4 columns that are actively consumed in code. The other 7 columns on the underlying CompanyCareerConfig table aren't wired yet — they'll appear here when their consumers ship.

Performance (/admin/settings/performance) — SLIM

  • Manage Cycles deep-link — Per-cycle cadence and templates live in the Performance module, not here. Click "Open" to jump there.
  • Cycle automation — Auto-create next cycle toggle.
  • Calibration — Enable toggle, 9-box vs 4-box grid type, AI suggestions toggle.
  • Compensation integration — Whether comp changes are in-scope by default for new cycles.

Compensation (/admin/settings/compensation)

  • Equity & Transparency — Equity enabled toggle, pay transparency tier (Off / Band only / Full range / Exact position).
  • Approval Policy — N-levels approval chain config (1–5 levels).
  • Vesting Templates — Library of vesting schedules (4y/1y cliff, etc.).
  • Comp Approval Policies — Per-change approval chain definitions.

Recruiting (/admin/settings/recruiting)

Four sub-tabs along the top:

  • General — AI candidate-screening toggle (gated by the AI master switch), interview-duration and candidate-retention defaults, and short-code job URLs.
  • Jobs — Job posting approval, offer approval chains, and the interview pipeline template library (create/edit in a modal).
  • Templates — Candidate emails (the transactional emails, with per-tenant overrides) and the offer letter document template.
  • Careers Page — Public careers page builder, including the editable value cards shown on the portal.

Onboarding (/admin/settings/onboarding)

  • New-hire workflow — Auto-create plan on hire, buddy assignment, default plan length.
  • Plan templates — Placeholder card-grid (full editor coming in roadmap R8).

Time & Leave (/admin/settings/time-leave) — SLIM

PTO policies and leave types are configured in the Time & Leave module, NOT here. This page is approval workflow defaults only:

  • Default approval chain — 4-card picker: Manager only / Manager → HR Admin / Manager → Skip-level / Custom (per-policy).
  • Overrides & thresholds — Per-leave-type override toggle, auto-approve threshold in days (0 = disabled).

Engagement (/admin/settings/engagement) — SLIM

Pulse cadence and templates live in the Engagement module. This page is company-wide admin policy:

  • Pulse surveys — Master enable, opt-out allowed.
  • Recognition — AI suggestions toggle, default visibility (Public / Department / Manager-only).
  • Announcements — Default channel, audience scope, require-approval toggle.

Security & Compliance

Roles & Access (/admin/settings/roles)

The RBAC Studio. Three tabs:

  • Studio — 3-column master-detail-detail view: roles list → selected role's permissions → employees assigned to that role.
  • Employee Assignments — Overview by role with bulk-assign actions.
  • Assignment Rules — Visual when/then rule cards for auto-assigning roles based on employee attributes (department, role level, etc.).

Separate guide: see roles-and-permissions.md in this folder for the full RBAC model walkthrough.

Audit Logs (/admin/audit-logs) and Data Requests (/admin/data-requests)

Combined page with two inner tabs:

  • Audit Logs — RBAC audit trail (role assignments, permission grants/revokes). Filter by entity type or action.
  • Data Requests — GDPR/CCPA data subject requests in a 3-column kanban (Pending / In Progress / Completed).

Both URLs render the same component — the URL determines which tab is active.

Sidebar Preferences

The profile dropdown menu (click your avatar bottom-left) includes two per-user preferences:

  • Sidebar grouping (the layout-grid icon) — Toggle between section labels (default) and a flat list with dividers only. Per-user. Doesn't affect what other users see.
  • Theme — Three-button segmented control: ☀ Light / ◐ Auto (follow OS) / ☾ Dark. Auto means your sidebar adapts to your OS-level dark mode preference; explicit Light or Dark overrides the OS.

Both preferences are saved to your account, not just your browser — they follow you when you sign in on a different device.

What's NOT in Admin Settings

The following surfaces are NOT admin settings even though they sound like they should be:

Surface Where it actually lives Why
Individual PTO policies Time & Leave module → Manage Policies Per-policy editing is module-internal; admin only sets defaults.
Individual review cycles Performance module → Review Cycle Management Per-cycle config (cadence, template, scope) is module-internal.
Individual pulse surveys Admin Settings → Engagement → Pulse Cadence Recurring pulse cadence + question set, admin-configured.
Onboarding plans Onboarding module → Plans Plans are per-hire instances; admin only sets default length + auto-create.
Specific candidates / interviews Recruiting module Per-candidate data is module-internal.

This separation is intentional: admin settings = company-wide policy that applies to every instance; the modules own the instance-level data.

Still need help? Reach us at support@sparko.app.

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