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. Uploading a logo opens a crop and zoom step so it sits right in the sidebar and on documents. PNG, JPG, GIF and WEBP up to 5 MB. The file is checked by its actual contents, so renaming something won't get it through.
• 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 (for example, disable Recruiting if you don't hire externally through Sparko).
• AI. Master switch for AI features plus per-module AI toggles (Recruiting AI, Performance AI, and so on). 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, which is useful when a manager is out of office. 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.

Integrations (/admin/settings/integrations)

One page for everything Sparko connects to. Five tabs:

• Apps. The directory. One card per connection (Slack, Microsoft Teams, Public API, Webhooks) with its current state, and a jump to its tab.
• Slack. Post Sparko notifications to Slack channels.
• Teams. Send Adaptive Card notifications to Microsoft Teams.
• API Keys. Read-only keys for the Sparko public API. Needs admin.api_keys.view.
• Webhooks. Signed event notifications to your endpoints. Needs admin.webhooks.view.

The API Keys and Webhooks tabs only appear if you hold their permission. The old /admin/settings/api-keys and /admin/settings/webhooks links still work and land on the right tab.

---

Module Settings

Each module has its own admin page that surfaces only the company-level policy for that module. Module-internal config (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, plus a link to the in-module page where you assign calendars to employees.
• Onboarding Settings. Default onboarding workflow (auto-create plan on hire, buddy assignment, default plan length).
• Onboarding Templates. The reusable plan template library. See below.

Career (/admin/settings/career)

• Structure. The level vocabulary for each ladder, the job families those ladders belong to, and the map from each job title to a family, track and rung. Every edit here is reviewed before it is written: you get the list of changes, what each one touches (job titles, people, bands, competency cells) and the reason any change cannot run, and nothing is saved until you choose Apply.
• 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.

The level vocabulary

Structure opens on three ladders, one per track. Sparko starts you with L1 to L5 on the individual contributor ladder, M1 to M4 on the manager ladder, and nine rungs on the Leadership ladder (Head, Senior Head, Associate Director, Director, Senior Director, Associate VP, VP, Senior VP, CxO). They are starting points: rename any rung and every career path that uses it is renamed with it.

• Add level appends to the end of a ladder. A level cannot be inserted in the middle, because a rung's position is its identity and inserting one would renumber everyone above it. Moving someone between levels is a redesignation, not a reorder, which is why Structure offers no drag-to-reorder.
• Remove is offered on any rung, and refused with a count when anyone or anything still sits on it. The review screen tells you what is in the way before you commit.

Job families

A job family is the discipline a ladder belongs to, and it is what a salary band is priced against. Each row carries a Manager track switch: turn it on and the family can carry manager-track titles as well as individual contributor ones. Whether a family is a leadership family is shown when you open it, and is not a switch.

Action	What it does
Add family	Creates a new family.
Rename	Renames it everywhere at once: titles, ladders and bands follow.
Merge	Folds another family into this one. Its job titles, ladders and bands move across, and the family you folded in is retired rather than deleted. If the merge had to put a retired rung of this family back in use, Sparko tells you which.
Split	Moves the job titles you tick into a brand new family. Everything you did not tick stays where it is. Only titles already mapped to the family are offered, so a typed name cannot silently move nothing.

Job titles

The Job titles block is the map from the titles your people actually hold to a family, track and rung. Each row shows the family, the track, the level, where the mapping came from (HR, Setup, Auto or Backfill), its confidence where one was recorded, and how many people hold that title today.

The block opens on Unmapped whenever any title has no real family, because that is the work to do; All shows everything. Change family moves a title: pick the new family, and if the title's track is not one that family accepts you are asked to pick a track it does. The level is cleared when a title moves, because the old level belonged to the old family's ladder, and the new family's rung is set the next time someone is assigned.

Recent changes and Undo

At the bottom of Structure, Recent changes lists the changes that have been applied, newest first: when, who made it, what it did, and whether it is still in place. 20 at a time, with Show more for older ones. Changes made by the AI assistant appear here too, credited to the person who approved them.

A change shows an Undo button when it can still be reversed. Choosing it shows what will be put back and asks you to confirm. If a later change stands on the one you are undoing, Sparko names that later change and asks you to undo it first, rather than leaving your structure half-reversed. A change that has already been undone keeps its row, marked Undone, and the change that undid it is listed in its own right.

Job families, the job title map, Recent changes and Undo need the Manage Career Framework permission. Renaming, adding and removing levels needs Manage Career Config. Reading the job title map needs View Career Config. The whole Structure section needs Growth or above.

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 will 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.
• Team highlights per manager review. 3, 5 or 7. How many of their reports' achievements a manager may carry into their own self-review. Ranked by impact; the manager can re-order.
• 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)

• Structure. Where bands are priced, the currency they convert to, and the rates that do it. See below.
• Equity & Transparency. Equity enabled toggle, pay transparency tier (Off / Band only / Full range / Exact position).
• Approval Policy. N-levels approval chain config (1 to 5 levels).
• Vesting Templates. Library of vesting schedules (4 years with a 1 year cliff, and the like).
• Comp Approval Policies. Per-change approval chain definitions.
• Manager visibility delay. Days a newly hired manager must wait before seeing their team's compensation (0 means off). Covers every team-comp surface: salary bands, the Compensation Hub, team compensation views, the merit worksheet, outcome letters, and Total Rewards. HR Admin always sees full comp regardless of the delay.

Structure: band geography, base currency and FX rates

Band geography decides the grain every salary band is priced at. There are two choices, and the section tells you how many office locations you have before you pick:

• Per office location. One band per level and office. A location with no band of its own falls back to the company-wide band for that level.
• Company-wide. One band per level for everyone, wherever they sit.

Going company-wide is refused while any level still carries more than one live band, because Sparko will not pick a winner for you. The refusal counts the levels, names the first few, and asks you to merge each down to one band first.

Base currency is the currency every rate is quoted against, and the one the matrix converts into when you pick a display currency. Only a currency that already has a rate can become the base, so add the rate first.

Policy FX rates is your own rate table, not a live market feed. Each row is a currency, its rate to your base currency, and the date it takes effect. Add rate adds one, and Retire removes one. Sparko refuses to remove the last rate for your base currency, since every conversion reads it. With no rates at all, bands simply stay in their own currency and the matrix shows local figures.

Structure is part of the salary bands feature, so it is Business and above. On Core and Growth the section shows a locked card in place of the controls. Where it is available, changing anything in it needs the Manage Admin Settings permission, and reading it needs View Admin Settings.

Recruiting (/admin/settings/recruiting)

One page, five tabs along the top. The tab is mirrored in the URL (?tab=jobs), and the old standalone URLs redirect here.

• 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, and the interview pipeline template library (create and edit in a modal).
• Offers. Offer approval chains and the offer letter document template.
• Email Templates. Candidate emails, the transactional emails, with per-tenant overrides.
• Careers Page. The full public careers page builder.

Onboarding (/admin/settings/people/onboarding-templates)

The onboarding template library. /admin/settings/onboarding redirects here.

• Search and category filters (Engineering / Sales / Leadership / Other) with counts.
• One card per template: category, description, task count, group count, day span, how many times it has been used, and when it was last edited.
• Use. Creates a live plan for a named hire from a start date, then opens the plan editor.
• Edit. Opens the template in the plan editor.
• Kebab menu: Rename, Duplicate, Delete. Deleting a template does not affect plans already created from it.
• Import from plan. Copies an existing plan's groups and tasks into a new reusable template.
• New template. Starts a blank one, then opens the plan editor to add its tasks.

Creating needs onboarding.plans.create; editing and using need onboarding.plans.edit.

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 then HR Admin / Manager then Skip-level / Custom (per-policy).
• Overrides & thresholds. Per-leave-type override toggle, auto-approve threshold in days (0 disables it).

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. Recognition posts are always visible company-wide; there is no per-company default to configure.
• 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, then the selected role's permissions, then the 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 such as department or role level.

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 and 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, and 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, so 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.