Your First Week as an Admin

Your First Week as an Admin

1. What it is

This article orients a new admin — someone who has just been given the admin or
super-admin role — to the platform’s administration surfaces. It covers where the
admin panel lives, what the first setup steps are, how the role system works, and
where every category of settings can be found.

• Enablement: there is nothing to enable. Every user with the admin or
  super-admin role sees the admin panel automatically.
• What this is not: this is not the setup guide for any individual app. Each
  app has its own overview article covering its configuration.

2. Standing it up

A new admin account is created by an existing admin or super-admin. There is no
self-registration path for the admin role.

1. An existing admin goes to Admin → Organization → Users and either creates
   a new user or opens an existing one.
2. On the user’s profile, set the Role to Admin or Super Admin. The four
   system roles are: Super Admin, Admin, Manager, and Member (the default for
   new users).
3. The user now sees a gear icon pinned to the bottom of the left sidebar
   rail. Clicking it opens the admin panel.
4. To confirm it worked: log in as the new admin and verify the gear icon
   appears. If it does not, the user’s role on their UserBusiness record is
   still Member or Manager.

What silently does nothing: assigning the admin role grants access to the
admin panel, but it does not automatically grant app-level admin permissions.
Per-app admin access (e.g. “Forms Admin” or “Training Admin”) is governed by
each app’s own permission settings and may need to be granted separately.

3. How it fits together

Roles

The platform has four system roles, defined on the user’s membership in each
business:

• Super Admin — full access to every admin surface, including security
  controls (Sessions & Tokens, Authentication Log, Maintenance & Lockdown) and
  super-admin-only areas like App Data Management.
• Admin — access to all admin sections except the super-admin-only items
  listed above. In practice, Admins and Super Admins have the same access on
  most surfaces.
• Manager — no access to the admin panel. A few admin pages are open to
  managers as well, but the admin sidebar does not render for them.
• Member — the default role for every new user. No admin access.

A business must always have at least one super-admin. The platform prevents
demoting or deactivating the last one.

The admin sidebar

When an admin clicks the gear icon, a sidebar panel opens with six collapsible
sections. Every section is available to Admins and Super Admins (super-admin-only
items are restricted further). The sections are:

1. General Settings — Billing & Payments, General Settings, Roles &
   Permissions, Groups, Notifications, Content Moderation, Content Governance,
   Translation, Approval Workflows, Audit Logs, Workforce Intelligence.
2. Organization — Settings Hub, Business Profile, Departments, Locations,
   Users, Job Titles & Families, Dashboard Builder, Engagement, Quick Action
   Shortcuts, QR Posters, Integrations, Bring Your Data.
3. Security — Sign-in Policies, SSO Configuration, Service Accounts, API
   Keys & Access. Super-admin-only: Sessions & Tokens, Authentication Log,
   Maintenance & Lockdown.
4. Apps — All Apps (the marketplace), Widget Gallery, Custom Apps, App
   Pipeline (conditional on plugin promotions), App Health.
5. AI Operations — Overview, Approvals, Action History, Automations (only
   when the Loop app is not enabled), Agents, Channels, Agent Settings,
   Trust & Safety.
6. Compliance — Work Policy Settings, Labor Law Rules, Employment Law
   Rules, Jurisdictions, Jurisdiction Mapping, Compliance Explorer, Compliance
   Audit Logs (Enterprise tier only), Employment Law Audit History.

A seventh section, SuperAdmin (or “Demo Data” for non-super-admins with
sample-data access), appears for super-admins and includes App Data Management,
Sample Data, and internal-QA-only tools.

Settings Hub

The Settings Hub (Admin → Organization → Settings Hub) is a searchable
index of every admin setting, organized by category. Each setting is listed
with a description, search keywords, and a direct link to the page it lives on.
Use it when you know what you want to change but not where it lives.

4. Running it

Setting up your business profile

1. Go to Admin → Organization → Business Profile.
2. Fill in your company name, timezone, address, industry, and company size.
3. Upload your logo at Admin → General Settings → Theme Settings. The
   logo and brand colors appear in the sidebar and throughout the platform.

Adding locations and departments

1. Go to Admin → Organization → Locations to create the physical sites
   where your team works. Locations are used by scheduling, attendance, and
   compliance.
2. Go to Admin → Organization → Departments to create your team structure.
   Departments group employees by function.

Inviting users

1. Go to Admin → Organization → Users to add users one at a time, or use
   the CSV import to add many at once.
2. New users are created with the Member role and an uninvited invitation
   status. Use Send Invite on each user (or in bulk) to email them a
   sign-in link.
3. For quick team invites, go to Admin → Team Invites to send email-based
   invite links.

Enabling apps

1. Go to Admin → Apps → All Apps to browse the app marketplace.
2. Click an app to see its detail page, then click Enable.
3. Licensed apps require a license grant before they can be enabled. If the
   Enable button shows a license error, the message names which bundle
   includes the app — contact your account manager.
4. After enabling an app, open its settings page to configure it for your
   organization. Enabling an app makes it available; configuring it makes it
   useful.

Configuring notifications

Go to Admin → General Settings → Notifications to review and adjust how
the platform sends push, email, and SMS notifications. Each app’s notification
categories can be enabled or disabled here.

5. Settings

These are the first settings a new admin should review. Each links to a deeper
configuration surface.

Setting	Where	Default	What it changes
Business timezone	Admin → Organization → Business Profile	None (must be set)	Governs schedule display, time calculations, and report dates across the platform
Logo and brand colors	Admin → General Settings → Theme Settings	Platform defaults	Sidebar branding, login page, and email headers
New-user default role	Admin → Organization → Users (on create)	Member	The system role assigned when a user is added
Sign-in policies	Admin → Security → Sign-in Policies	Platform defaults	Password requirements, session timeout, and lockout rules
SSO configuration	Admin → Security → SSO Configuration	Disabled	SAML/OAuth single sign-on for the business
Global notifications	Admin → General Settings → Notifications	Per-category defaults	Which notification channels (push, email, SMS) are active for each app

6. More help

• Settings Hub — search all admin settings from one page at Admin → Organization → Settings Hub
• Each app has its own Overview and FAQ article covering setup and operations
• Ask AI — the assistant answers platform questions from these articles