What is workspace admin?

Settings is the admin half of Tideswell: who is in the workspace, what they can do, how teams are arranged, which parts of the product are switched on, and what is connected.

It is reached from the sidebar footer, and the whole section is admin-only. A member does not see a locked door; the section behaves as though it is not there.

What is in it?

The menu, in order: Org, Departments, Sub-task types, Objects, Stages, Modules, Members, Permissions, Integrations and Audit log.

They fall into four groups.

• People: Members and Permissions. See How to add people and set roles.
• Shape of the work: Departments and Sub-task types. See How to set up departments.
• Shape of the product: Modules, Objects and Stages. See How to switch parts of Tideswell on and off and What is an Object?.
• Everything else: Org, Integrations and the Audit log. See How to manage integrations, your workspace name and the audit log.

What should a new workspace do first?

In this order, because each one makes the next easier.

1. Departments, because nearly every permission in Tideswell is checked against a task's department rather than the workspace. Get these right and most other things follow.
2. Modules, so people see the parts of the product you actually use rather than all of it.
3. Members, inviting people directly into the departments they belong to.
4. Permissions, only once something turns out to be wrong. The defaults are sensible.

What is the one idea to understand?

Three ranks, and department scope.

The ranks are member, lead and admin. A lead is not a role you pick: somebody becomes a lead by having the Lead switch turned on for a department, and lead sits between member and admin.

Department scope is the part that surprises people. The same person can be a lead in Marketing and a plain member in Warehouse, so a control that is live on one task is read-only on the next.

How to work out who can do what in your workspace explains it properly, and it is the page to send anybody who asks why they cannot do something.

What does switching a module off actually do?

Removes it from the sidebar and makes its pages genuinely unreachable, including from an old bookmark. Nothing inside it is deleted.

That is worth knowing before you switch something off in a busy workspace. See How to switch parts of Tideswell on and off.

Is there a record of changes?

Yes. The Audit log records every consequential action in the workspace with who did it and when, and it is read-only: entries are never edited or removed.

It is the answer to "who changed this setting", and it is covered in How to manage integrations, your workspace name and the audit log.

Where to go next

How to set up departments is the one that shapes everything else, so start there even though Members feels more urgent.