What is workspace admin?

Settings is the admin half of Tideswell. It decides who is in the workspace and what each person can do, how teams are arranged, which parts of the product are switched on, and what is connected. Open it from Settings at the foot of the menu.

At Fairgreen Golf Co., Priya Raman is the admin. She invited the team, switched on the parts of Tideswell the brand uses, and chose who may approve a purchase order to Portside Mills.

Who can open Settings?

Admins only. Settings appears at the foot of the menu for an admin and for nobody else. Anyone else who follows a link to a Settings page gets a not-found page rather than a locked door.

To let somebody work in Settings, make them an admin on Settings › Members, covered in How to add people and set roles. A row on Settings › Permissions does not open Settings to anyone.

Why does it exist?

Because every workspace runs differently, and the defaults only fit most of them. Left alone, purchase order stages keep Tideswell's names rather than yours, and every lead can approve spending.

Settings is where those choices are made once, for everybody, so nobody has to work around them day to day.

What is in the Settings menu?

The menu runs, in order: Org, Company details, Departments, Sub-task types, Objects, Terminology, Stages, Outreach types, Bill reasons, QuickBooks, Custom fields, Modules, Forecasting, Receiving, Members, Permissions, Integrations and Audit log. Forecasting shows only while the Forecasting module is on.

They fall into six groups.

• People and access: Members and Permissions. See How to add people and set roles and How to set who can do what.
• How the work is arranged: Departments, Sub-task types and Outreach types. See How to set up departments, How to set up the kinds of work your team does and How to set up your kinds of outreach.
• Records and the words for them: Objects, Terminology, Stages and Custom fields. See What is an Object?, How to use your own words for Tideswell's records, How to set up the stages a record moves through and How to add your own field to a supplier.
• Which parts of Tideswell are on: Modules and Forecasting. See How to switch parts of Tideswell on and off and How to read demand and set your forecast.
• Buying and money: Company details, Bill reasons, QuickBooks and Receiving. See How to set the company details your invoices show, How to check, record and pay supplier bills and How to receive a delivery.
• The workspace itself: 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?

Work through these in order, because each one makes the next easier.

1. Departments, because a lead's extra rights on a task or project apply only in the department it belongs to. Get these right and most other things follow.
2. Modules, so people see the parts of the product you use rather than all of it.
3. Members, inviting people straight into the departments they belong to.
4. Company details, before you send your first wholesale invoice.
5. 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, with lead between the other two.

Lead is not a role you pick. Somebody becomes a lead by having the Lead switch turned on for a department on Settings › Members.

Department scope is the part that surprises people. Dana 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 in full, and it is the page to send anybody who asks why they cannot do something.

What does switching a module off do?

It takes that part of Tideswell out of the menu for everybody and stops the background work that belongs to it. Nothing inside it is deleted, and switching it back on brings everything back.

Before you switch one off, read the dialog that lists what stops. See How to switch parts of Tideswell on and off.

When should you use Account settings instead?

Use Account settings in the user menu for anything that is about you rather than the workspace: your email address, your notifications, your out of office cover and your time zone. It is covered in What is on your account page?.

Is there a record of changes?

Yes. The Audit log records consequential actions in the workspace with who did each one and when. Entries are never edited or removed.

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

Where to go next

Start with How to set up departments, because it shapes everything else, even though Members feels more urgent. Then read How to switch parts of Tideswell on and off, How to add people and set roles and How to set the company details your invoices show.

Come back to How to set who can do what when somebody can do too much or too little.