Creating Your Workspace

This guide walks you through starting a Sparko free trial and creating your company's workspace.

Before You Start

• Use your work email address. Your email's domain identifies your company: one company domain maps to exactly one Sparko workspace.
• Every trial includes all modules for 14 days, with no credit card required.

Step 1: Sign Up

1. Go to app.sparko.app/signup
2. Enter your work email and company name
3. Pick your workspace URL — this becomes your team's sign-in address (for example, acme.sparko.app). Sparko suggests one from your company name and tells you immediately if it's available.
4. Enter your country — this sets your workspace's timezone, public-holiday calendar, and leave defaults
5. Click Create my workspace

Step 2: Confirm Your Email

We send a confirmation link to your address. Click it, then click Create my workspace on the page that opens. The link is valid for 24 hours — if it expires, just sign up again with the same details.

Step 3: Set Your Password

Once your workspace is created, you'll set your password right away and land in guided setup, which walks you through seven short steps:

1. Basics — your company details are prefilled from signup; just confirm your country (it drives holidays, leave defaults, and your work week)
2. Import your team — upload a spreadsheet, or connect your current HRIS (BambooHR, SAP SuccessFactors, or Workday) with its URL and an API key and Sparko reads your directory. Either way, a review window shows every row before anyone is staged — edit cells, remove rows, then confirm. The API key is used once and never stored
3. Modules — enable the modules you need; everything can be flipped later
4. Leave, holidays & hours — Sparko proposes global defaults (annual leave, a separate sick-leave policy, holiday calendars, work week) plus a per-country override you can adjust for each country your team works in. Approve each block (or edit first); overrides apply only to people working in that country. Nothing you don't approve is created
5. Growth & culture — proposals built from your import: career paths clustered from your job titles (untick any you don't want), salary bands per level and country, a 30/60/90 onboarding task library, a pulse-survey cadence with a first draft survey, an interview pipeline with offer approvals, plus an optional first review cycle and starter company OKRs
6. AI & Privacy — turn the AI assistant on or off and choose your pay-transparency level
7. Confirm & launch — full-width sections listing exactly what will be created, nothing more

Imported teammates are staged, not emailed — you send invitations from Admin Settings → People when you're ready. You can re-open guided setup any time from Admin Settings → Company; re-runs only add, they never replace what you've already configured.

If Your Company Already Uses Sparko

If your email's domain already has a Sparko workspace, you won't be able to create a second one. Instead, after confirming your email you'll be offered two options:

• Ask a colleague — any administrator of your company's workspace can invite you directly
• Send a join request — we'll notify your workspace's administrators; they'll email you an invitation if approved

Troubleshooting

Problem	What to do
Confirmation email didn't arrive	Check your spam folder, then sign up again — a new link replaces the old one
"This workspace URL is already taken"	Pick one of the suggested alternatives or enter a different one
"This email already has a Sparko account"	Log in instead — use your workspace's sign-in address
Confirmation link expired	Sign up again with the same details

What Happens After Your Trial

Your trial lasts 14 days. When it ends, your workspace becomes read-only. Nothing is deleted and your data stays safe.

The next time anyone signs in, a message explains that the workspace is locked. What it offers depends on who is signing in:

• Admins get Choose a plan, which opens Billing. Picking a plan unlocks everything straight away.
• Everyone else is told to ask an admin to subscribe. Only an admin can pick a plan.

Both see Browse in read-only mode. That hides the message so you can look around, read records and check numbers before deciding. An amber notice stays at the top of every page while the workspace is locked, and anything that would save a change is blocked until a plan is active. The message comes back the next time you sign in.

Nothing expires while you are locked. Subscribe whenever you are ready and you pick up exactly where you left off.

Moving to a Smaller Plan

Plans include different numbers of custom fields and paying entities. If you move to a plan that includes fewer than you currently use, Sparko asks you to choose what stays active before you carry on.

You will see a short two-step chooser, one step per area you are over:

1. Custom fields — tick the fields to keep. Each row shows the field type and how many profiles use it, so you can see what you would lose.
2. Paying entities — tick the entities to keep. Each row shows the country, currency and how many employees are assigned. If an entity you are dropping still has employees on it, you are warned how many need reassigning before the next payroll run.

Once you have ticked your plan's limit, the remaining boxes lock so you cannot pick too many.

Nothing is deleted. Unticked items are deactivated. Saved values stay on every profile, and employee assignments stay attached. If you later move back to a bigger plan, or free up a slot, you can reactivate anything you deactivated from the same admin page you created it on.