Product guide
How Alignment Suite works, end to end.
A walk through every part of the platform — from your first invitation to running the whole workspace. Read it top to bottom, or jump to what you need.
Some sections — chat, calendar, docs, Pulse — are modules your admin can switch on or off. If you don't see something described here, your admin hasn't enabled it.
01
Getting started
You join through a personal invitation — never a shared signup form and never a password sent by email.
Open your invitation
Your admin sends you a one-time, expiring invite link. Opening it lets you set your own password; credentials are never emailed. If the link has expired, ask your admin to reissue it.
Sign in at your workspace
Your organization lives at its own address — yourcompany.{domain}. That is where you log in every time; the main site is only for visitors.
Set up your profile
Add your details and pick a light or dark theme. Your theme choice follows you across every device you sign in on.
02
Your dashboard
The home screen is built from widgets — the panels you see are chosen for your role by your admin.
What you see
Widgets can include upcoming events, your own stats, your tasks, your team, and a company overview. Which ones appear depends on the role your admin assigned you.
Managers vs. everyone else
Leadership sees company-wide and team panels; an individual contributor sees their own work first. An admin can also override the layout for a specific person.
03
Org structure
The platform mirrors your real organization instead of forcing a fixed shape.
Sections, departments, teams
Your structure is built from nested units — sections contain departments, which contain teams — arranged to match how your organization actually works.
Programs
Any unit can be flagged as a program, which is how outside participants such as teachers or vendors are given a bounded space to work in.
The org chart
Everyone can see the org chart. Admins shape the whole structure in the Org builder.
04
People & roles
Your role decides what you can see and do. Everything is enforced on the server, not just hidden in the interface.
Admin & director
See and manage the whole company — every unit, person, and task.
Department head
Scoped to their own branch of the org: their unit and everything nested beneath it.
Employee
Sees their own tasks and their unit's work.
External
Outside participants see only what is personally theirs or belongs to their program — nothing else in the company.
05
Tasks & handoffs
Work is a task with one owner, a due date, and a clear status — never a message lost in a group chat.
One owner, one deadline
Every task has a single person responsible, a due date, and a status everyone can read at a glance.
Handoffs
When work moves between people or departments it moves as a handoff with a note, so the next person knows exactly what they are receiving.
Requests and nudges
You can raise a request for work to be done, and overdue tasks send automatic nudges so nothing quietly slips.
06
Calendar & content
Plan events and move content posts through a clear review flow. (Calendar is a module your admin can turn on or off.)
Events
Schedule events on the shared calendar so the whole workspace stays on the same timeline.
Content with review
Content posts move through defined states — draft, submitted, approved, or changes requested — with a preview of the media attached.
Media-lead approval
A designated media lead reviews submissions, approves them or sends them back, and everyone can leave comments along the way.
07
Messages
Direct and group chat for the quick back-and-forth that doesn't belong in a task. (A module your admin can enable.)
Chat
Message people directly inside the workspace instead of pulling conversations into outside apps.
Unread badges
Unread counts keep you aware of what needs a reply without living in your inbox all day.
08
Docs & files
Write together and share files, with access that follows your place in the org.
Live co-editing
Documents support real-time collaborative editing — several people can write in the same doc at once.
Files
Upload and share files where they belong. Who can download a file follows the same org-chain rules as the rest of the workspace, so access stays consistent.
09
Inbox & notifications
Everything that needs your attention lands in one place first, then optionally reaches you elsewhere.
The in-app inbox
Every assignment, handoff, deadline, and approval shows up in your in-app inbox — the single source of what needs you.
Push and email
On top of the inbox you can opt into web push and email, tuned to your own preferences. Nothing is ever sent by email that isn't already in your inbox.
10
Onboarding new hires
New people are guided through a packet before the rest of the workspace opens up.
The packet
A new hire receives an onboarding packet — details to confirm, documents to complete or upload, and a contract to review.
The stepper
The packet walks through step by step and is submitted once complete for review.
Locked until approved
Until the packet is approved, the workspace stays limited to Onboarding and Profile — the rest opens up the moment approval lands.
11
Approvals
When a packet is waiting on you, an Approvals page appears to handle it.
When it shows up
The Approvals page appears in your navigation only when something is actually waiting on your decision.
Approve or send back
Review the submission and either approve it or send it back for rework with your notes.
12
HR tools
Contracts and the people who manage them, with expiry handled before it becomes a problem.
Contracts with validity windows
Contracts carry a start and end, so the workspace always knows what is currently in force.
Expiry tracking and warnings
An expiry tracker surfaces contracts approaching their end, with staged warnings ahead of time.
HR designation
Specific people can be designated to handle HR, giving them the access that role needs.
13
Pulse
Flow analytics for leadership — see where work moves and where it stalls, without asking anyone for a report.
Where work flows
Pulse reads the stream of task activity to show how work moves across the organization over time.
Where it stalls
It highlights the places work is piling up or slowing down, so managers can act before a deadline is missed.
14
Workspace admin
The controls that make the workspace yours — branding, modules, and the people who run day-to-day operations.
Branding
Set your colors, font, and button color so the workspace looks like your organization.
Modules
Turn features like chat, calendar, docs, and Pulse on or off per workspace, and set the dashboard widget layout for each role.
Delegations
Hand specific responsibilities to specific people — capabilities for forms, employees, onboarding, and settings, plus data, office, HR, and media-lead roles.
Employee lifecycle
Edit names, and place someone under review by archiving them — a probation state with a private note and a banner only that person sees. Deactivating someone automatically reassigns their open tasks to the nearest active manager above them.
That's the whole platform.
Everything above lives in one private workspace for your organization.