What Employees See vs What Admins Control
Compares employee-facing recognition, programs, and rewards with the workspace settings, budgets, and catalogs that administrators configure.
What this article covers
PraisePal separates day-to-day participation from workspace governance. Most people use PraisePal as members—they give recognition, receive points, join programs, and redeem rewards. A smaller group of admins and workspace owners configures the rules behind that experience.
This separation keeps the employee view simple while giving accountable people control over policy, spend, and access.
Why the split exists
Recognition and rewards touch budgets, permissions, and finance controls. If every participant could edit catalog settings, billing, or workspace policies, teams would see inconsistent behavior and higher risk.
By keeping configuration in admin areas, you can delegate safely. Members get a consistent experience, while admins can assign limited responsibilities through permission groups instead of granting full control to everyone.
What each group sees
Day-to-day, members see their own activity and available rewards. They can give and receive recognition, participate in programs, browse and redeem rewards, and manage their own profile.
Behind the scenes, admins shape what appears there: recognition rules, company values, budgets, automations, reward catalogs, user management, teams, and billing. The exact areas an admin can reach depend on owner status, permission group, and plan—see the related article on roles and permissions for details.
Example: a budget limit in action
Jordan opens the recognition flow to send 50 points but sees "You have 20 points remaining this month." Jordan can still participate, just within the limit the admin configured. Jordan cannot see or change budget settings.
An admin reviewing the same workspace can open the budget setup, adjust the monthly allowance, and save. That change updates what Jordan sees next time—without exposing budget configuration screens to the rest of the workspace.