--- title: "Personalising a circle's settings" description: "A circle's own settings page holds its role configuration, its circle admins, its governance overrides and its privacy, each set for that circle alone" category: structure-governance section: chart-and-circles tags: [permissions] type: Tutorial lastUpdated: 2026-08-05 locale: en canonical: https://support.talkspirit.com/en/structure-governance/personalizing-your-circles-settings --- # Personalising a circle's settings ## Personalising a circle's settings Every circle has its own settings page, and what you set there applies to that circle alone. Your organisation sets the default for each of these settings, and a circle departs from it only where your organisation allows the override. Where it does not, the circle's control is read-only, or absent. > **In summary:** open the circle, click the three dots in its header, then **Settings**. The **General** tab holds **Role Configuration**, **Circle Admins** and **Governance Overrides**. The **Privacy** tab holds the two visibility selects. ## Open the settings page 1. Open the circle from the chart or from **Circles & roles directory**. 2. Click the three dots at the top right of the circle page. 3. Select **Settings**. The page is titled **Circle Settings** and carries two tabs, **General** and **Privacy**. It is a full page, not a side panel, and the cross at the top right takes you back to the circle. **Who can save what.** In the interface, the **Settings** entry appears to anyone who can manage the circle's assignments, which is a wider group than the people the server accepts. **Role Configuration** works for that whole group. **Circle Admins**, **Governance Overrides** and the **Privacy** tab are reserved to organisation administrators and to the circle's own circle admins: everyone else sees the controls, and the save comes back as a failure. See [Circle Admins](/structure-governance/who-are-circle-admins). ## Role Configuration Three fields, and each editable one applies the moment you change it. This card has no Save button. - **Main roles** is read-only. Administrators define main roles at organisation level, on role templates, and every main role appears at the top of the circle's role list. You cannot promote a role from here. - **Elected roles**: the roles this circle fills by election. Leave it empty if no role needs one. - **Assigner roles**: the roles that assign members to the circle's other roles. Only main roles can be selected. Where your organisation has not allowed circles to override a setting, the matching field turns read-only: **Elected roles** becomes a plain list, and **Assigner roles** is replaced by a line explaining that all members can assign. Where the setting is switched off org-wide, the field disappears: **Elected roles** is absent when elections are off, and **Assigner roles** is absent when every role must be elected. Leaving **Assigner roles** empty does not open assignment to everyone. With no assigner role, assignment falls to the circle's circle admins and to organisation administrators. Opening it to all members is an organisation-level decision, see [Configuring circle settings for my organisation](/structure-governance/how-to-configure-circle-settings-for-my-organization). ![The Role Configuration card on a circle's General tab: a read-only Main roles list showing Circle Lead, a read-only Elected roles list reading "No elected roles", and an editable Assigner roles select, each with its help text.](/images/structure-governance/personalizing-your-circles-settings/03-role-configuration.png) ## Circle Admins The **Circle Admins** card is a picker holding the circle's current admins. Add or remove someone and the change applies immediately. Only people who already hold an active assignment in the circle can be picked, so add them to the circle first. Whoever creates a circle becomes a circle admin of it automatically. Nothing else grants the status on its own: not the role that assigns members, not the role that links the circle to its parent, and not being a circle admin of the parent circle. Each circle keeps its own list, and the status never cascades to sub-circles. You can also read the status on the circle's **Members** tab, where a grey **Circle Admin** badge sits beside the name in a column that carries no heading. ## Governance Overrides This is where a circle departs from your organisation's decision settings. Every control carries a **Use org default** switch: leave it on and the circle follows the organisation, turn it off and the control below becomes editable. - **Governance change mode** decides how changes to this circle's roles and sub-circles are processed. **Via proposal** sends each change to the circle's decision makers, who can object before it is adopted. **Direct modification** applies it with no review round. - **Auto-validation delay** sets how many days a proposal waits before it is adopted with no objection, from 1 to 365. It appears only if your organisation has the Holacracy add-on. - **Proposal editing permissions** decides who may change a proposal that is still a draft: **Only the author**, **Author and circle leads**, or **All circle members**. Unlike the rest of the page, this card does not save on change. Click **Save** at the bottom of the card. The button stays greyed out until something has actually changed. > **Note:** a circle's **Governance change mode** wins over your organisation's default, including when the organisation requires proposals. It governs how a proposal raised in this circle is resolved. It does not change the route the edit form takes: outside Architect mode, editing a role or a circle still opens a proposal. ![The Circle Admins card holding one member, and the Governance Overrides card below it with Governance change mode set to Via proposal, an auto-validation delay of 7 days, proposal editing set to Only the author, all three on Use org default, and a greyed-out Save button.](/images/structure-governance/personalizing-your-circles-settings/02-circle-admins-and-governance-overrides.png) ## Privacy The **Privacy** tab holds one card, **Visibility Settings**, with two selects: **Operations visibility** and **Attachments & agreements visibility**. Set each to **All organisation members** or **Circle members only**. Each saves as soon as you pick a value, and a new circle starts with both at **Circle members only**. Neither select hides the circle itself. For what each one restricts, and the limits worth knowing before you rely on them, see [Setting a circle to private](/structure-governance/how-do-i-set-my-circle-private). ![The Privacy tab of Circle Settings, showing the Visibility Settings card with Operations visibility and Attachments & agreements visibility, both set to "Circle members only".](/images/structure-governance/personalizing-your-circles-settings/04-circle-privacy-visibility.png) ## What's next? - [Circle Admins](/structure-governance/who-are-circle-admins) - [Setting a circle to private](/structure-governance/how-do-i-set-my-circle-private) - [Configuring circle settings for my organisation](/structure-governance/how-to-configure-circle-settings-for-my-organization) - [Decision settings](/structure-governance/what-are-decision-settings)