Not sure how to have all installs have the same appearance and

Installed Spark also, so not sure if this is Spark related or Openfire…

I have 15 staff members, when they login i wan them all to see everyone without needing to “friend” them all… how can this be done?

shared groups.

http://www.igniterealtime.org/community/docs/DOC-1619

if you do not use LDAP you must create the groups manually and add existing users manually. then use the registration plugin to auto add new signups to the group.