Glossary of Terms
A reference of canonical product terms for consistent use across documentation, support, and UI copy.
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Core Objects
| Term | Definition | Aliases / Variants |
|---|---|---|
| Workspace | The top-level container for all team data: projects, users, tasks, and settings. | — |
| Account | The owner-level entity tied to a subscription plan. | — |
| Organization | Equivalent to Account; used in onboarding and SSO contexts. | Company |
| Project | A container for related tasks, with optional billing info, estimates, and members. | — |
| Task | A work item inside a project that can be tracked, assigned, and billed. | — |
| Task list | A named group of tasks within a project, used to organise work. | — |
| Subtask | A child task nested under a parent task. | — |
| Client | A company or individual that projects can be associated with for billing. | Customer |
| Service | A billable category or line-item type assignable to projects and tasks. | — |
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Time Tracking
| Term | Definition | Aliases / Variants |
|---|---|---|
| Time entry | A recorded interval of work, linked to a task, user, and date. | Log entry |
| Timer | A running clock that creates a time entry on stop. | — |
| Clock in / Clock out | Marking the start and end of a work session, typically for attendance. | Clock-in/out |
| AutoTrack | Feature that automatically records computer activity (apps, websites) locally on the user's device to help them fill in their timesheet. Activity is only visible to the user. | — |
| Scheduled time entry | A time entry added in advance that does not count toward worked hours until manually confirmed as worked. | — |
| Recurring time entry | A time entry that repeats automatically at a defined frequency (daily, weekly, monthly). | — |
| Idle time | Detected inactivity period that can be discarded or assigned to a task. | — |
| Rounding | Adjusting time entry durations up, down, or to the nearest interval (e.g. 6 min, 15 min, 1 hour). | — |
| Estimated time | The budgeted duration set on a task or project. | Estimated hours, Estimate |
| Logged hours | Total tracked duration recorded by a user or across a project. | Tracked hours, Worked hours |
| Missing hours | Hours a user was expected to log but did not, flagged for follow-up. | Missing HR |
| Block hours | A reserved or scheduled time window blocked on the calendar. | Time blocking |
| Duration | The length of a single time entry. | — |
| Lock date | A cutoff after which time entries cannot be edited. | — |
| Time budget | The maximum hours allocated to a project or task, used to track progress against an estimate. | — |
| Validity period | A date range during which a specific rate or cost applies to a user, enabling accurate historical billing. | — |
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Projects & Tasks
| Term | Definition | Aliases / Variants |
|---|---|---|
| Project visibility | Controls who can see a project: Public (everyone) or Private (admins and PMs only). | Privacy |
| Billable | A time entry or project flagged as chargeable to a client. | — |
| Non-billable | Work tracked that is not charged to a client. | Non billable |
| Project board | A Kanban-style visual view of tasks and their statuses within a project. | Board view |
| Timeline | A Gantt-style date-based view of projects or tasks. | Project timeline |
| Priority | A ranking attribute on tasks (e.g. none, low, medium, high, urgent). | — |
| Due date | The deadline set on a task or project. | Delivery date |
| Archived | A project or task removed from active views but preserved for records. | — |
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Users & Roles
| Term | Definition | Aliases / Variants |
|---|---|---|
| Admin | Full-access role with control over all workspace settings, users, billing, and data. | Administrator |
| Manager | Role with access to view and edit all tasks, projects, and timesheets; can invite and archive users. Cannot access billing unless explicitly granted. | — |
| Project Manager | Role scoped to assigned and public projects; can create reports and delegate tasks to co-workers. | PM |
| Co-worker | Standard team member role; can track time and edit tasks on assigned projects only. Can only view their own time. | Coworker |
| Freelancer | External or limited-access role, typically without billing visibility. | — |
| Supervisor | A user designated to oversee specific other users' activity and timecards. | — |
| User group | A named collection of users, used to assign projects or policies in bulk. | Group |
| Owner | The account-level role with full administrative control and billing responsibility. | Account owner |
| Permissions | Rules controlling what actions a role can perform within a workspace. | Access policies |
| Role | A predefined level of access assigned to a user (Admin, Manager, Project Manager, Co-worker). | — |
| Hiring date | The user's employment start date, used for time-off policy calculations. | — |
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Timecards & Timesheets
Note: These are distinct concepts. A Timecard focuses on attendance — clock-in/out times, breaks, overtime, and time off, submitted monthly per user. A Timesheet focuses on project work — a breakdown of time entries across tasks, clients, and projects, used for reporting and billing.
| Term | Definition | Aliases / Variants |
|---|---|---|
| Timecard | An attendance record showing a user's clock-in/out times, breaks, regular hours, extra hours, and time off for a given month. Auto-generated from time entries and work schedules; submitted monthly. | — |
| Timesheet | A filterable, exportable report of time entries broken down by project, task, client, and user. Used for project billing, payroll, and productivity analysis. | — |
| Submit timecard | The action of sending a completed timecard for record-keeping at the end of the month. | Submit hours |
| Auto-submit | Setting that automatically generates and submits timecards for all users on a monthly basis. | Auto-submit timecards |
| Pending submission | Timecard status indicating hours are logged but not yet submitted. | — |
| Approved | Status indicating a timecard or time-off request has been accepted. | — |
| Rejected | Status indicating a timecard or time-off request was declined. | — |
| Revert submission | Action to return a submitted timecard to pending status so the user can make corrections. | Regenerate timecard |
| Break hours | Time automatically detected between time entries and recorded in the timecard as a break period. | Break |
| Extra hours | Time entries that fall outside the user's regular work schedule hours, recorded separately in the timecard. | Overtime |
| Regular hours | Tracked time that falls within the user's scheduled work hours. | — |
| Auto-detect breaks | Timecard setting that automatically merges consecutive time entries if the gap between them is below a defined threshold. | — |
| Temporal edit access | A per-user exception that extends the window during which a user can edit their timecard past the workspace default. | — |
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Approvals & Time Off
| Term | Definition | Aliases / Variants |
|---|---|---|
| Time off | An absence request (vacation, sick leave, etc.) tracked against a policy balance. | Time-off |
| Time off policy | Rules governing how a time-off type accrues, carries over, and is approved. | Policy |
| Time off type | The category of absence (e.g. Vacation, Sick leave, Parental leave). | — |
| Allowance | The total amount of time off a user is entitled to in a cycle. | Annual allowance |
| Balance | The current remaining time-off entitlement after accruals and usage. | Available balance |
| Accrual | The mechanism by which time off is gradually earned over a cycle. | Cycle accrual |
| Carry forward | Unused time-off balance rolled over into the next cycle. | Carried days |
| Cycle | The recurring period (monthly, annual) in which a time-off policy accrues and resets. | — |
| Public holiday | An official non-working day that can be imported and assigned to schedules. | Holiday |
| Work schedule | A user's defined working days and hours, used for expected-hours calculations. | Schedule |
| Half day | A time-off request or schedule entry covering only half a working day. | — |
| Seniority allowance | Additional time-off entitlement granted based on years of service. | — |
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Billing & Invoicing
| Term | Definition | Aliases / Variants |
|---|---|---|
| Invoice | A document generated from billable hours and items, sent to a client. | — |
| Billed | Indicates a time entry or invoice has been invoiced to the client. | Mark as billed |
| Draft | An invoice or policy not yet published or activated. | — |
| Fixed price | A billing mode where the project has a single flat fee rather than an hourly rate. | Fixed rate |
| Hourly rate | A per-hour billing amount set at user, task, or project level. Rate hierarchy (highest to lowest): Task → Project → User. | Rate per hour |
| User rate | The default hourly rate set on a user, applied when no task or project rate is defined. | — |
| Project rate | The hourly rate set on a project, overrides the user rate when no task rate is set. | Project hourly rate |
| Task rate | The hourly rate set on a specific task; highest priority, overrides both project and user rates. | Custom rate |
| Hourly cost | The internal cost of a user's time (e.g. their salary rate), distinct from the billable rate. Used for profitability calculations. | — |
| Rates & Costs | The add-on that enables billing rates and internal costs across users, projects, and tasks. | — |
| Tax rate | A percentage applied to invoice subtotals; supports multiple rates per invoice. | Default taxes |
| Expense | A non-time cost item attached to a project or invoice. | — |
| Retainer | A recurring billing arrangement where a client prepays for a set amount of work. | Project retainer |
| Cost | The internal expense associated with a user's or task's tracked time. | Hourly cost |
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Reports & Exports
| Term | Definition | Aliases / Variants |
|---|---|---|
| Report | A generated summary of time, billing, or project data, shareable or scheduled. | — |
| Project report | A report showing hours, task progress, billing totals, and deadline status for a specific project. | — |
| User report | A per-user summary of hours worked, time off, and task activity over a selected period. | — |
| Shared report | A report accessible via a public or team-shared link with optional filtering. | Live report |
| Scheduled report | A report automatically emailed at a recurring interval (daily, weekly, monthly). | — |
| Insights pane | A contextual panel within Hours and Timesheets that displays charts summarising time distribution. | Insights |
| Audit log | A chronological record of changes made in the workspace. | Activity logs, Audit trail |
| Export | Downloading workspace data as CSV, XLSX, or PDF. | — |
| Custom fields | User-defined data fields added to tasks, users, or projects to extend the default data structure. | — |
| Batch edit | Updating multiple time entries at once (e.g. mark as billed, change task, delete). | — |
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Apps & Surfaces
| Term | Definition | Aliases / Variants |
|---|---|---|
| Hours | The main time entry view in TrackingTime, displaying a user's tracked time in a calendar layout. | — |
| Dashboard | The overview screen showing team activity, project progress, and key time metrics at a glance. | Setup dashboard |
| Desktop Assistant | The native desktop app (Windows/Mac) for tracking time without opening a browser. | Desktop app |
| Mobile app | The iOS/Android app for tracking time on the go. Available for iPhone, iPad, and Android devices. | — |
| Browser extension | Add-on installed in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge that embeds a TrackingTime timer button directly inside third-party web apps. | TrackingTime Button |
| Task Drawer | A panel on the Hours page listing all tasks currently assigned to the user, for quick time entry. | — |
| Add-on | An optional paid feature module that extends TrackingTime (e.g. Timecards, Rates & Costs). | — |
| Public API | The REST API that allows external applications to read and write TrackingTime data programmatically. | API |
| Zapier | A third-party automation platform used to connect TrackingTime with apps that don't have a native integration. | — |
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Product Areas
These are the high-level functional areas TrackingTime is marketed and organised around. Use these names consistently when referring to product capabilities in documentation and support.
| Term | Definition | Aliases / Variants |
|---|---|---|
| Time Tracking | Core feature area covering timers, time entries, AutoTrack, and manual logging across all platforms. | — |
| Project & Task Management | Feature area covering projects, task lists, tasks, subtasks, board/timeline views, and custom fields. | — |
| Timesheets & Time Reports | Feature area covering the Timesheet report, exports, shared reports, and scheduled reports. | Time Reporting |
| Attendance Tracking | Feature area covering timecards, clock in/out, breaks, work schedules, and attendance reports. | — |
| Leave Management | Feature area covering time off requests, approval workflows, PTO balances, accrual policies, and public holidays. | Time Off Management, PTO Management |
| Invoicing | Feature area covering invoice creation, billing rates, client billing, and payment tracking. | — |
| Integrations & Automation | Feature area covering 60+ third-party app integrations, Zapier, calendar sync, and the Public API. | Apps & Integrations |
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Compliance & Payroll Terms
| Term | Definition | Aliases / Variants |
|---|---|---|
| PTO | Paid Time Off — the general category of approved absences that count against an employee's leave allowance. Used as shorthand in marketing and product copy. | Paid time off |
| Attendance | The record of when employees are present, absent, or on leave, tracked through timecards and time off data. | — |
| Compliance | The state of timecards and time entries meeting regulatory or internal requirements (edit history, submission deadlines, audit trail). | — |
| Payroll | The process of calculating employee compensation based on logged hours and hourly costs; TrackingTime exports data used as payroll input. | Folha de pagamento (PT-BR) |
| Edit history | The log of changes made to a timecard or time entry, used for compliance and audit purposes. | Audit trail |
| Cloud sync | Automatic synchronisation of time entries, tasks, and projects across all devices and platforms in real time. | — |
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Workspace & Settings
| Term | Definition | Aliases / Variants |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | The paid plan tier associated with an account (Starter, Pro, Business). | Plan |
| SSO | Single Sign-On authentication via an external identity provider (Google, Azure AD). | Single Sign-On |
| SCIM | Protocol for automated user provisioning and deprovisioning from an identity provider. | SCIM Provisioning |
| Domain capture | Feature that automatically routes new users with a matching email domain to the workspace. | Domain management |
| App password | A generated credential used to authenticate third-party integrations. | — |
| Support access | A temporary permission granted to TrackingTime support to view an account. | — |
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Integrations
| Term | Definition | Aliases / Variants |
|---|---|---|
| Calendar sync | Two-way synchronisation between TrackingTime and Google/Microsoft calendars. | Google Calendar, Outlook |
| AutoLog | Automatic creation of time entries from calendar events or app activity. | Autolog events |
| Integration | A connection to a third-party tool that extends TrackingTime functionality. | App, Add-on |
| MCP server | The Model Context Protocol endpoint that exposes TrackingTime data to AI assistants. | — |
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Known Inconsistencies to Resolve
The following variants currently appear in the product UI and should be standardized to a single canonical form:
| Issue | Variants found | Recommended canonical form |
|---|---|---|
| Hyphenation | Time off / Time-off | Time off (no hyphen) |
| Spelling | Coworker / Co-worker | Co-worker |
| Abbreviation | HR / Hours (in labels) | Hours (spell out; HR only in column headers) |
| Casing | Admin / Administrator | Admin (UI); Administrator (docs/formal) |
| Casing | PM / Project Manager | Project Manager (full); PM (abbreviated in UI labels only) |
| Role naming | Manager / Admin | Manager is a distinct role below Admin — should not be used as a synonym for Admin in support copy |
| Feature naming | Add-on / Integration | Add-on for optional paid modules within TrackingTime; Integration for third-party app connections |
| Terminology | PTO / Time off / Leave | Time off in product UI and support; PTO acceptable in marketing and attendance-focused copy; Leave only in formal HR context |
| Surface naming | TrackingTime Button / Browser extension | Browser extension as the generic term; TrackingTime Button as the product name when referring to the specific in-app button |