Glossary

Each term links to the page that covers it in depth.

Term	Meaning
account	In the app, Account is the personal page for your sign-in, password and sessions. Exports and technical records call a company an account; screens and these docs say company. See Roles and permissions.
activity	The work placed on the schedule. It can belong to one project, be internal work under the built-in Internal project, or be reusable across all projects. See Schedule and change work.
Admin	The role below Owner. An Admin can invite and manage members, see time-off notes and restore or delete archived records, but cannot act on the Owner; only a nominated Admin can agree to become the next Owner. See Roles and permissions.
All projects	An activity that can be booked against any active project, such as account management. Each booking may count towards one chosen active project whose client is also active; No specific project leaves it unattributed. See Schedule and change work.
allocation units	The company setting for how bookings are entered: Hours per day across dates, Days of work spread over a span (the default), or Blocks, a start and days over with no hours, so utilisation is ignored. See Choose company settings.
booking	A person booked to an activity for a date range, shown as a bar in their row with a tentative, confirmed or completed status. The form calls it an allocation, as in New allocation and Allocation units. See Schedule and change work.
break-glass	The operator's recovery when company sign-in is unavailable: restore password-capable mode and restart so local-password accounts can sign in. It does not reset passwords or change provider connections. See Require company sign-in.
capacity	The time a person has available to book: their working days, together with the company's, inside their availability dates. Outside those dates, and during time off and company closures, it is zero. See Ongoing administration.
claims	What an identity provider reports about a person at sign-in: their email, whether it is verified, and a stable ID. CapacityLens uses them to admit someone and keep their sign-in linked to the same person. See Set up Google or Microsoft sign-in.
client	Groups the projects your company does for one customer. Internal work goes under the built-in Internal client. See Schedule and change work.
client secret	The private string an identity provider issues with a client ID, proving sign-in requests come from your server. It is usually shown once; protect it like a root password. See Set up Google or Microsoft sign-in.
company	A separate workspace with its own clients, projects, activities, people and schedule. One installation can host several when multi-company is enabled; access and data never carry across. See Roles and permissions.
company closure	Time off for the whole company, added under Time off → Company closures. It sets capacity to zero for every person and placeholder on those dates, including people added later, but not for external parties. See Ongoing administration.
company login	Signing in through Google Workspace or Microsoft Entra ID instead of a CapacityLens password. See Company login.
demo mode	The in-memory version with a fictional two-company dataset that resets on every reload and has no logins or roles. See Try the demo.
discipline	A category people are grouped by, such as Design or Development, used for filtering and per-discipline utilisation. On by default. See Settings.
Editor	The role that books work: it can change the schedule, people, clients, projects, time off and most company settings, but cannot invite people. See Roles and permissions.
example data	Fictional people, a client, a project and sample bookings added when the Owner keeps Start with example data, or later with Add example data in Settings while the company is still empty. They are ordinary records: delete them when you no longer need them. See Create your company.
external party	A bookable resource such as a print shop or subcontractor that does not count towards utilisation. Off by default. See Settings.
Getting started	The checklist on Schedule that ticks off five setup steps. It stays until an Owner or Admin dismisses it for everyone. Viewers don't see it. See Quick start.
identity provider	The service that checks a person's sign-in and tells CapacityLens who they are. Google Workspace and Microsoft Entra ID are the supported providers. See Company login.
Internal	An activity kind for non-billable work booked under the built-in Internal client and project. Internal work always appears in neutral grey. See Prepare clients and work.
invitation	A single-use link an Owner or Admin creates for a role and, optionally, an email address. If the installation can send email, addressed invitations are emailed; the creator can always copy the link. See Invite teammates.
link (accounts)	Explicitly connecting your existing CapacityLens account to a Google or Microsoft identity while signed in. It keeps your membership, role and scheduled work. See Connect an existing account.
Link to Resource	The control in Team & access that joins a member to their person on the schedule. Each member and each person can have only one link, and linking does not change permissions. See Add people to the schedule.
member	Someone who can sign in to a company, as Owner, Admin, Editor or Viewer. Being a member does not put you on the schedule, and a scheduled person need not be a member. See Roles and permissions.
MFA / TOTP	MFA is a second proof of identity beyond a password; TOTP is a six-digit authenticator-app code. CapacityLens has neither locally: set MFA at Google or Microsoft, and note a provider session does not prove MFA happened. See Security and privacy and company login.
mixed mode	Password sign-in and company login both switched on. It is a supported permanent setup, not only a migration stage. See Require company sign-in.
over capacity	Booked for more than the time available on a day, shown in red. Fully booked is not over capacity. A separate warning always looks 14 days ahead, whatever the zoom. See Philosophy.
Overview	The page showing each person's free days, week by week. Only Owners and Admins can open it unless the company opens it to Editors or everyone. Companies that schedule in Blocks cannot use it. See Overview.
Owner	The one person per company with full control: the only role that can delete the company, replace its whole dataset or start an ownership transfer. No Admin can reset an Owner's password or remove them. See Roles and permissions.
ownership transfer	The Owner nominates an Admin, that Admin agrees and the same Owner confirms. Nothing changes until all three happen; either side can stop it, and a request expires after seven days. See Roles and permissions.
password-capable mode	Signing in with an email and password stored by CapacityLens rather than through a provider. The default for a new self-hosted install. See Configuration.
person	A schedule row that can receive bookings and time off. A person needs no sign-in, so you can schedule a freelancer without inviting them. See Resources.
PKCE	A check in the sign-in handshake that stops a stolen sign-in code being reused. CapacityLens requires it from every identity provider. See Set up Google or Microsoft sign-in.
placeholder	An unfilled slot for a role not yet hired or assigned, so you can plan work without naming a person. See Resources.
project	Groups the activities and bookings for one piece of client work. Every project belongs to a client. See Schedule and change work.
provider sign-in	Signing in through Google, Microsoft or, in mixed mode only, experimental GitHub, which cannot satisfy provider-required sign-in. A new identity still needs a verified email and an invitation or bootstrap allowance. See Company login.
red	A warning colour with a different meaning in each place. On Schedule, a red day is over capacity or work overlapping time off or a closure, and a red utilisation percentage means over capacity within the next 14 days. On Overview, a red bar means less than 40% of the week is free, a red figure counts overbooked days, and a red weekly total means confirmed and tentative work reach 90% of the week. A red Clear Filters means a filter is on. See Spot overwork.
redirect URI	Also called a callback URL: the address your identity provider returns people to after sign-in. It must match your CapacityLens address exactly, or sign-in fails. See Set up Google or Microsoft sign-in.
resource	Anything bookable: a person, placeholder or external party. Adding a resource creates no sign-in, and inviting a member adds no resource. See Resources.
role	What a member may do in a company: Viewer, Editor, Admin or Owner, each able to do everything the one below can. Roles are per company, so one person can be an Editor in one and a Viewer in another. See Roles and permissions.
schedule	The week-by-week grid of every person's bookings and time off, zoomable from one to eight weeks. See Schedule.
session	The time between signing in and signing out or timing out, tracked on the server. It lasts at most twelve hours and ends after thirty minutes of inactivity. See Security and privacy.
setup token	The one-time secret, CAPACITYLENS_SETUP_TOKEN, that the installer gives the first Owner to create their sign-in on a fresh password-mode installation. See Create your company.
single sign-on (SSO)	Signing in with the account you use for your company's other tools. These docs call it company login. See Company login.
snapshot (offline)	The read-only copy of a company's schedule kept on your device when offline access is on. It expires after seven days and never accepts edits. See Offline access.
SQLite / the database	The single file that holds everything: every company, person, booking and audit entry. Keep it and its backups on persistent storage. See Backups and restore.
tentative	A booking status for work that is not yet confirmed, shown as a striped bar with a dashed border. It still counts towards utilisation and over capacity on Schedule, even while the Tentative pill hides it. The other statuses are confirmed and completed. See Schedule and change work.
time off	A block marking a person unavailable, such as holiday, sick leave or unpaid leave. Company-wide closures are recorded separately; see company closure. See Time off.
user	A sign-in identity for the whole installation, not one company. One user can be a member of several companies with different roles, and being a user does not put anyone on the schedule. See Invite teammates.
utilisation	How much of a person's available time is booked, as a percentage. Total, per-discipline and personal figures are available, and some modes let work be booked without counting towards it. See Settings.
Viewer	The role that can see the schedule and everyone's work but change nothing. People who join through a joining policy get it. See Roles and permissions.
working days	The days of the week someone works. The company sets a shared working week and each person has their own; ordinary bookings use only working days. See Add people to the schedule.