Glossary

Glossary

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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A

Actual Cost (Enter)
This field allows you to manually enter the Actual Cost if you want to replace Actual Cost, which is calculated by the Project Management Central application when a standard rate is associated with the Assigned To’s user profile.
Active Directory
Active Directory a directory service created by Microsoft for Windows domain networks to give the functionality needed to centrally configure and administer user accounts, computer accounts, groups, and all the related credential information used by Windows and SharePoint.
Actual Duration
The actual span of a task from start to finish. It is calculated as Duration * % Complete.
Actual Finish
The date when an assigned resource is actually finishing working on a task.
Actual Start
The date when an assigned resource actually begins to work on a task.
Actual Work
The actual percentage of the work that the resource has completed. Actual work is calculated as Work * % Complete.
Actual Work in Days
The actual percentage of the work in days that the resource has completed.
Actual Work in Hours
The actual percentage of the work in hours that the resource has completed.
Allocation
Scheduling activities and the resource assigned to those activities while considering the resource availability and the project time.
As Soon As Possible (ASAP)
Schedules the task to begin as early as possible. Do not enter a start or finish date with this constraint. This is the default choice.
Assigned To
The resource that has been delegated to a task, risk, issue, etc.
Assignment Units
Determines the assigned resource’s allocation to a task, such as 50% or 100%. It is a Bamboo custom column.
Author
Any user who posts a message in a discussion. This includes the creation of a new topic or any reply to a topic in the discussion board. Users who only read the discussion board are excluded from features of Discussion Board Plus such as Auto Subscribe.

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B

Balanced Scorecard
A performance management tool used to keep track of the execution of the activities by staff members.
Baseline
A snapshot of project information (such as information about tasks, resource, and assignments) that is taken before the project is updated with progress. Baselines allow you to compare changes in dates, cost, work, and more throughout the project’s duration. For more information about baselines, read this Microsoft help article
Baseline Budget Cost
The budget cost when you take a snapshot or baseline of your budget for the project.
Baseline Budget Work
The budget work when you take a snapshot or baseline of your budget for the project.
Baseline Cost
The cost when you take a snapshot or baseline of the cost.
Baseline Duration
The span of a task from start to finish at that point in time when you take a snapshot, or baseline.
Baseline Finish
The date when you take a snapshot or baseline of when an assigned resource is scheduled to finish working on a task. The baseline finish populates the value of the Finish field at that time.
Baseline Start
The date when you take a snapshot or baseline of when an assigned resource is scheduled to begin working on a task. The baseline start populates the value of the Start field at that time.
Baseline Work
The work when you take a snapshot or baseline of the work.
Blog or Blog site
A collection of posts about related topics, also called a blog site. Entries or posts in a blog are typically displayed in reverse-chronological order.
Blog post
Content added to a blog discussing a single topic. A post may be text, images, video, or a combination of media. Blog posts are usually interactive, allowing readers to post comments in response to the post. Blog posts and comments often must be approved by a site moderator before they are published to the blog.
BSC (Balanced scorecard)
A performance management tool used to keep track of the execution of staff members’ activities.
Budget Cost
The cost that you budget for the project before the tasks and resources start.
Budget Work
The total amount of planned budget work assigned to the whole project.
Business Connectivity Services (BCS)
A new service (starting in SharePoint 2010) that empowers users (who have sufficient access rights) to pull in external data use in SharePoint.

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C

Capacity
The maximum amount of work that an organization is capable of completing in a given period of time.
Capacity Planning
Determines the production capacity that is needed to meet changing demands.
Central Administration
After doing the installation of SharePoint 2010, a separate site collection is created for performing different administrative functions that might needed on a daily basis. This site collection is known as Central Administration site. This site collection is different than the site collections which you have created and is run on its own web application in IIS. It is the main point for all the administration related activities for all the SharePoint sites. All farm server administrators is having an permission to access to this site much like the regular site they can edit and customize Central Administration site.
Child Task
The subtask of a Parent Task or Summary Task.
Client Object Model
Client object model is newly introduced in SharePoint 2010 and it is a subset of Server Object model. As SharePoint’s object model is served based, many times developers want to write applications that need to talk to SharePoint from a client operating system and from client applications. A client object model is critical because it makes it easier for developers to write applications against a full object model, rather than trying to call web services from within their client applications.
Constraint
Applied to a task to restrict how the task’s start and finish dates are calculated. Use constraints when you need to control the start or finish date of a task. See Constraint Type.
Constraint Type
Constraints are applied to a task to restrict how the task’s start and finish dates are calculated. See Constraints. Constraint Types include
Cost
Based on work hours and the standard rate of that particular resource.
Cost Exposure
Displays the overall threat of the risk measured in cost. Cost exposure is calculated by multiplying risk probability with the cost.
Critical Path
A series of tasks that must be completed on time for the project to finish on schedule. Each task on the critical path is a critical task such that any delay to the path, delays the project’s schedule.
Critical Path
The longest path to finish a project. It includes the series of tasks that dictate the finish date for the project. If one task in the critical path is delayed, the project finish date will change.
Critical Task
A task that has zero Total Slack
CSV
Acronym for Comma Separated Variables.

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D

Days Overdue
The number of days an incomplete task is overdue. If Today > Due Date and % Complete < 100%, the task is overdue. The number of days it is overdue is the number of workdays between today and the Due Date.
Department
A choice column that lists the department to which the user reports.
Discussion board
An online discussion forum containing posted messages organized in topic or thread format. Unlike e-mail, discussion boards can be read by any user with access to the discussion board site.
Duration
The total span of a task from start to finish. Duration is calculated by (Due Date – Start Date)(Working Hours/Day). It can be displayed in minutes, hours, or days, based on your selection.
Duration
The total span of a task from start to finish. Duration is calculated by (Due Date – Start Date)(Working Hours/Day)

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E

Early Finish
The earliest date a task can finish based on the Early Finish dates of predecessor and successor tasks and other task constraints. This is the earliest date a task can finish if all predecessor and successor tasks also finish on their Early Finish dates.
Early Start
The earliest date a task can start based on predecessor and successor tasks and other constraints.
Exposure
Displays the overall threat of the risk. Exposure is calculated by multiplying risk probability with the impact.

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F

Field
A field is one cell of information in a record within a database or spreadsheet.
Finish
The date when an assigned resource is scheduled to finish working on a task.
Forum
See discussion board.
Forum post
A forum post is a message added to a discussion board or forum. Forum posts typically include the identity of the author, a date/time stamp, and the message to be displayed in the forum. Authors can usually edit or delete their own posts. A post can be a new item (topic) in the discussion board or can be a reply to an existing topic. Posts entered about the same topic are commonly referred to as a thread.

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G

Gantt Chart
A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart, developed by Henry Gantt in the 1910s, that illustrates a project schedule (a project’s milestones, activities, and deliverables, usually with intended start and finish dates).

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I

IIS Web Site
An Internet Information Services (IIS) Web site is a unique collection of Web pages and Web applications that is hosted on an IIS Web server. Web sites have bindings that consist of a port number, an IP address, and an optional host name or names.
IIS Worker Process
An Internet Information Services (IIS) worker process is a windows process (w3wp.exe) which runs Web applications, and is responsible for handling requests sent to a Web Server for a specific application pool.
Issue
An unfavorable circumstance already occurred or currently occurring that affects the project’s costs, schedule, or quality.

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L

Late Finish
The latest date a task can finish without delaying the project finish date.
Late Start
The latest date a task can start without delaying the project finish date.
Lessons Learned
Throughout each project life cycle, lessons are learned and opportunities for improvement are discovered. As part of a continuous improvement process, documenting lessons learned helps the project team discover the root causes of problems that occurred and avoid those problems in later project stages or future projects.
Library
A SharePoint Library is a list with items that refer to a specific file.
List
A list is the basic type of object inside SharePoint Foundation. There are different kinds of lists. Some of the list types include announcement lists, task lists, and event lists. Lists contain columns of information that are often referred to as fields. You can define custom columns to suit the kind of data that you want to store in a list. And you can use columns to sort, filter, and group list items. A document library is a specialized kind of list that is used to store files and folders. The columns in a document library are used to store metadata about a document.
Lock Topic/Locked
In Discussion Board Plus, a topic can be locked so that discussion board members can no longer add posts or edit replies. Administrators or moderators may choose to lock a topic to stop further discussion but keep the thread available to readers. For more information, see Using Lock Topic.
Lock Topic/Locked
In Discussion Board Plus and Community Central forums, a topic can be locked so that discussion board members can no longer add posts or edit replies. Administrators or moderators may choose to lock a topic to stop further discussion but keep the thread available to readers. For more information, see Using Lock Topic.

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M

Mark as Not Answer
In Discussion Board Plus, Mark as Not Answer removes a Suggest as Answer or Verified Answer tag from a post. Only the user who marked the post as Suggested or Verified, the topic creator, or a forum moderator can Mark as Not Answer. For more information, see Using Suggest as Answer and Verify Answer and Permissions in Discussion Board Plus.
Mark as Not Answer
In Discussion Board Plus and Community Central forums, Mark as Not Answer removes a Suggest as Answer or Verified Answer tag from a post. Only the user who marked the post as Suggested or Verified, the topic creator, or a forum moderator can Mark as Not Answer. For more information, see Using Suggest as Answer and Verify Answer and Permissions in Discussion Board Plus.
Maximum Units
The maximum percentage or number of units that a resource is available to be scheduled for tasks. The maximum units value indicates the highest capacity that the resource is available for work.
Milestone
A scheduled event that signifies the completion of a major deliverable. Milestones are used to monitor the project’s progress. Typically, they are tasks with a duration of 0 time units (such as hours, days, or weeks).
Moderator
A user with permission to approve Community Central content such as blog posts, blog comments, and forum answers.
Must Start On
Schedules the task to start on a specified date.
Must Start On (MSO)
Schedules the task to start on a specified date.

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O

ODBC
Acronym for Open Database Connectivity, an application programming interface (API) for accessing database management systems (DBMS).
OOTB
Out of the Box – refers to settings and content that arrive with SharePoint when it is installed without any tailoring or customization.(See this blog post for a comprehensive listing of web parts for SharePoint 2010.)
Overallocation
Assigning more tasks to a resource than the resource can accomplish in the available working time.

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P

Parent Task
Tasks that are made up of subtasks and that summarize those subtasks. Also called Summary Tasks.
Phase Status
A choice column that determines whether the phase is active or inactive.
Post
A post is a message added to a discussion board. Posts typically include the identity of the author, a date/time stamp, and the message to be displayed in the discussion board. Authors can usually edit or delete their own posts. A post can be a new item (topic) in the discussion board or can be a reply to an existing topic. Posts entered about the same topic are commonly referred to as a thread.
Predecessor Task
A dependency task that the task depends on before it can be started or finished.
Predecessor Task
A dependency task on which the task depends before it can be started or finished.
Project Management Information System (PMIS)
An electronic system that assists in planning, executing, and completing project management goals.
Project Priority
A choice column for the project to rank the project’s priority as low, medium, or high.

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Project Remaining Duration
How much time is left for a project to be completed. It is calculated as Project Duration – Project Actual Duration.
Project Status
A choice column that determines whether the project status of a task, issue, or risk is active or inactive.

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R

Record
All information or data about a single entry (row) in a database or spreadsheet. Individual elements of a record are referred to as fields.
Related Task
A lookup column for the issue or risk item that looks up to the tasks list to show the related task.
Remaining Duration
How much time that is left for a task to be completed. It is calculated as Duration – Actual Duration.
Remaining Work
The amount of work that still needs to be completed on the task. Remaining work is calculated as Work – Actual Work.
Reply
Discussion board replies are responses to the original topic post. There can be many replies to a single topic. The combination of the original topic post and all its replies is commonly referred to as a thread.
Resource Allocation
How a resource is assigned to a task or project.
Resources
The personnel, equipment, materials, and services needed to complete tasks in the project.
Risk
An uncertain event or condition that has a negative effect on the project’s objectives should it occur.
Role
The title, role, or skill set of a team member in the organization, for example
RPS (Requests Per Second)
The number of requests hitting a server (or farm) in one second. This is used to measure load on the server or farm.

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S

Scale Out
To add hardware to a farm.
Scale Up
To add hardware to a server.
Schedule Status
A status indicator based on the number of days a task is overdue. The indicator and number of days can be configured by modifying the Schedule Status column settings in the task list.
Site Collection
A site collection is a hierarchical set, or collection, of sites. A site collection includes only one top-level site but can contain multiple child sites within. Sites in a site collection share common features, such as permissions, galleries, and Web Parts. Each site collection has a site collection administrator and unique permissions from other site collections. This allows a decentralized approach to server farm administration. Within a site collection, a site is used to store content in the form of pages, libraries, and lists
Skills
Lists the user’s skills, such as project management. It is part of the user’s profile.
Source Site
The site URL data is sent from, usually to a Target Site.
Standard Rate
A rate applied against a resource for standard work (calculated by hour, day, week, etc.). The standard rate is assigned work less overtime work. Generally, the standard rate for a resource is a constant.
Start
The date when an assigned resource is scheduled to begin working on a task.
Start No Earlier Than (SNET)
Schedules the task to start on or after a specified date. Use this constraint to ensure that the task does not start before a specified date.
Start No Earlier Than)
Schedules the task to start on or after a specified date. Use this constraint to ensure that the task does not start before a specified date.
Start No Later Than
Schedules the tasks to start on or before a specified date. Use this constraint to ensure that the task does not start after a specified date.
Start No Later Than (SNLT)
Schedules the tasks to start on or before a specified date. Use this constraint to ensure that the task does not start after a specified date.
Sticky
In Discussion Board Plus, topics that are important can be marked (or “pinned”) as Sticky, which raises them to the top of the list of topics in the discussion board view. Sticky topics will always remain at the top of the list. In Discussion Board Plus, sticky topics appear in their own section in the Forum view. Administrators or moderators may want to mark a topic Sticky to make sure discussion board readers see it first.
Sticky
In Discussion Board Plus and Community Central forums, topics that are important can be marked (or “pinned”) as Sticky, which raises them to the top of the list of topics in the discussion board view. Sticky topics will always remain at the top of the list. In Discussion Board Plus, sticky topics appear in their own section in the Forum view. Administrators or moderators may want to mark a topic as Sticky to make sure that discussion board readers see it first.
Subtasks
Part of a summary task.
Suggest as Answer
In Discussion Board Plus, the Suggest as Answer feature allows discussion board users to tag a specific post as the possible answer for a topic. The best Suggested Answer can later be marked as a Verified Answer. For more information about the Suggest as Answer feature, see Using Suggest as Answer and Verify Answer.
Suggest as Answer
In Discussion Board Plus and Community Central forums, the Suggest as Answer feature allows discussion board users to tag a specific post as the possible answer for a topic. The best Suggested Answer can later be marked as a Verified Answer. For more information about the Suggest as Answer feature, see Using Suggest as Answer and Verify Answer.
Summary Tasks
Contains multiple subtasks beneath it.
Summary Tasks
Tasks that are made up of subtasks and that summarize those subtasks. Also called Parent Tasks.

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T

Target Site
The site a user is connecting to or is transferring data to. In opposition, the Source Site is the site data is sent from.
Task Dependency
The relationship between tasks that are linked by a dependency between their finish and start dates.
Task Dependency
The relationship between tasks.
Task Scheduler
A Microsoft Windows tool that allows users to launch programs at specified time intervals.
Text Delimited File
Data arrays separated by a designated character. The character is generally a comma or semicolon.
Thread
A collection of posts about the same subject, often used interchangeably with topic. A discussion board thread is usually organized with the original post listed first followed by all replies in descending order by date. Discussion Board Plus offers several view options for discussion board threads, including a standard reverse-chronological view.
Topic
The subject of a collection of discussion board posts, often used interchangeably with thread.
Total Slack
The amount of time a task finish date can be delayed without affecting the project finish date. A Total Slack of zero indicates the task is a critical task.

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U

Units
The quantity that a resource is assigned to a task. See Assignment Units and Maximum Units.
Use Case
A document that describes actions required by a user to reach an end result. The end result is typically the subject of the use case.

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V

Verify Answer/Verified Answer
In Discussion Board Plus, the Verify Answer feature allows discussion board moderators or administrators to flag a specific post as the best possible answer for a topic. Any post can be tagged as a Verified Answer, whether it was tagged as a Suggested Answer or not. For more information, see Using Suggest as Answer and Verify Answer.
Verify Answer/Verified Answer
In Discussion Board Plus and Community Central forums, the Verify Answer feature allows discussion board moderators or administrators to flag a specific post as the best possible answer for a topic. Any post can be tagged as a Verified Answer, whether it was tagged as a Suggested Answer or not. For more information, see Using Suggest as Answer and Verify Answer.
View
The display format for the discussion board list of topics or the posts in a discussion board thread. Discussion Board Plus provides an easy-to-use Forum view for discussion board topics and three views for discussion board threads. For specific details about the views included with Discussion Board Plus, see Using Views.
View
The display format for the discussion board list of topics or the posts in a discussion board thread. Discussion Board Plus and Community Central forums provide an easy-to-use Forum view for discussion board topics and three views for discussion board threads. For specific details about the views included with Discussion Board Plus and Community Central forums, see Using Views.

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W

WBS (Work Breakdown Structure)
A hierarchical structure used to organize tasks for reporting schedules and tracking costs. Tasks are typically grouped beneath their summary or parent tasks, with each level down representing an increasingly detailed description of the task deliverable. For example, the parent task “Develop Application” has a WBS of 1.0. It has two child tasks, “Write Requirements Document,” which has a WBS of 1.1, and “Review Preliminary Build,” which has a WBS of 1.2.
WBS (Work Breakdown Structure)
A hierarchical structure used to organize tasks for reporting schedules and tracking costs. Tasks are typically grouped beneath their summary or parent tasks, with each level down representing an increasingly detailed description of the task deliverable. For example, the Parent Task Develop Application has a WBS of 1.0. It has two child tasks, Write Requirements Document, which has a WBS of 1.1, and Review Preliminary Build, which has a WBS of 1.2.
Web Garden
A web garden is a scenario where a site is configured to run within multiple processes on a single server. You can still have multiple servers configured in a web farm, but the web garden reflects configuration of a specific individual server.
WFE
A WFE is a Web Front End – a server running the Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Web Application service.
Work
The hours that the resource works on a task.
Workdays
The days of the week when work can be done on a project task. Workdays can be defined in the Task Master Web Part settings.
Working hours
The hours of the day when work can be done on a project task. Working hours can be defined in the Task Master Web Part settings.
World Wide Web Publishing Service
The Internet Information Services (IIS) World Wide Web Publishing Service (W3SVC), sometimes referred to as the WWW Service, manages the HTTP protocol and HTTP performance counters.
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