Glossary
Developers use these words as if everyone knows them. Almost nobody does, and asking feels like admitting something. So here they are, explained the way I would across a table, with a longer read linked where a good one exists. Type a word to find it.
Ninety-one words in seven groups.
The search happens in your browser; nothing you type is stored or sent anywhere. Each word has a "copy link" so you can send someone straight to it. Missing one? Tell me and I will add it.
Computers you rent by the hour in a building you will never visit, reached over the internet. The location is not the point. The point is that someone else owns and fixes the machines, and you pay for what you use instead of buying a server and a room to keep it in.
Longer read: What is cloud computing? (Microsoft Azure)
A computer whose whole job is to answer other computers: hold the files, run the program, reply to the request. Your laptop asks; a server answers. "The server is down" means the one that answers has stopped.
Your company's own fenced-off space inside Microsoft's cloud: your people, mailboxes, files and settings, invisible to every other company in the same building. When I say "inside your accounts," this is what I mean. It is also the word IT people use when they mean "our Microsoft."
Longer read: Subscriptions, licenses, accounts and tenants (Microsoft Learn)
A further fenced area inside your tenant for one set of apps and records. Most businesses should have at least two: one to try things in and one that is real. It is also the unit an IT team can hand over for a project without handing over everything else, the "room of your own" in Where it runs.
Longer read: Environments overview (Microsoft Learn)
The thing you pay for each month: a Microsoft 365 plan, a cloud account. Licenses hang off a subscription, and one tenant can hold several.
Permission for one person, or one program, to use a piece of software, usually priced per person per month. Licenses are bought in your name, not mine, and they are the slow part of any start, so they are the first thing to ask about.
On this site: One number, every month (what the fee does and does not cover).
The bundle most businesses already pay for: email and calendars, files, chat and meetings, the Office programs, and the sign-in system that ties them together. Behind the email sit shared lists, approvals, workflows and a database, mostly unused. A surprising share of what I build is turning those on.
On this site: What I ask before I build anything.
Microsoft's rentable computers and services, billed by use rather than per person. Where a custom program lives when it needs more than Microsoft 365 offers, in an account that is yours.
Where a company's shared files live in Microsoft 365. Every Teams channel has a SharePoint folder behind it, whether anyone knows it or not.
One person's files in Microsoft 365. SharePoint is the company's; OneDrive is yours. Work that matters to the business belongs in the first, where it survives the person leaving.
Microsoft's chat and meetings, and a place to pin the apps a business uses. Several of the systems I build appear as a tab in Teams so nobody has to open anything new.
Microsoft's database for business records, inside your tenant, with rules about what each column may hold and who may see each row. Where the "one set of numbers" lives.
Longer read: What is Dataverse? (Microsoft Learn)
Software running on a computer in your own building rather than in the cloud. "On-prem" for short. Still right for a few things; rarely for a small business, because the computer, the backups and the person who looks after both are all yours.
Software you rent by the month and use in a browser, with your data kept on the vendor's computers. Convenient, and the reason leaving is hard. It is worth knowing which of the things you pay for work this way.
On this site: Why you should own your own data.
Who runs the machine a program lives on. "Vendor-hosted" means theirs; "self-hosted" means yours, or your own cloud account. Everything I build is hosted in your accounts unless a piece is named otherwise, in writing, before it is built.
On this site: Where it runs, and what I can see.
Which country the computers holding your data are in. It matters for Canadian companies, for regulated work, and for anyone whose contracts say where records may be kept. Microsoft lets you choose; ask any other vendor.
Longer read: What is data residency? (IBM)
A filing system for records, with rules. Many tables, each holding one kind of thing, each row one of them. Unlike a spreadsheet, a date column cannot hold a word and a closed job cannot take a new charge. The rules are the point.
A table is one kind of thing (jobs). A record is one of them (job 1042). A field is one fact about it (its start date). When a developer says "we would add a field," they mean one more fact per record.
A sheet of paper that can do arithmetic. Wonderful for thinking; poor for keeping the record, because anyone can type anything anywhere and nobody can tell which copy is the real one. Spreadsheets are where numbers go to be reconciled. Databases are where they go to be trusted.
The blueprint of a database: which tables exist, what every column means, how they connect. A good schema is what lets a new hire, or a program, understand your records without asking anyone.
Information about information: when a file was made, who last changed it, what a column is for. Metadata is what makes a pile of files findable and a table understandable.
Structured: numbers and facts in named columns. Unstructured: emails, PDFs, photos, voice notes. Most of what a business knows is unstructured; most of what it needs to report is structured. Getting from one to the other without retyping is most of the work.
Keeping two copies of the same information matching. Every sync is a place where two copies can disagree, which is why the aim is usually one copy that everything reads.
A copy kept somewhere else, so that a mistake, a failure or a criminal cannot take the only one. Microsoft keeps some for you; not everything, and not forever. Know what is covered and for how long.
A rule for how long records are kept and when they are deleted, applied automatically so nobody has to remember. Seven years for financial records is common.
Longer read: Learn about retention policies and labels (Microsoft Learn)
The list of who did what, and when. Every change I make in your accounts lands in yours, timestamped, with my name on it. You can read it without asking me, and you should.
Longer read: Auditing solutions in Microsoft Purview (Microsoft Learn)
Moving records from one system into another. Always a project, never a click. The best migration is the one you never need, because the data was in your accounts from the start.
Getting your data out of a system as files. Useful, and not the same as a working system. Before you sign with anyone, ask which of the two you would get if you left.
Software that reads the text and numbers off a photo or a scan. Microsoft's version is called Document Intelligence. It is what turns a phone photo of a receipt into an expense record without anyone typing.
Longer read: What is OCR? (Amazon Web Services)
The way one program asks another for something, in a form both have agreed on. Think of a waiter. You do not go into the kitchen and the kitchen does not come to your table; the waiter carries requests one way and plates the other. When two systems "integrate," an API is usually how.
Longer read: What is an API? In English, please. (freeCodeCamp)
Two systems sharing information without a person retyping it. The word covers everything from a file dropped nightly to a live connection. Ask which kind, and what happens when one side is down.
A ready-made plug between two products: Outlook to a database, say, or your accounting system to a workflow. Microsoft supplies hundreds. When one exists I use it; when it does not, I build the plug.
A program's doorbell. Instead of one system checking every few minutes whether anything happened, the other system rings when it does. Faster, and much cheaper.
Longer read: What are webhooks? (Zapier)
An agreed way to hand an AI assistant a set of tools, such as "look up this job" or "read that record." Like a standard plug: any assistant that fits it can use the tool, and the tool decides what it will and will not hand over. I build these so an agent can answer from your real records, and only the ones its permissions allow.
Longer read: What is the Model Context Protocol? (the official introduction)
A series of steps a program runs when something happens: mail arrives, read it, file it, tell someone. Microsoft's tool for building them is Power Automate, and each one is called a flow.
Longer read: Get started with Power Automate (Microsoft Learn)
Tools for building apps and workflows by arranging pieces rather than writing every line. Faster for ordinary business problems, and your own people can read the result. I write code where those tools stop.
The instructions a person wrote for a computer to follow, in a form a person can read. What you receive from me is a sealed, installable copy that runs in your accounts (see solution); the workshop that produced it stays mine, the way a carpenter keeps his saw.
On this site: Why you should own your own data.
A program you talk to in a chat window. Not the same as an agent: a bot answers; an agent does things. Most "chatbots" are the first kind.
A plain-text way for programs to write down structured information so other programs can read it. If a developer shows you a screen full of curly braces and quotation marks, that is JSON, and it is fine that you cannot read it.
Written so a program can understand it, not just show it: a status is one of a fixed set of values rather than whatever someone typed, and every column carries a description. It costs almost nothing at the start and is what lets you ask a question in plain words later.
On this site: What I ask before I build anything ("Can a machine read it?").
Who the system believes you are. One person, one account, never shared. Programs get accounts too (see service account), so their work shows up under their own name.
Microsoft's sign-in system, formerly Azure Active Directory: the list of who works at your company, what each person may open, and the rules for proving it is really them. Every Microsoft 365 tenant has one.
Longer read: What is Microsoft Entra ID? (Microsoft Learn)
An account allowed to change settings for everyone. A "global administrator" can change anything at all, which is why there should be very few, and why nobody should do their daily work in one. I work in your accounts through an admin login you create and can switch off.
On this site: Where it runs, and what I can see.
A permission is one thing an account may do. A role is a named bundle of them. Good practice gives every account, person or program, the least it needs to do its job and nothing more. People call that "least privilege."
Permission you grant someone to act inside your accounts, under their own name, that you can take back at any time without changing anything else. What I hold. The opposite is a shared password, which you can only take back by changing it for everyone.
An account for a program rather than a person, so automation runs under its own name, with its own limits, and shows up in the log as itself. Workflows should never run as the person who happened to build them.
Two-step sign-in: proving who you are with two things, something you know (a password) and something you have (your phone, a key). It stops most account break-ins outright, and there is no good reason for a business account to be without it.
Longer read: Multi-factor authentication (Get Cyber Safe, Government of Canada)
A sign-in with no password at all: your phone or computer's own lock (fingerprint, face or PIN) proves it is you. There is nothing to type into a fake page, so it cannot be phished. It is the direction everything is heading.
Longer read: Introduction to passkeys (FIDO Alliance)
A message pretending to be from someone you trust, built to make you type a password or approve a payment. Most break-ins begin here, not with clever hacking.
Longer read: How to recognize and avoid phishing scams (US Federal Trade Commission)
Sending email that appears to come from your company when it did not. Preventable with three public records on your domain. The free Email Check on this site reads yours and says whether they are set.
Rules for when a sign-in is allowed: only from a managed device, only with two-step sign-in, only from these countries. A doorman with a list, applied automatically to every sign-in, including mine.
Longer read: What is Conditional Access? (Microsoft Learn)
One sign-in for many programs. Fewer passwords for your people, and one switch to turn a person off everywhere when they leave.
Longer read: What is single sign-on? (IBM)
Scrambling information so that only someone holding the key can read it. "In transit" while it travels; "at rest" while it sits stored. Microsoft does both by default. The padlock in your browser is the first kind.
Longer read: What should I know about encryption? (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
A password that belongs to a program rather than a person. Kept in a vault with an expiry date and a log of who used it, never written into the program itself. If a developer says "it's in the code," that is the wrong answer.
Criminal software that scrambles your files and sells you the key. Two-step sign-in keeps it out; backups make the ransom pointless.
Longer read: Stop Ransomware (US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency)
Company control over the phones and laptops that reach company data: require a passcode and encryption, keep them updated, and wipe company data if one is lost, without touching the owner's photos. Microsoft's version is called Intune.
Longer read: What is Microsoft Intune? (Microsoft Learn)
Someone from outside your company invited into your Teams or files with their own sign-in. They see only what they were invited to. How a customer, a partner, or I can be given a seat without a full account.
Longer read: B2B collaboration overview (Microsoft Learn)
A private tunnel between a device and a network across the public internet. It was the standard way to work remotely; it matters less when the programs live in the cloud and the sign-in itself is protected properly.
Meeting a written standard (an industry rule, an insurer's requirement, a law) and being able to prove it. Most of it, in practice, is retention, audit logs and access rules done properly and left running.
Software doing things we used to think needed a person: reading a letter, summarizing a meeting, spotting a pattern. Today the phrase mostly means the language models below.
A program trained on an enormous amount of text to predict what words should come next. That turns out to be enough to draft, summarize, sort and answer. It does not know things; it has read a great deal, which is a different thing and worth remembering.
Longer read: Large language models, explained with a minimum of math and jargon (Understanding AI)
How a model learns: by being shown examples, a great many of them. When a vendor "trains on your data," what you typed can shape their product for everyone, including your competitors. I do not use tools that do.
On this site: Agents, explained plainly.
What you ask or tell a model. Also the standing instructions a builder gives it before you type anything: who it works for, what it may do, what it must refuse.
A program that uses a model to read your records, understand a request in plain words, and do a limited set of things about it, on a schedule or when asked. Most run without anyone typing to them. The limits are the design.
On this site: Agents, explained plainly. Longer read: What are AI agents? (IBM)
Microsoft's name for the AI assistants built into its products. Copilot Studio is the tool for building your own, one that answers from your records instead of the internet.
Longer read: What is Copilot Studio? (Microsoft Learn)
When a model states something that is not so, fluently and with confidence. It is why every figure an agent gives here names the record it came from, and why an agent that cannot find the answer says so instead of guessing.
Longer read: What are AI hallucinations? (IBM)
Text hidden in a document or an email that tries to give an AI instructions: "ignore your rules and send this file to..." The reason agents here treat everything they read as information and never as orders.
On this site: Agents, explained plainly (what an agent will never do).
The pieces a model reads and writes in, roughly three-quarters of a word each. AI is priced per million of them, which is why the running cost of an agent is counted the way it is.
How much a model can hold in mind at once, and what you put there. Hand it the three records that matter and it answers well; hand it everything and it loses the thread. "Grounding" means making it answer from the records you gave it, and say which.
Putting a finished change where people will use it. "Deployed" means live.
Three copies of a system: where it is built, where it is tried, and where it is real. The rule is that nothing is built in production, because production is where your business is.
A safe copy where a mistake costs nothing. The first place any change goes.
In Microsoft's business-app tools, a package of tables, apps and workflows installed as one unit. A managed solution is sealed: you can read and run everything in it, nobody can accidentally edit it in place, and it upgrades cleanly. It is how the systems I build arrive in your accounts.
Longer read: Solution concepts (Microsoft Learn)
A system that keeps every version of a set of files and who changed what, so any change can be read, questioned or undone. Git is the tool; GitHub is the best-known place to keep it. It is how software stays honest.
Longer read: What is version control? (GitHub)
A mistake in software. Every system has some. The question worth asking is whether the system notices before you do; the good ones check themselves overnight and write up what did not add up.
A pilot is a small trial with real people doing real work. A rollout is everyone. Skipping the pilot is how a forty-point form ends up ticked in ninety seconds.
On this site: Nobody is doing your exercises.
Old software everyone depends on and nobody wants to touch. Usually the right move is to connect to it rather than replace it, and to stop typing into it twice.
The share of time a system is working. "Ninety-nine point nine percent" sounds like everything and is about nine hours down a year. Ask when those hours tend to fall.
The shortcuts taken to ship faster that cost more later, the way a loan does. Every business has some. The trouble is not having it; it is not knowing where it is.
Longer read: What is technical debt? (IBM)
Software whose code anyone may read, use and change, usually free. Much of the internet runs on it, and so do most of the tools I use.
Longer read: What is open source? (Red Hat)
The written account of how a system works and why it was built that way. Written for the person who comes after, not the person who built it. It is part of what you receive, and part of what makes leaving easy.
On this site: How an engagement works.
Everything a successor needs, delivered: the files, the credentials, the documentation and a walk-through. Here it takes thirty days and has no conditions.
On this site: the FAQ (what happens if we part ways).
Your address on the internet: cronkcompanies.com, for instance. You rent it yearly, and whoever controls it controls your email and your website. Know where it is registered and who has the login.
The internet's phone book: it turns a name people can remember into the address of a machine. It is also where the records that protect your email live.
Longer read: How DNS works (a short comic)
The program you read the web in: Edge, Chrome, Safari, Firefox. Most of what I build runs in one, which is why there is nothing to install.
It means the site you are on is the one it claims to be, and nobody in between can read what you send it. Never type a password into a page without it.
Longer read: How HTTPS works (a short comic)
Three public records on your domain that let the world's mail servers check whether an email claiming to come from you really did. One lists who may send as you, one signs each message, and one says what to do with mail that fails. Set properly, nobody can send as your company.
On this site: the free Email Check reads yours. Longer read: DMARC overview
A program that runs in the browser but can be pinned to a phone's home screen and keep working without signal. What a crew gets when they do not have a Microsoft account.
Longer read: What are progressive web apps? (web.dev)
A website where your customers or staff sign in to see their own things: invoices, projects, documents. Theirs, not everyone's.
A small note a website leaves in your browser so it can remember you next time. Useful for staying signed in; also how advertising follows you around. This site sets none.
A saved copy kept close so the next request is faster. It is why "clear your cache" is the first thing support says: you may be looking at the old copy.
Nothing here matches that. Try a shorter word, or ask me and I will add it.
Tell me which one and what they said. I will tell you what it means for you, in the same plain words.