---
title: Glossary
section: reference
summary: 'Plain-language definitions of the terms used across Cockpit - PBX, extension, call flow, queue, IVR, time point, contract - each one linking to the guide that covers it.'
tags:
  - reference
  - glossary
updated: '2026-08-12'
---

> A shared vocabulary for the whole documentation set. Each term means exactly what it says here wherever it appears in another guide, and links to the guide that covers it in full.

## Core telephony

- **PBX** - the private branch exchange: your organization's phone system. It manages calls between your users and connects them to the outside world. Every other resource belongs to exactly one PBX. See [PBX settings](../telephony/pbxes.md).
- **Extension** - the short internal number that reaches a user, device, or assistant inside the PBX, without going through the public network. See [Extensions](../telephony/extensions.md).
- **SIP device** - one phone connected to the PBX: a desk phone, softphone, DECT handset, or conference phone. Also called an endpoint. See [SIP devices](../telephony/sip_devices.md).
- **Parent SIP device** - a gateway or base station that child devices register through, such as a DECT base or a SIP trunk gateway. See [Parent SIP devices](../telephony/parent_sip_devices.md).
- **SIP carrier** - the upstream provider connecting the PBX to the public telephone network. See [SIP carriers](../telephony/sip_carriers.md).
- **Phone number** - a public number (DID) external callers dial to reach you. An inbound call on a number is handed to a call flow. See [Phone numbers](../telephony/phone_numbers.md).
- **Caller identity** - the number shown to the person being called on an outbound call. Set at PBX, group, user, or device level, most specific level winning. See [Caller identities](../telephony/caller_identities.md).

## Call routing

- **Call flow** - the ordered set of steps deciding what happens to an inbound call: where it rings, in what order, and what to do when nobody answers. The building block of inbound routing. See [Call flows](../telephony/call_flows.md).
- **Schedule** - a named set of time rules (business hours, holiday closures). Pointing a call flow step at one gates it by time. See [Schedules](../telephony/schedules.md).
- **Queue** - a virtual line holding inbound callers and offering each call to its members by rules you set. For when more callers arrive than people are free to answer. See [Queues](../telephony/queues.md).
- **Ring strategy** - the rule a queue uses to pick who rings on each attempt: ring all, round robin, fewest calls, least recent, or random.
- **IVR** - interactive voice response: the "press 1 for sales" menu that lets callers route themselves with their keypad. See [IVRs](../telephony/ivrs.md).
- **Pickup line** - a shared line appearance several people can monitor and answer, usually from a phone button. See [Pickup lines](../telephony/pickup_lines.md).
- **Multicast** - a one-way audio broadcast (paging) sent to a set of devices at once. See [Multicasts](../telephony/multicasts.md).
- **Blocked number** - a number or number prefix the PBX refuses to handle. See [Blocked numbers](../telephony/blacklisted_numbers.md).
- **Incoming prefix route** - a rule matching inbound calls by the caller's number prefix and sending them to a specific call flow, so one dialled number can route differently by origin. See [Incoming prefix routes](../telephony/incoming_prefix_routes.md).

## Sound

- **Announcement** - a pre-recorded message played to a caller, such as a greeting or an out-of-hours notice. See [Announcements](../telephony/announcements.md).
- **Music on hold** - the audio a caller hears while waiting in a queue or on hold. See [Music on hold](../telephony/music_on_holds.md).

## People and attributes

- **Group** - a named collection of users the rest of the system can target as one team. See [Groups](../telephony/groups.md).
- **Pool** - a dynamic group of users defined by rules instead of an explicit list; it resolves to whoever matches. See [Pools](../telephony/pools.md).
- **Tag, location, language** - attributes assigned to users and other records to organize them and to drive pool membership. See [Tags](../telephony/tags.md), [Locations](../telephony/locations.md), [Languages](../telephony/languages.md).
- **Status** - the presence state a user is in (available, in a meeting, on leave), shown to colleagues and usable in routing. See [Statuses](../telephony/tempus_statuses.md).
- **Twinning** - ringing a user's external device (mobile or Teams) in parallel with their extension, so calls reach them wherever they are. See [Twinnings](../telephony/twinnings.md).
- **Do not disturb (DND)** - a rule blocking incoming calls for a user, optionally limited to internal or external calls. See [Do not disturb](../telephony/dnds.md).
- **User forward** - a rule redirecting a user's incoming calls elsewhere on a specific event, such as busy or no answer. See [User forwards](../telephony/user_forwards.md).
- **Phone button** - a programmable key on a phone (BLF, speed dial, line key), set at PBX, group, user, or device level, the four levels merging into one layout per device. See [Phone buttons](../telephony/phone_buttons.md).
- **Contact** - a saved person and number: private to a user, shared with a group, or available PBX-wide. See [Contacts](../telephony/contacts.md).
- **Role** - the bundle of access assigned to a user. Two are assignable: Voxbi Cockpit Admin (all of Telephony) and HR (Tempus). A user with no role cannot sign in to Cockpit. See [Roles](roles.md).
- **Permission** - a single allowed action on a resource, such as listing call flows. Permissions belong to roles, never to individual users. See [Roles](roles.md).

## AI

- **AI IVR** - a lightweight AI voice assistant that screens callers, deflects common questions, and transfers to the right human. See [AI IVRs](../telephony/ai_ivrs.md).
- **Smart assistant** - the full-featured AI voice assistant: it takes over an extension and answers with an AI model, with its own greeting, prompt, and transfer rules. See [Smart assistants](../telephony/smart_assistants.md).
- **Keyword** - a hierarchical label the AI applies to classify what a call was about, driven by a plain-language prompt. See [Keywords](../telephony/keywords.md).
- **AI prompt** - free-text instructions attached to one extension or group, telling the AI how to handle calls for that target. See [AI prompts](../telephony/ai_prompts.md).

## Records and history

- **Call history (CDR)** - a one-line summary per call the PBX handled: who called whom, when, how long, answered or not. Read-only. See [Call history](../telephony/cdrs.md).
- **Change log** - the audit trail of every administrative action, answering "who changed this?" for any configuration. See [Change logs](../telephony/change_logs.md).
- **Template** - a saved set of user-field values applied to many users at once. See [Templates](../telephony/templates.md).

## Tempus

- **Company** - the legal employer of a group of employees. Owns the working-time rules, holiday quotas, and overtime policy that propagate to them. See [Companies](../tempus/tempus_companies.md).
- **Department** - an organizational unit inside a company. Drives approval routing for requests and scopes reporting. See [Departments](../tempus/tempus_departments.md).
- **Employee** - one person on the payroll, the HR-side counterpart of a Cockpit user. See [Employees](../tempus/tempus_employees.md).
- **Contract** - the employment relationship between one employee and one company. It activates the employee for time tracking, payroll, and holiday. See [Contracts](../tempus/tempus_contracts.md).
- **Work shift** - a reusable weekly working pattern, the expected baseline actual hours are measured against. See [Work shifts](../tempus/tempus_work_shifts.md).
- **Time point** - one continuous period an employee spent in one status. The atomic unit of time tracking that every total is built from. See [Time points](../tempus/tempus_time_points.md).
- **Absence** - a recorded period an employee was not working, carrying a type and a date range. See [Absences](../tempus/tempus_absences.md).
- **Absence type** - the category of non-working time (vacation, sick, maternity, unpaid), named by every absence and request. See [Absence types](../tempus/tempus_absence_types.md).
- **Holiday request** - the employee-initiated workflow for booking time off, landing in the approver's inbox. See [Holiday requests](../tempus/holiday_requests.md).
- **Home office request** - the same workflow for remote-work days: time out of the office at the same expected hours. See [Home office requests](../tempus/home_office_requests.md).
- **Approval chain** - who is asked to approve a request, in what order, and how many must answer. Exactly one chain decides each request. See [Approval chains](../tempus/approval_chains.md).
- **Step** - one rung of an approval chain, asked only once the rung above it has approved, with its own number of required approvals.
- **Watcher** - somebody attached to a chain who is never asked in turn and never holds a request up, optionally able to decide it outright. See [Approval chains](../tempus/approval_chains.md).
- **Validator** - an employee who can approve requests, because a chain names them on a step. The older **validator rule** engine, where several rules merged into one ladder, is being retired. See [Validators and managers](../tempus/validator_rules.md).
- **Terminal** - a clock-in device: a web page, a mobile app, a softphone, or a tablet in the lobby. See [Terminals](../tempus/terminals.md).
- **Badge** - the credential an employee clocks in with, usually an RFID or NFC card. See [Badges](../tempus/tempus_badges.md).

## Overtime

- **Overtime period** - a bounded window, usually a month or quarter, in which overtime accumulates and is reconciled at close. Everything below hangs off one period. See [Overtime periods](../tempus/tempus_overtime_periods.md).
- **Overtime declaration** - one employee's claim of overtime worked inside a period. The input side. See [Overtime declarations](../tempus/tempus_overtime_declarations.md).
- **Overtime decision** - the end-of-period reconciliation for one employee: how much of their accumulated overtime is paid out and how much is banked as time off. One per employee per period. See [Overtime decisions](../tempus/tempus_overtime_decisions.md).
- **Overtime decision preference** - an employee's standing choice between cash, time off, or a split, used to seed their decision so HR is not retyping it every period. See [Overtime decision preferences](../tempus/tempus_overtime_decision_preferences.md).
- **Overtime submission** - the final cut: every decision in a closed period bundled into a payroll-ready package and sent onward. See [Overtime submissions](../tempus/tempus_overtime_submissions.md).

## Partner

The partner portal is a separate application from Cockpit, used by the organizations that sell and provision it rather than by the people answering calls.

- **Partner** - an organization that sells and provisions Cockpit. Every partner is either a distributor or a reseller, and that type decides what it can reach.
- **Distributor** - the top of the hierarchy. Sees and controls everything beneath it: its resellers, and their PBXs and customers. Only a distributor creates resellers. See [Resellers](../partner/partner_resellers.md).
- **Reseller** - a partner one level below a distributor, running independently with its own PBXs, customers, team, and logo. See [Resellers](../partner/partner_resellers.md).
- **Customer** - the end-client company a PBX is provisioned for. Belongs to exactly one reseller, and may hold several PBXs. See [Customers](../partner/partner_customers.md).
- **Team member** - somebody who signs in to the partner portal, holding exactly one role that decides what they can do there. Not the same thing as a Cockpit user: the two live in separate systems with separate roles. See [Team members](../partner/partner_team.md).

A PBX is the point where the two sides meet: provisioned and assigned from the partner portal, then administered from inside Cockpit by its own users. See [PBXs](../partner/partner_pbxes.md) for the partner-side view and [PBX settings](../telephony/pbxes.md) for the Cockpit-side one.

## Platform

- **Voxbi** - the company.
- **Cockpit** - the admin application you are using: the web panel for managing everything above.
- **Telephony** - the Cockpit module for phone-system management.
- **Tempus** - the Cockpit module for time and attendance.