BackOps Glossary of Terms

This glossary defines the words BackOps uses in the app and in these docs. Each entry is short; follow the link for the full explanation. Terms are grouped by the part of the product they belong to.

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Organization and access

Organization. The top-level workspace for a team. Its events, libraries (crew, collaborators, resource types, advance templates), settings, licenses and members all live inside it. See organizations.

Department. A named group inside an organization for organizing work by function, such as Audio or Logistics. A department rolls up the tasks and schedule of collaborators linked to it on events.

Location. A real place the organization works from or runs events at, such as a venue, office or warehouse. A location has a type and attribute values, and events point at it.

Permission. One action a person may take in one place, such as adding activities to an event or approving a collaborator's advance. See how permissions work.

Layer (or scope). The place a permission applies: an organization, a department, a location, an event, a collaborator on an event, or an area of an event.

Admin. The permission that covers everything in one layer, such as Event admin or Organization admin.

BackOps Pro. The organization's core license. A seat holder plans and runs events, creates events, and can work in any event in the organization without using an event seat. See licensing.

Event Pass. Working access on an event for someone without a BackOps Pro seat. Event Pass seats are counted per event and can go to people outside the organization.

Org Pass. Access to organization-level pages, such as crew and collaborators, without working access inside events.

Seat. One person's place on a license. Seats are bought by the organization and assigned to people.

API key. A credential an organization admin creates for an integration to call the BackOps API on the organization's behalf. See API access tokens.

Access token (or scoped token). A short-lived token the API issues for one place, such as one event, carrying the permissions the caller holds there.

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Events and people

Event. The workspace for one job: a production, show or engagement, over any number of days. Its schedule, crew, collaborators, areas, files, tasks, advances and procurement live inside it. See events.

Event type. An organization-level definition of a kind of event: what an event of that kind collects, tracks and is built from. See event types.

Template. A reusable event configuration that can be cloned into new events, including its collaborators, areas, activities, tasks and advances.

Intake form. Internal questions on an event type, answered by whoever creates the event.

Effects. Rules on an event type that act when conditions on intake answers, attributes, roles or core fields are met, for example filling a role or creating an activity. See effects.

Attribute. A typed field, such as text, date, select or a crew picker, defined once in an organization library and placed on types.

Event role. A named part on an event type, such as Project manager, filled by crew or collaborators. An event role names who owns what; it is not a permission level.

Area. A subdivision of an event's footprint, such as Main Stage, FOH or Catering. Areas are a flat list with no nesting. See areas.

Collaborator. A team or entity working an event: a production company, vendor, venue, department or crew block. Work is assigned to collaborators, and access is scoped by them. See collaborators.

Default collaborator. The collaborator that represents your own organization on an event.

Collaborator database. The organization's lasting list of the venues, vendors and companies it works with, reused across events. See the collaborator database.

Crew member. One person on an event, belonging to exactly one collaborator. A crew member does not need a BackOps account. See crew.

Contact. A crew member added as a record only, with no account or access. A contact can still be assigned work and scheduled.

Crew database. The organization's lasting list of people, pulled into events as crew.

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Planning and advancing

Activity. An item on the event schedule with a title, a start and end (or all day), and optionally areas and participants. A global activity shows on the event calendar for everyone. See creating activities.

Run of show. The minute-by-minute cue list behind an activity.

Task. A unit of work tracked in Project Management, on an event or at the organization. See project management.

Phase. A named date range that tasks sit in, such as Load-In, Show or Strike.

Constraint. A recorded blocker that holds up one or more tasks.

Advancing. Collecting the information, requirements and approvals each collaborator owes before the event, through structured forms instead of email and spreadsheets. See advancing.

Module template. A reusable section of an advance form, such as an audio rider or Catering.

Advance template. A named, ordered set of module templates.

Advance. The live copy of an advance template assigned to one collaborator, holding that collaborator's answers.

Advance Manager. The event page that shows advance answers by module across every collaborator. See the Advance Manager.

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Resourcing

Resource type. A kind of thing the organization supplies or requests, such as a box truck, a lift or an A1.

Resource. A real instance in inventory, such as truck GC-014 or a crew member holding the A1 role.

Procurement. An event's shopping list, holding resource needs before anything is bought. See procurement.

Resource need. A resource type and quantity an event needs, inside a procurement.

Reservation. A person, unit or held quantity filling a need, with a status such as Requested or Confirmed.

Coverage. Whether a need is secured, worked out from its reservations.

Proposal. The quote you sell and the budget the event runs against.

Order. The record of filling needs for one event, either External (a vendor) or Internal (your own crew and gear).

Receipt. A record of what actually arrived, created from an order or on its own.

Expense. Money spent without a purchase order, such as parking or a hotel night.

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Documents and data

File record. The unit of BackOps Files: a named record that holds a file, rather than a loose upload. See files.

Dynamic doc. A document inside an event, such as a day sheet or call sheet, whose data blocks always show current values. See dynamic docs.

Data view. The shared table used by most lists in BackOps, with a common toolbar and layouts.