Concepts and glossary
AlianHub uses a small set of words again and again. This page explains each one in a sentence or two, and links to the page that covers it in full. If a word on a screen puzzles you, look for it here first.
How work is organised
Workspace (company)
└── Project
├── Folder (optional, can hold one level of subfolders)
│ └── List (or sprint)
│ └── Task
│ └── Subtask (up to three levels)
└── List| Word | What it means | More |
|---|---|---|
| Workspace (company) | The place your team's work lives, usually your company or team. The app sometimes says "company". One installation can hold many workspaces, kept apart from each other, and you can belong to several. | Sign up and set up |
| Project | One piece of work with a goal, such as a launch or a client job. It has its own statuses, task types, members, apps and views. | Projects |
| Project key | A short code for a project, such as WEB. Every task in the project gets a key made from it, such as WEB-12. No two projects can share a key. | Projects |
| Private project | A project only the people and teams added to it can see, plus owners and admins. | People and roles |
| Folder | An optional group of lists inside a project. A folder can hold one level of subfolders. | Folders, lists and sprints |
| List | A list of tasks inside a project. Every task lives in exactly one list. A new project starts with one list. | Folders, lists and sprints |
| Sprint | A list run for a fixed time, with a start date, an end date and a goal. You start it, and you complete it when the time is up. | Folders, lists and sprints |
| Task | One piece of work that someone does. It has a name, a status and, if you like, assignees, dates, a priority, an estimate and more. | Tasks |
| Subtask | A task inside another task. Subtasks can go three levels deep. | Tasks |
Describing a task
| Word | What it means | More |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Where a task is, such as To Do, In Progress or Done. Each project has its own statuses. Each status is also of a kind (open, in progress or done), which is how AlianHub knows a task is finished. | Tasks |
| Priority | How much a task matters right now, shown as a coloured flag. The usual choices are Urgent, High, Medium and Low. | Tasks |
| Task type | What kind of task it is, such as a task, a bug or a feature. Each project chooses its task types, and each type has an icon. | Tasks |
| Assignee | A person responsible for a task. A task can have more than one when the project allows it. | Tasks |
| Watcher | Someone who follows a task without owning it. Watchers get updates in their Inbox. | Tasks |
| Tag | A coloured label you put on tasks, to find and filter them across a project. | Tasks |
| Estimate and story points | Two ways of saying how big a task is: hours, or points on the project's scale. | Tasks |
| Relation | A link between two tasks: one blocks another, one duplicates another, or they simply relate. | Tasks |
| Checklist | A list of small steps you tick off inside one task. | Tasks |
| Repeat | A setting that makes a task come back on a schedule, daily, weekly or monthly. | Tasks |
| Milestone | A dated, paid stage of a client project, with an amount and a status. | Milestones |
| Custom field | An extra box you add to tasks, such as a budget or a customer name. Formulas and rollups work out their own values. | Custom fields |
| Apps (of a project) | Features you switch on or off per project: Priority, Multiple assignees, Time estimates, Milestones, Tags, Custom fields, Time tracking and AI. | Projects |
Seeing the work
| Word | What it means | More |
|---|---|---|
| View | A way of looking at a project's tasks: List, Board, Table, Calendar, Gantt, Workload and more. A view never changes the tasks. | Views |
| Saved view | A view tab that remembers its filter, grouping, sort and columns. It can be shared with the project or kept private. | Views |
| Filter | Conditions that narrow a view down to the tasks you want. | Views |
| Group by | Splits a view into groups, such as one per status or one per person. | Views |
| Embed view | A tab that shows another website inside the project, such as a sheet, a design or a video. | Embed and other views |
| Workload | A view of who has how much work, day by day, against what they can do. | Workload |
| Everything | One page with every task you can open, from every project. | Quick tour |
Working together
| Word | What it means | More |
|---|---|---|
| Member | A person in your workspace. The word is also the name of the everyday role. | People and roles |
| Role | What a person may do in the whole workspace. There are four: Owner, Admin, Member and Guest. | People and roles |
| Guest | A person with a login who is not part of your team, such as a client. Guests read and comment but do not change things. | People and roles |
| Team | A named group of people. Add a team to a private project and everyone in it gets in. | People and roles |
| Mention | Typing @ and a name in a comment, doc or chat. The person is told in their Inbox. | Chat and the Inbox |
| Inbox | The one place that tells you what needs you: mentions, replies, reminders and approvals. | Chat and the Inbox |
| Channel | A chat room for a group or a project. Direct conversations are between two or a few people. | Chat and the Inbox |
| Notification | A message that something happened. You choose which ones you get, and where. | Notifications |
| Doc | A page of writing that belongs to a project or to the whole workspace. It saves itself, keeps versions, and takes comments. | Docs and whiteboards |
| Wiki page | A doc with an owner and a review date, so it is checked and kept up to date. | Docs and whiteboards |
| Whiteboard | A view of a list where its tasks sit as cards you can move around, with notes beside them. | Docs and whiteboards |
| Form | A web form that turns each answer into a task in the list you choose. | Embed and other views |
Planning and automating
| Word | What it means | More |
|---|---|---|
| Rule (automation) | A small job AlianHub does when something happens, such as "when a task is done, tell its creator". The screen calls them Automations. | Rules |
| Template | A starting point you can reuse. A project template brings statuses, views, lists and tasks. A task template fills in a task. A view template copies a view's settings. | Templates |
| Archive | Hide something but keep it, so you can restore it later. Projects, folders, lists and tasks can be archived. | Projects |
| Close (a project) | Mark a project finished. It becomes read only and can be reopened. | Projects |
| Trash | Where deleted things go. You can restore them from More, then Trash. | Projects |
Time
| Word | What it means | More |
|---|---|---|
| Time entry | A stretch of time logged on a task, from a timer or typed in. It can be billable. | Time and timesheets |
| Timesheet | Your week of time entries, one row per task and one column per day. | Time and timesheets |
| Approval | Checking and accepting something someone sent, such as a timesheet week or a time-off request. | Approvals |
| Time off | Days a person is away. Approved time off lowers their capacity in Workload. | Approvals |
| Desktop tracker | A small app on your computer that tracks time on a task while you work. | Desktop time tracker |
AI
| Word | What it means | More |
|---|---|---|
| Ask (Ask AlianHub) | The AI assistant built into AlianHub. Ask it a question about your work in plain words. | Ask AlianHub |
| Agent | An AI worker that can take on a task, such as drafting, triage or a daily check of a project. Its changes are recorded, and some wait for your approval. | Agents in AlianHub |
| Your AI app | An outside AI app, such as Claude or ChatGPT, that you connect so it can find and change work for you. | Connect your AI |
| MCP | Model Context Protocol, the standard way AI apps connect to tools. AlianHub offers an MCP server, which is what your AI app connects to. | MCP server reference |
| Proposal | A change an AI wants to make that waits for a person to approve it in the Inbox. | Approve in the Inbox |