Glossary
Below is a comprehensive list of Tonkean terms and features.
A
Action | A singular piece of logic or behavior in a module, activated by a trigger. Actions are the "then" statements that respond to triggers and execute a particular behavior. |
B
Block | May refer to either an action block or a trigger block—both basic components used in the module builder to build workflows. |
Blueprint | See solution blueprint. |
Board | A project, containing one or more solutions. Boards are usually department-specific, with one board containing all the modules for the Legal team and another board containing all the Sales modules, for example. |
Business report | A report that displays a live view of all the items within a module. The report provides user-defined key metrics that display the most important health and performance indicators for the module. Additionally, the report displays a more detailed view of the fields for each item. Each module has a related business report. |
C
Component library | A library of ready-to-go components you can import into your board and customize to suit your particular needs and business process. The component library includes solution blueprints, module templates, and data sources. |
Condition |
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Custom action | A user-created action in an enterprise component; custom actions can be added to applications with native integrations or to custom data sources. You can create custom actions based on any API call supported by the application in question. For example, if Tonkean doesn't have a native Jira action for retrieving the changelog for an issue, you can create a custom action that sends a GET request using the Jira API to retrieve that changelog and use it as needed in your module. |
Custom item interface | A user-created interface for module items. Custom item interfaces allow you to build unique, specialized views of the items in a given module, enabling the sharing of relevant information with the people involved in your business process. |
D
Data (action) | A type of action that interacts or manipulates data in some way, such as updating a particular field or performing text analysis (NLP). Data actions allow modules to automatically keep data synced between systems or respond to decisions made by people. |
Data source | An application or system that provides data to a Tonkean module. There are various kinds of data sources, including native data sources and custom data sources, as well as numerous ways to connect these data sources to Tonkean. Data sources are also included in the component library and can be installed from there. |
Data source record | A single record from a data source entity. Data source records are monitored by Tonkean modules and are used to generate items. A data source record and a Tonkean item share much in common, and can sometimes contain exactly the same data; what makes these different is their origin: a data source record is generated by the connected data source (for example, Workday), whereas the item is generated by Tonkean. |
E
Enterprise component | A building block that powers a Tonkean board that's one of various available types: data source, communication tool, business group, training set, or reusable component. Enterprise components provide necessary logic to a Tonkean solution, from data through a third-party application to machine learning logic through a training set. In the Tonkean platform hierarchy, enterprise components exist at the same level as the solutions themselves and can be made available to any solution on a given board. That is, they provide resources that remain consistent across different solutions on the same board. |
Entity | An object from a data source that contains the relevant data records (items). Most applications have various entities. For example, Salesforce has a large number of entities, including Accounts, Leads, Opportunities, and Users. Each of these entities has zero to many records—these are data source records, which can become module items. Another way to understand entities is as a table within a database. Each table is an entity, while each row in that table is a record. The columns of the table define the type of data contained with the table (that is, Text field type or Date field type). |
F
Field | An individual attribute from a data source. All items contain one or more fields (most contain many fields). For example, a Jira ticket item generally contains fields such as "Assignee" and "Status." |
Form | A user-completed document that either creates a new item (create form) or updates an existing item (update form). Forms address a wide variety of use cases in Tonkean and their implementation can range from simple, single-question forms to complex series of forms that respond to user choices. Forms are one of the primary ways you can keep humans in the loop, allowing your module to reach out to the right people and ensure information is up to date as it moves through a workflow. |
G
Global field | A field that can be used across all the actions of a given module. Global fields are most commonly used to generate key metrics on the module's business report. |
I
Inner item | A child of an item, with many of the same properties. Inner items can exist with various kinds of items, with some examples being attachments to a parent email and rows that are children to a parent form. |
Intake source | An intake source is the primary data source that a module is always monitoring. Important pieces of data are automatically generated for the data source that is being used as the intake source, such as all the fields that exist within the data source (created as matched entities). |
Instant access | A role-granting feature that automatically grants the a given role (for example, process contributor) for users that sign in with a specified email domain. |
Item | A Tonkean-generated record that's monitored and processed by a module and contains relevant data from the connected data source. Items are created by Tonkean, but the data they contain usually comes from a monitored data source record (for example, a Salesforce Opportunity). Additionally, some items are generated exclusively by Tonkean, such as those that come from custom data sources, email inboxes, or Tonkean forms. Items can contain inner items, as well. Another way to understand an item is as a row within a table (entity). Each row is a unique record in the table, containing values for each of the columns. For example, if you're monitoring Salesforce Opportunities as an entity, each item represents a single Opportunity with its unique values (Account Name, Amount, Close Date, and so on), potentially filtered by Tonkean. |
K
Key metrics | Indicators for the health and performance of a module. Key metric data is pulled from global fields created in the module. |
L
Library | See Component Library. |
M
Maker | A system user with the permissions to create and customize Tonkean solutions and the modules they contain. Makers are generally experts on their internal processes and use that expertise to automate and orchestrate that process in Tonkean. |
Matched entity | A connection or pairing made between two pieces of data in separate data sources. Matched entities allow you to match identical or related fields to allow you to more easily locate other data in a given data source (for example, matching the unique email address in a customer list to that same email address in a Salesforce opportunity in order to precisely locate other data in that opportunity). |
Matched item | An item that is synced between multiple modules, containing the fields from all related modules. Matched items are created automatically when users configure the Module Actions action and select the Add Item to Module option. |
Module | The core building block of Tonkean, featuring a self-contained workflow that pulls from a specified data source and defines logic to automate a business process or task. Modules are contained within a solution. |
Module template | A predefined pattern for a Tonkean module, available in the component library. A module template lays out an example of a successful workflow. |
Module version | A saved image of a module, including all actions, logic, and configurations. You manually create module versions as part of the build and publish process. |
Monitored item | An item from the module's input data source. |
N
Natural language processing (NLP) | A branch of artificial intelligence (AI) that explores a computer's ability to understand unstructured text and human speech in a way comparable to humans; the functionality that processes natural text and speech. |
O
Owner | The person responsible for an item or inner item. The owner of an item receives follow-up notifications on an item or inner item. Owner is a basic field that can be used in any module. |
P
Page | In a workspace app, a single self-contained section that's customizable by the user. |
People Coordination (action) | A type of action that interacts with people in some way, such as sending a notification or asking a question. People Coordination actions allow a module to keep humans in the loop to ensure processes are being carried out as expected and consulting people where necessary. |
Process contributor | A person, inside or outside one's organization, that contributes to a business process or performs a particular business function. This is the broadest category of users that use or interact with Tonkean in some way. |
Publisher | A system user with permissions to publish a solution. |
Q
Query paramater | A key-value pair included as a URL extension that specifies the content or action being requested. Query parameters (or simply "params") are appended to the end of a URL using a question mark, "?". Multiple query paramters are often appended to a URL, comprising a "query string." In Tonkean, the query parameter is often separated into two fields where users can configure the key and value seperately. For example, there may be separate Param and Value fields that are combined as a key-value pair in the related API request made by Tonkean. |
R
Runtime | A screen that provides an overview of all solutions in a Tonkean board. The Runtime screen offers various administrative features, including a display of the recent flows in each module and the ability to re-run batches of items through a module as a background process. |
S
Solution | An entity in the Tonkean hierarchy that solves an end-to-end business problem. A solution contains one or more related modules. |
Solution blueprint | A design plan for an entire Tonkean solution, available in the component library. A solution blueprint lays out the business outcome, a clear description, and the recommended modules to orchestrate an end-to-end business process. |
Status | A status signifies the state of an item at a particular point in your workflow and business process. Tonkean modules provide a set of default statuses, such as Not Started, In Progress, Blocked, Done, and so on. There are two types of statuses: Intake and Triage & Coordination. Intake statuses do not by default activate module logic; Triage & Coordination statuses do activate module logic. |
System user | A person inside the organization that's an internal user of Tonkean. System users are the primary users of Tonkean, building solutions, setting up business reports, and connecting data sources. System users are assigned a board role by an admin (board admin or maker, for example). |
T
Template | See module template. |
Trigger | A condition or "when" statement that prompts a specified action. A trigger is the mechanism by which a module knows when to execute a given action or not, as defined by the user. |
W
Webhook | A one-way API that shares data when triggered by specified events (as opposed to a RESTful API, which is triggered by requests). Webhooks allow applications to receive near-real-time updates since they push updates to the recipient application or system when triggered. |
Workspace app | A user experience for a solution, comprised of one or more pages that provide direct access to relevant solution information or important module actions. |