Key concepts & glossary
DASH uses a handful of specific terms throughout the platform. This page defines each one in plain language and links to the guide where you actually work with it. If a screen ever uses a word you are unsure of, this is the place to check.
The entities
Section titled “The entities”Account : Your tenant organisation within DASH. Everything you create — organisations, materials, definitions, certificates — belongs to your account, and you can only ever see your own account’s data. You can be a member of more than one account and switch between them by signing out and back in. See Logging in.
Organisation : A client organisation you produce data for. This is not the same as your Account: your account owns many organisations. See Organisations overview.
Material (a.k.a. Project) : A unit of work configured for data acquisition, such as one product or data stream. It carries metadata fields, assigned users and data channels, and is typed as either a Receiver or a Supplier configuration. You will see it called a “Project” in some places — it is the same thing. See Materials overview.
Definition : An account-level, versioned data structure describing the properties and output shape of a record. Definitions are reusable, so one Definition can be linked to several Materials. See Definitions overview.
Definition Property (entity vs value) : A single field within a Definition — it has a name, a type (integer, float, text, boolean or date), and optional unit, validation and hierarchy. A value property holds one piece of data (for example “Assay = 99.4%”). An entity property is a container that groups other properties for structured, repeating output (for example a “Test Result” that repeats per row). See Definition properties.
Definition Map : The configuration that translates an input source (CSV, Excel, XML, JSON or PDF) onto the properties of one Definition. It holds the source configuration and the field mappings. See Definition Maps overview.
Field Mapping : A single entry inside a Definition Map linking one source field to one Definition Property, optionally with a transform (such as reformatting a date) and a row-selection rule. See CSV & Excel mapping.
Certificate (a.k.a. Submission) : A single data record produced from a Material, a Definition, a Definition Map and some input data. It moves through a status lifecycle from draft to signed and submitted. Internally it is called a “Submission”. See Certificates overview.
Connections and configuration
Section titled “Connections and configuration”Data Channel : A configured connection attached to a Material, in one of three directions: submission (outbound to a recipient), source (inbound polling) or storage (archival push). See Data channels overview.
Source channel : A data channel of direction source that — once it has a Definition Map pinned and a poll interval set — is polled automatically to bring in new documents. This is what powers automated ingestion. See Source channels.
Validation rule : A check applied to the mapped data by a Definition Map. A rule has either error or warning severity. An error-severity rule that fails will block signing; a warning does not. See Validation rules.
Signature : The digital signature a Quality Person applies to move a certificate to approved for submission. It records the signer’s name, the timestamp and the account, and locks the data for release. See Sign a certificate.
States and actions
Section titled “States and actions”Lock : The state an entity enters once at least one Certificate references it, protecting audit integrity. A Definition becomes fully read-only when locked; a Definition Map only blocks deletion (you can still edit its mappings). See Lock & archive.
Archive : A reversible soft-hide for a Definition or Definition Map. Archiving removes it from the default list views without deleting it — useful when something is no longer in use but cannot be deleted because it is locked. See Lock & archive.
Dry-run : A test poll of a source channel that produces certificates you can review without adding them to your main Certificate list or advancing the channel’s ingestion. See Dry-run a channel.