GLS · Glossary
Glossary of terms
Hardware, B-Stock, Fleet, QBR Pack, and more.
3 min read
Terms used throughout AssetSort and this Help Center.
- Hardware
- A physical device — laptops, monitors, network equipment, printers — tracked with a status, cost, warranty, purchase date and assignment. Added by hand, or synced from Intune and Entra.
- Licence
- A software licence. Either a subscription that renews monthly or annually, or a perpetual licence owned outright with an optional maintenance end date. Carries a seat count and the assignments consuming it.
- Assignment mode
- Whether a licence's seats are consumed by people (named-user seats) or by devices (per-machine seats). Exactly one lane, never both. Microsoft licences pick their own; manual licences default to people.
- Certificate
- A digital certificate (TLS/SSL). Distinct from a Certification, which is an organisational compliance certification like ISO 27001, and from an App Credential.
- App credential
- A Microsoft 365 app-registration client secret, key credential or SAML token-signing certificate, synced read-only from Entra and tracked for expiry like any other renewal.
- B-Stock
- A hardware status for spare equipment kept in reserve rather than actively deployed. Excluded from in-service counts, renewals and spend-by-tag, but still counted in total inventory value. Only visible once B-Stock tracking is switched on for the organisation.
- Retired
- A hardware status for equipment permanently out of service. The one status under which a Microsoft 365-synced device can be deleted from AssetSort.
- Expiry lead time
- The organisation-wide window, default 14 days, that decides how far ahead something counts as Expiring or Renewing Soon. Set in Settings → Organization → Advanced Settings.
- Device lifecycle
- The organisation-wide refresh cycle, default 3 years, added to a device's purchase date to work out its end-of-life date. Applies to manually-tracked hardware.
- Fleet
- The aggregate, cross-client view available to MSP staff — devices, seats, and renewals rolled up across every managed client.
- MSP workspace
- An organisation that manages one or more separate client organisations, each fully isolated with its own data.
- Managed client
- A client organisation an MSP workspace manages — isolated data, with MSP staff access scoped per client.
- QBR Pack
- The Client QBR Pack — a branded PDF combining executive KPIs, inventory, spend, renewals and what's due, built live from an organisation's data.
- Tag
- A coloured label attached to hardware, licences or certificates, used to organise items and drive Tag Actions.
- Tag Actions
- A scoped mini-dashboard and bulk-operation tool built from a tag selection — statistics plus bulk tag, assignment, export and reporting actions.
- Structure
- The folder tree hardware can be organised into, representing sites or departments — separate from tags. Everything starts under Root; there are no pre-made folders.
- Billing anchor
- The first workspace you created. It holds the plan that every other workspace you own — and every client you manage — inherits.