> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.communityhub.cloud/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Data Hub Glossary: Terms, Concepts, and Definitions

> Reference definitions for key Data Hub terms — organizations, metered entities, variables, data sources, visualizations, roles, and logs.

This glossary defines the terms you'll encounter most often in Data Hub. Terms are listed roughly in the order you'd encounter them as a new user — starting with the organization that owns everything, through the data flow from building to visualization. For a deeper look at how these concepts relate to each other, see [Core Concepts](/core-concepts).

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Organization">
    An **organization** is the top-level account that owns a set of buildings and their data in Data Hub — for example, a college or a city government. Most users belong to a single organization, but some have access to several and can switch between them from a dropdown in the top navigation.

    Access to an organization is invite-only, managed by that organization's **Admin**.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Metered Entity">
    A **metered entity** is a building or asset that Data Hub collects data for. Each metered entity has metadata such as total area, average occupancy, address, type, resource types, and tags, along with a default dashboard and default variables.

    Metered entities can be viewed as a detailed **List** or as simplified **Tiles**, and each has its own **Home**, **Variables**, **Details**, and **Logs** tabs.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Variable">
    A **variable** is an individual data point or metric tracked for a metered entity — for example, electricity use, water consumption, or precipitation.

    Each variable has a **type** (Instantaneous, Totalizer, or Average Rate), a **status** (Enabled, Disabled, or Historical), and a **data reception** state (Online or Offline). Variables can be viewed in table or graph form, compared up to 5 at a time, and exported as CSV.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Default Variable">
    A **default variable** represents total usage for a particular resource on a metered entity. Default variables are used to represent that entity's usage in default dashboards and visualizations.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Data Source">
    A **data source** is the external system or device supplying data to a variable — a datalogger (Obvius, JACE, BuildingOS), a sensor platform (Motion), a public API (AirNow, OpenWeatherMap, GLOS), or a generic CSV upload. See [Connecting Data Sources](/guides/connecting-sources) for setup instructions.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Visualization">
    A **visualization** is a chart used to explore or compare variable data. Visualizations fall into two categories:

    * **Trend Analysis** — Single or Multi Point Line/Bar Trend Analysis, and Heatmap Analysis, all tracking variables over time.
    * **Comparison** — Bar Chart Comparison and Portfolio Comparison, comparing variables or entities side by side.

    Visualizations can be filtered by region, organization, building type, and resource type, and compared against Typical Usage or a Previous Period.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Dashboard">
    A **dashboard** is a saved collection of visualizations for a metered entity. Each metered entity can have a **default dashboard**, shown first when a user opens that entity.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Standardization">
    **Standardization** normalizes variable data for fairer comparison — for example, showing usage per square foot or per person, based on metadata provided for the metered entity.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Admin">
    An **Admin** is associated with the entity responsible for an organization's Data Hub account. Admins invite and manage the users who can access that organization's data.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="User">
    A **user** is someone using Data Hub within an organization without being the billed party — for example, a student doing coursework for a class. Users are invited by an Admin.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Log">
    A **log** is an audit trail of changes and activity for a metered entity or variable, including timestamps, a description of what changed, and the user who made the change. Users can add their own notes to a log, and logs can be filtered by date and browsed chronologically.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Token">
    A **token** is a personal access credential used to authenticate requests to the [Data API](/api-reference/introduction). Tokens are user-scoped, not permission-scoped — a token grants exactly the same data access the issuing user's account already has, rather than a separate set of permissions chosen at creation time.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Data API">
    The **Data API** is a read-only, programmatic interface for retrieving variables and their time-series data, distinct from the internal API that powers the Data Visualizer. See the [API Reference](/api-reference/introduction).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Data Downloader">
    The **Data Downloader** is a UI-driven bulk export tool for larger datasets, submitted as asynchronous jobs rather than generated instantly. It has no public API of its own — see [Share & Export](/guides/sharing-exporting#data-downloader).
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>