Glossary

The terms of this application in the meaning they carry here. Where a term means something different in another application, it says so.

Term	Meaning
Beacon	A BLE transmitter at a fixed place. If its position is recorded, every tag that sees it can be located from it. A beacon marked as Gateway lends its position to the tags it sees itself.
Cell	A mobile network cell a tag is logged into. The serving cell is the one it is connected to; neighbour cells are the ones it can additionally receive. A cell covers a wide area, which is why it is the least precise source of a position.
Client	The credentials with which a third-party system collects positions and decisions. A client is authorized through tag groups: it receives the events of the groups assigned to it, and no others.
Custom location	A position you recorded yourself — for a cell, a WiFi access point or a beacon. Together they form your own position database, which is consulted before any chargeable external service. This application has no location tree; in IoT Spaces "location" means a node of such a tree.
Decision event	The record of a single positioning decision: which sources were available, which one won, and what came out of it. The diagnostic view for the question of where a position came from.
Device	A cellular tag, or a BLE device a tag observes. Elsewhere: in IoT Spaces a device is a piece of equipment installed in a space, such as an anchor or a gateway.
Gateway	A property of a beacon, not a device of its own. A beacon marked as gateway sees other tags and lends its own position to each of them. Elsewhere: in IoT Spaces a gateway is an IoT gateway through which devices reach the cloud.
Ignored, Enabled, Disabled	The state of a recorded cell, WiFi access point or beacon. Enabled means it is used for positioning, Disabled that it is not. Ignored goes further: an entry so marked is removed from the message before anything is evaluated — the right setting for a mobile hotspot or a WiFi in a vehicle, which would otherwise place a tag wherever it last was.
IMEI, IMSI, ICCID	The three identifiers of a cellular device. The IMEI identifies the hardware, the IMSI the subscriber, and the ICCID the SIM card itself. They are used to find a tag and to match it with the connectivity provider’s records.
Position	Where an object is. Either a coordinate in a coordinate system or an identifier such as a location or an address.
Position cache	The memory of the positioning. It stores which position an online service returned for a given radio environment, so a tag reporting from an environment already known costs nothing. The cache applies across all tenants — a mobile network cell is at the same place for everyone — and its entries expire on their own after about a week.
Positioning	Deriving the position of a tag from what it observes: beacons, WiFi access points and mobile network cells. The sources are consulted in a fixed order, from the most precise to the coarsest.
Provisioning	Assigning a tag that is already reporting to a tenant and a group, together with the configuration sent to it. Unlike onboarding, this does not establish the connection: a cellular tag connects on its own, and its record is created on first contact.
Online positioning service	An external provider that determines a position from cells and WiFi access points. Its requests are chargeable, which is why it is asked only when your own recordings and the position cache have nothing to offer.
Tag	A cellular device that reports to the cloud on its own. Tags are not created here — a tag appears in the list as soon as it reports for the first time. It belongs to exactly one tenant and has no space. Elsewhere: in Tracking and IoT Spaces a tag is a BLE tag attached to an asset.
Tag group	A grouping of tags within a tenant. Its purpose is authorization rather than organization: a client receives exactly the events of the groups assigned to it.
Telemetry	The state a tag reports about itself — battery, signal strength, temperature, movement. Not a position, but often the explanation for one that is missing.
Tenant	An isolated organizational unit. Users, groups, spaces, devices, assets and tags always belong to exactly one tenant, and no data is visible across tenants.
TPM	Tag Provisioning and Management, the name of this application. It terminates the network protocols of cellular tags, derives their position and records every decision.
Trigger	What made a tag report: the start or the end of a movement, or a schedule. The trigger is part of the message and explains why a position exists at that moment.
WiFi access point	A WiFi network a tag can see. Their set identifies a place well, even without measuring signal strength. Access points that move — a hotspot, a vehicle WiFi — should be set to Ignored.

Term

Meaning

Beacon

A BLE transmitter at a fixed place. If its position is recorded, every tag that sees it can be located from it. A beacon marked as Gateway lends its position to the tags it sees itself.

Cell

A mobile network cell a tag is logged into. The serving cell is the one it is connected to; neighbour cells are the ones it can additionally receive. A cell covers a wide area, which is why it is the least precise source of a position.

Client

The credentials with which a third-party system collects positions and decisions. A client is authorized through tag groups: it receives the events of the groups assigned to it, and no others.

Custom location

A position you recorded yourself — for a cell, a WiFi access point or a beacon. Together they form your own position database, which is consulted before any chargeable external service. This application has no location tree; in IoT Spaces "location" means a node of such a tree.

Decision event

The record of a single positioning decision: which sources were available, which one won, and what came out of it. The diagnostic view for the question of where a position came from.

Device

A cellular tag, or a BLE device a tag observes. Elsewhere: in IoT Spaces a device is a piece of equipment installed in a space, such as an anchor or a gateway.

Gateway

A property of a beacon, not a device of its own. A beacon marked as gateway sees other tags and lends its own position to each of them. Elsewhere: in IoT Spaces a gateway is an IoT gateway through which devices reach the cloud.

Ignored, Enabled, Disabled

The state of a recorded cell, WiFi access point or beacon. Enabled means it is used for positioning, Disabled that it is not. Ignored goes further: an entry so marked is removed from the message before anything is evaluated — the right setting for a mobile hotspot or a WiFi in a vehicle, which would otherwise place a tag wherever it last was.

IMEI, IMSI, ICCID

The three identifiers of a cellular device. The IMEI identifies the hardware, the IMSI the subscriber, and the ICCID the SIM card itself. They are used to find a tag and to match it with the connectivity provider’s records.

Position

Where an object is. Either a coordinate in a coordinate system or an identifier such as a location or an address.

Position cache

The memory of the positioning. It stores which position an online service returned for a given radio environment, so a tag reporting from an environment already known costs nothing. The cache applies across all tenants — a mobile network cell is at the same place for everyone — and its entries expire on their own after about a week.

Positioning

Deriving the position of a tag from what it observes: beacons, WiFi access points and mobile network cells. The sources are consulted in a fixed order, from the most precise to the coarsest.

Provisioning

Assigning a tag that is already reporting to a tenant and a group, together with the configuration sent to it. Unlike onboarding, this does not establish the connection: a cellular tag connects on its own, and its record is created on first contact.

Online positioning service

An external provider that determines a position from cells and WiFi access points. Its requests are chargeable, which is why it is asked only when your own recordings and the position cache have nothing to offer.

Tag

A cellular device that reports to the cloud on its own. Tags are not created here — a tag appears in the list as soon as it reports for the first time. It belongs to exactly one tenant and has no space. Elsewhere: in Tracking and IoT Spaces a tag is a BLE tag attached to an asset.

Tag group

A grouping of tags within a tenant. Its purpose is authorization rather than organization: a client receives exactly the events of the groups assigned to it.

Telemetry

The state a tag reports about itself — battery, signal strength, temperature, movement. Not a position, but often the explanation for one that is missing.

Tenant

An isolated organizational unit. Users, groups, spaces, devices, assets and tags always belong to exactly one tenant, and no data is visible across tenants.

TPM

Tag Provisioning and Management, the name of this application. It terminates the network protocols of cellular tags, derives their position and records every decision.

Trigger

What made a tag report: the start or the end of a movement, or a schedule. The trigger is part of the message and explains why a position exists at that moment.

WiFi access point

A WiFi network a tag can see. Their set identifies a place well, even without measuring signal strength. Access points that move — a hotspot, a vehicle WiFi — should be set to Ignored.