Glossary
This page provides a glossary of terms used by Snowplow.
To help clarify, we've categorized the terms:
- Component: a pipeline application, package, SDK, or other code-based tool or set of tools, e.g. Snowplow Micro
- Concept: names for Snowplow things and ideas, e.g. data product
- Legal: about licensing, e.g. SLULA
- Offering: a Snowplow product that you can buy, e.g. Snowplow BDP Cloud
| Term | Category | Description | More information |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atomic events table | Concept | Core warehouse table containing all Snowplow events | Single table |
| Atomic fields | Concept | Core event properties defined by the Snowplow atomic schema | Out-of-the-box fields |
| Attribute | Concept | Individual data point or characteristic calculated by Signals | Attributes |
| Attribute group | Concept | Versioned collection of related attributes that defines how Signals should calculate behavioral data | Attribute groups |
| Attribute key | Concept | Event field that defines the context in which attributes are calculated by Signals | Attribute groups |
| Audience Hub | Offering | Customer segmentation in warehouse, powered by Census | |
| Collection | Concept | Generation of event data and sending to an event collector endpoint | Sources |
| Collector | Component | Application that receives and saves raw events, and forwards them to Enrich | Collector |
| Context | Concept | Deprecated name for entity | Entities |
| Cookie Extension service | Concept | Process for extending cookie lifespans | Cookie Extension |
| Data contract | Concept | Event definitions; set of data products | Data Product Studio |
| Data model | Component | dbt SQL package for processing events in the warehouse | Modeling your data |
| Data pipeline | Concept | Set of applications for collecting, processing, and storing events | Fundamentals |
| Data product | Concept | Set of event specifications, plus metadata | Data products |
| Data Product Studio | Offering | Tracking and data contracts tooling | Data Product Studio |
| Data quality | Concept | Tooling and reporting related to failed events and QA | Data quality |
| Data structure | Concept | Schema, plus metadata | Data structures |
| Derived events table | Concept | Warehouse table of events generated by a data model | Modeling your data with dbt |
| Destination | Concept | Third-party data store or data activation platform that can receive Snowplow event data | Destinations |
| Enrich | Component | Application that validates and enriches events | Enrichments |
| Enrichment | Component | A process, run by Enrich, that adds to or modifies event data | Enrichments |
| Entity | Concept | Supplemental or additional data included in an event; a schema or data structure describing additional data | Entities |
| Event | Concept | A payload, processed by a data pipeline, describing something that happened; the "main" schema or data structure (i.e. not an entity) in an event | Events |
| Event specification | Concept | Set of data structures, including event and entities, that an event payload should match | Event specifications |
| Event, canonical | Concept | One of the original Snowplow events - page view, page ping, or the legacy ecommerce transaction events - that has contains data for some atomic fields, but no schema | Canonical events |
| Event, enriched | Concept | An event payload that's valid and has been successfully enriched | Enrichments |
| Event, failed | Concept | An event payload that the pipeline had some problem processing | Failed events |
| Event, self-describing | Concept | Custom event, based on a custom schema | Self-describing events |
| Event, structured | Concept | Legacy, proto-custom event | Structured events |
| Event, unstructured | Concept | Deprecated name for self-describing event | Self-describing events |
| Event, valid | Concept | An event payload that matches its schema definitions; an event that the pipeline has collected, validated, and enriched without failure (i.e. not a failed event) | Failed events |
| Extension | Offering | Third-party integration | |
| ID service | Concept | Deprecated name for Cookie Extension service | Cookie Extension |
| Iglu | Component | Schema registry and associated tooling | Iglu |
| Intervention | Concept | Signals user behavior trigger | Interventions |
| License, Community | Legal | Deprecated license for certain Snowplow components; SCL | Copyright licenses |
| License, Limited Use | Legal | Non-production use license for certain Snowplow components; SLULA | Copyright licenses |
| License, Personal and Academic | Legal | Personal and academic license for certain Snowplow components; SPAL | Copyright licenses |
| Loader | Component | Application that loads data into warehouse or lake storage | Warehouses and lakes |
| Organization | Concept | Your organization, in the context of account management and SSO | Account management |
| Out-of-the-box | Concept | Non-custom events, data products, schemas, etc. that are included with Snowplow | |
| Profiles Store | Component | Centralized Signals database that stores calculated attribute values | Profiles Store |
| Registry | Concept | Server that stores schemas (schema repository) | Iglu repositories |
| Reverse ETL | Offering | Sync insights from warehouse to other tools, powered by Census | Reverse ETL |
| Schema | Concept | JSON Schema that describes how data should look | Schemas |
| Schema respository | Concept | Server that stores schemas (schema registry) | Iglu repositories |
| Service | Concept | Attribute consumption interface layer for Signals | Services |
| Signals | Offering | Real-time customer intelligence platform | Signals |
| SLULA | Legal | Snowplow Limited Use License Agreement, a non-production use license | Copyright licenses |
| Snowbridge | Component | Application that sends data streams into external destinations | Snowbridge |
| Snowplow BDP | Offering | Full Snowplow product offering | Snowplow BDP |
| Snowplow BDP Cloud | Offering | Snowplow running in a cloud hosted by Snowplow | Snowplow BDP |
| Snowplow BDP Console | Offering | Web UI for Snowplow data management | |
| Snowplow BDP Enterprise | Offering | Deprecated name for Snowplow BDP Private Managed Cloud | Snowplow BDP |
| Snowplow BDP Private Managed Cloud | Offering | Snowplow running in your own cloud | Snowplow BDP |
| Snowplow CLI | Component | Tool for command-line management of data products and data structures | Snowplow CLI |
| Snowplow Community Edition | Offering | Limited license (SLULA) Snowplow product offering | Snowplow Community Edition |
| Snowplow Inspector | Component | Browser extension for testing and validation of web tracking | Snowplow Inspector |
| Snowplow Micro | Component | Testing and QA pipeline | Snowplow Micro |
| Snowplow Mini | Component | Sandbox development pipeline | Snowplow Mini |
| Snowtype | Component | Tool for custom tracking code generation | Snowtype |
| Snowtype CLI | Component | Tool for command-line management of Snowtype code generation | Snowtype CLI |
| Source | Concept | Tracker SDK or webhook that sends events to a collector endpoint | Sources |
| Source application | Concept | Your application where you have implemented tracking | Source applications |
| Tracker | Component | SDK that sends events to an event collector endpoint | Trackers |
| Tracking catalog | Concept | List of received event types in Snowplow BDP Console | |
| TSV | Concept | Tab-separated values format, used for events within a Snowplow pipeline | Enriched TSV format |
| Validation | Concept | Pipeline process of checking events against their schemas | |
| Visualization | Offering | Accompanying dashboard for a data model | Visualizations |
| Webhook | Component | API that allows you to send external data to Snowplow pipelines, usually third-party | Webhooks |
| Workspace | Concept | Isolated environment containing one production pipeline, and potentially multiple QA or development pipelines |