Glossary
Short, plain meanings of the words you will see in Threadline. They are in alphabetical order.
A
Assistant. A named setup for the AI: which knowledge base, what tone and what to say when it cannot answer. Each channel uses one. See Assistants.
Auto reply. An instant, fixed answer to a keyword, a first message or a message outside opening hours. See Auto Replies.
Account. Another word for a workspace. See Workspace.
Admin. The person who runs a business inside Threadline. An Admin can do everything in their workspace.
Agent. A team member who answers customers in the Inbox when a person is needed. See Your Team.
API. A way for another program to ask Threadline to do something, such as add a contact. See Integrations & API.
API token. A long password that lets another program use the API for your workspace.
Automation. A rule that does repeat work for you: when this happens, do these steps. See Automations.
B
Bounce. An email that could not be delivered because the address does not exist. See Email.
Broadcast. Sending one message to many contacts at once. See Broadcast.
Business hours. A timetable for a channel, with a message sent when you are closed. See Channels.
C
Consent. A person's agreement to receive marketing messages. See Contacts.
Campaign. One broadcast send: one message, one audience, one time.
Channel. A place customers write to you or where you reach them: WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, Messenger, WeChat, SMS, email or the website widget. See Channels.
Chunk. A short passage cut from one of your documents. The AI searches chunks, not whole documents. See Knowledge Base.
Confidence. A score from 0 to 1 showing how well your content matched a customer's question. A low score can send the conversation to a person.
Contact. One person who has written to you, or whom you added. See Contacts.
Conversation. The exchange of messages between one contact and your business. It is handled by the AI, a person or is closed, and has a status: Open, Pending, Resolved or Snoozed.
D
Deal. One possible sale, tracked as a card on the Deals board. See Deals.
Designation. A short description of what an agent is good at. The AI reads it to choose who gets a conversation.
E
Embedding. A list of numbers that stands for the meaning of a piece of text. It lets Threadline find content by meaning, not only by matching words.
Endpoint. The web address that receives a webhook.
Escalation. The AI passing a conversation to a person. See Handing Over to a Person.
F
Fallback. The reply the AI gives when your content does not cover the question: "I don't have enough information to answer that question."
Field. An extra detail you store on every contact, such as a city.
G
Group. A list of contacts you message together.
K
Knowledge base. Your own content that the AI answers from. See Knowledge Base.
L
Label. A coloured tag on a conversation, such as Billing. Different from a tag, which describes a contact. See Inbox.
Lead score. A number from 0 to 100 (Hot, Warm or Cold) showing how promising a deal looks. See Deals.
Lead. A person who has shown interest in buying.
Lead ad. A Facebook or Instagram advert with a form built in. See Meta Lead Ads.
Lead form. A short list of questions asked in chat at hand-over. See Lead Forms.
M
Media library. Your shelf of uploaded pictures, videos, audio and PDFs. See Media Library.
Meta. The company that owns WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and Messenger.
N
Note. A message inside a conversation that only your team can see.
O
Opt-in. A contact's agreement to receive marketing messages. Only opted-in contacts can be sent a broadcast.
Owner. The person who installed Threadline and runs the whole platform.
P
Pipeline. The path a sale takes, made of stages.
Plan. The package a workspace is subscribed to. See Plans & Billing.
Playground. A private place to test the AI's answers. See Playground.
Q
Quality rating. WhatsApp's score for a number: green, yellow or red. It drops when recipients block or report your messages.
R
Run. One journey of one contact through an automation.
S
Segment. A saved rule that finds contacts for you, such as "opted in and in the US". See Contacts.
Snooze. Hiding a conversation until a time you choose, so it comes back by itself. See Inbox.
SMS segment (part). One billable piece of a text message: 160 characters, or 70 with emoji or non-Latin letters. See SMS.
Saved reply. A ready-made answer you insert by typing / in the Inbox.
Signing secret. A secret code used to prove that a webhook really came from Threadline.
Source. The part of your knowledge base an AI answer was based on. See Answer Review.
Stage. One step in a pipeline, such as Proposal.
T
Ticket. A support request to the team that runs your platform. See Support.
Tag. A label on a contact, such as "VIP".
Template. A WhatsApp message that Meta approved in advance. It is needed to message someone outside the 24-hour window.
Token. A small piece of text, roughly three quarters of a word. AI providers charge by tokens. Not the same as an API token.
Trigger. The event that starts an automation.
24-hour rule. On WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger, you can send a free-form message only within 24 hours of the customer's last message.
V
Variable. A blank in a template, written {{1}}, that is filled in for each person. See WhatsApp Templates.
W
Warm-up. Sending a few WhatsApp messages at first and a little more each day, so a new number is not flagged as spam.
Webhook. An automatic message Threadline sends to another tool when something happens. See Webhooks.
Website widget. A chat bubble on your own website. See Website Widget Setup.
Win chance. How likely a deal is to be won, as a percentage.
Workspace. One business's own, separate Threadline. See Workspaces.