Glossary
Target Audience: Developers & Non technical users
TL;DR
Exhaustive definitions of the building blocks, security protocols, and data structures within the Toucan.ai ecosystem.
1. Identity & Governance
Organization: A secure group of users with shared access to databases, content, and permissions.
Workspace: The collaborative environment within an organization where analytics content is managed.
Admin: User role with full access to all features, including user and data management.
Maker: User role that can create and modify charts and dashboards but cannot manage organization settings.
Explorer: Read-only access to shared content; can interact with filters but cannot create content.
2. Embedding & Security
API Key: A secret credential issued by Toucan.ai required to sign and generate tokens server-side.
Token: A server-side generated credential used for authenticating embedded visualizations.
Attributes: Custom metadata (e.g., department, customer ID) included in a token to enforce row-level security.
Distinct Id: A unique identifier within a token that scopes analytics and permissions to a specific user session.
Row-Level Security (RLS): Attribute-based rules that restrict data access at the row level, automatically enforced in every query.
Critical Security Requirement: API Keys are secret credentials. They must be used server-side only and never exposed in client-side code.
3. Data
Database: The external storage where raw data lives (SQL databases or data warehouses).
Table: Structured data within a database consisting of records (rows) and attributes (columns).
4. Content & Creation
Chart: A visual representation of data built from datasets and semantic definitions.
Dashboard: A collection of charts and filters organized to answer specific business questions.
Filter: A component that refines dashboard data by applying criteria to one or more charts.
AI-Assisted Creation: The use of natural language to generate charts and queries based on the semantic layer.
Manual Creation: Direct configuration of charts and dashboards for full control over metrics and layout.
Embedded Analytics: Integration of analytics features directly into a host application.
Internal Analytics: The use of the Toucan.ai interface for internal team data exploration.
5. General Settings
Variable: A dynamic placeholder defined once and reused across configuration settings (e.g., database connections). At runtime, Toucan AI resolves the variable to inject context-specific values, such as customer or environment details.
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