A plain-language glossary of the terms Sonta AI uses — business, collection, entry, field, reference, lifecycle, pipeline, automation, and the rest — each defined once, in the sense Sonta means it, with what other tools call the same thing.

This glossary has two parts. First, the core terms you meet everywhere in Sonta, each defined in full. Then a reference table of every other term in the system — shorter, and growing: as each concept gets its own page, its name here becomes a link to it.

Each definition is given in the sense Sonta means it, with the word other tools use for the same idea where that helps.

Business

The top-level container for one operation — its own data, team, agents, and automations, walled off from every other business. It is the unit of tenancy: one account can hold several, fully separate, so an agency can run one business per client. Other tools call this a workspace, a tenant, or an account.

Collection, entry, and field

These three are the heart of the model, and they map cleanly onto a spreadsheet — the fastest way to picture them.

A collection is a sheet — one per kind of thing you track: leads, contacts, companies, services, articles. Some CRMs call it an object, or a table.
An entry is a row on that sheet — one lead, one company, one service. Elsewhere: a record, a row, or an item.
A field is a column — the same piece of data captured for every row. Elsewhere: an attribute, a property, or a column.

Where Sonta goes past a spreadsheet is that the columns are typed. A spreadsheet cell holds loose text; a Sonta field has a kind — text, number, true/false, date, price, an option from a list, or a reference that points at a row in another collection. You define these fields yourself, and that is what makes the model yours. The typing is also what lets an agent act on the data instead of reading a cell of free text and guessing.

Reference

A field whose type is a link — it points from one entry to another, usually in a different collection. A deal points at the company it belongs to; a service booking points at the client. This is how the model holds relationships instead of flattening them into text. A field that points at several entries at once is a multi-reference. Elsewhere: a lookup, a linked record, or a relation.

Lifecycle stage

Where an entry is in the work — a named, ordered set of stages on a collection, like inquiry, qualified, proposal, won. Each stage is classed as open, closed, or archived. A lifecycle is the backbone; a pipeline builds on it. Other tools call a stage a status column or a deal stage.

Pipeline

Forecasting built on top of lifecycle stages. When a collection's stages are attached to a pipeline, the stages gain things like win probability and a forecast category, so the same stages that track work also project revenue. The lifecycle is the foundation; the pipeline is what it feeds.

Automation

An "if this, then that" rule that runs on its own. It has a trigger (when it runs — an entry created, a field changed, a stage moved, a schedule, an incoming email) and steps (what it does — send an email, update an entry, set a stage, call a webhook, branch, wait). Other tools call this a workflow.

Agent

An AI worker that operates a business over MCP or through the built-in AI interface, inside the same permissions a person has. An agent reads the model, queries and updates entries, and runs the routine work — not a chatbot beside the records, but a worker inside them.

Inbox and conversation

Sonta keeps communication next to the records. A conversation is a first-class thread — email, and calls where connected — with a status (open, snoozed, closed), an assignee, a priority, and its own timeline. The inbox is where conversations are triaged and answered, each one linked to the entry it belongs to, so a reply is never separated from the deal or contact it concerns.

MCP

The open standard through which agents and outside tools operate a business. MCP is the full control surface, not just a data feed: through it you can build collections and fields, wire references, compose automations and pipelines, and configure booking — the same operations a person has in the interface. It is how an agent works a business the way a teammate would.

Website

A public site connected to a business as its own client, with its own access. You choose which collections it can reach and whether it can read, write, or delete each one. It reads what you publish and writes what it captures — leads, orders, booking requests — into the same records the team works.

Every other term

The table below defines the rest of the vocabulary you will meet in Sonta. It is deliberately brief — each term gets a full page over time, and when it does, the term here becomes a link to it. The list grows as the product's documentation grows.

Term	What it is
Rollup	A read-only field that aggregates across references — counting linked deals, or summing their value. Computed by the system, never typed.
Lookup	A read-only field that mirrors a value from a referenced entry, so related data shows without re-entering it.
Field group	A named grouping of fields within a collection, used to organise a long record into sections.
Field rule	Conditional logic on a field — showing, hiding, or requiring it based on other values on the entry.
Trigger	The event that starts an automation — the "when." One automation has one trigger.
Step	A single action inside an automation — the "what." Steps run in order and can branch or loop.
Automation run	One execution of an automation, with a status and a per-step record of what happened — used to see why it did or didn't fire.
Merge tag	A placeholder in a message or template that fills in data from the entry when it sends — a name, a date, a link.
Lifecycle	The full set of stages on a collection, taken together — the path an entry travels through the work.
Stage history	The record of when an entry moved between stages, kept automatically.
Entry version	A saved past state of an entry, so changes can be reviewed or compared over time.
Booking	Turning a collection into something schedulable, working down through locations, departments, and working hours.
Location	A place the business operates from — part of the model, not text on a record.
Department	A unit inside a location, with its own working hours and, where set, its own bookable availability.
Working hours	A department's weekly schedule, with exceptions for holidays and one-off closures, used to compute availability.
Blueprint	A packaged setup for a whole vertical — collections, stages, and automations installed together, so you start from a working configuration.
Blueprint installation	A blueprint that has been installed into a business, tracked so it can be updated or removed.
User	A member of a business — a person with access, distinct from a contact stored as a record.
User group	A named role that bundles permissions and can be assigned to users, so access is managed by group rather than one person at a time.
Permission	A single grant — the right to do one thing, such as edit a collection or manage automations — collected into groups.
Invitation	A pending offer of access, sent by email, that becomes a user when accepted.
View	A saved way of looking at a collection — as a table, board, calendar, or gallery — with its own columns, sort, and grouping.
Filter	A saved set of conditions that narrows a collection to the entries you want to see.
Layout	A saved arrangement of a record page — which fields appear, in what order and sections.
Dashboard	A saved collection of report widgets, giving an at-a-glance view of the numbers that matter.
Report	A saved query over your model that returns metrics and breakdowns, run on demand.
Asset library	The store of images and files for a business, organised in folders and reusable across entries.
Entry link	A typed connection between two entries — a relationship recorded directly between records, separate from a reference field.
Email provider	A connected mailbox (via OAuth) that Sonta sends and receives through, tied to the inbox.
Email template	A reusable message with merge tags, rendered with an entry's data when sent.
Suppression	An address excluded from sending — through an unsubscribe or a manual block — so it is never emailed again.
SLA policy	A response-time target on conversations, used to flag when a reply is overdue.
App / connection	A connected external service — telephony, an outreach tool, a provider — with its own credentials.
Telephony line	A calling line given to a team member on a connected telephony service, enabling click-to-call and recordings.
Prospecting	Finding new leads from an external people database and importing them as entries.
Enrichment	Filling in missing detail on a record from an external data source.
Outreach	Enrolling contacts into an external sequence tool to run multi-step campaigns, tracked back on the entry.
AI Overview	An on-demand AI summary of an entry, generated from its data and cached on the record.
Directory	A folder that groups collections in a business, used to organise a large model.
Slug	The URL-safe identifier of an entry or collection, stable once set.
Status	A field on every entry — draft, published, or unpublished — that controls public visibility once a collection is connected to a website.

Where to go next

For how the core pieces fit together, the page on how Sonta AI fits together lays out the model end to end. For what the product is, start with what is Sonta AI.

The Sonta AI glossary