# Glossary

> Definitions of the Gladstone terms that appear throughout the API — read this before your first integration.

HTML version: [Glossary](https://support.gladstonesoftware.cloud/guides/glossary)

## Overview

Gladstone's API uses terms that come from the leisure industry and from the way our products model
a site. Most of them are not self-explanatory, and several look like ordinary English words while
meaning something specific.

This page defines the ones you will meet in the first hour. Terms are grouped by the area they
belong to; within each group they are ordered so that earlier entries do not depend on later ones.

## Platform and access

**Tenant**: A single Gladstone customer — a leisure trust, local authority or operator. Your integration is
issued credentials against one tenant, and every call you make is scoped to it. The tenant is
identified by the environment URL you are given, not by a parameter you send.

**Environment URL**: The base address for the tenant you are integrating against, for example
`https://yourorganisation.gladstonego.cloud`. Written as `{base_url}` throughout this documentation.
Each tenant has its own; a token issued for one will not work against another.

**Partner API key**: The credential issued to your integration, in the format `gsk_{version}_{secret}`. You exchange
it for a short-lived bearer token rather than sending it on every call. See
[API Key Authentication](api-key-authentication.md).

**Entitlement**: The set of things your integration is licensed to reach, carried as claims in your token and
checked at the gateway before a request reaches a service. Expressed as *products* and *features*
— both defined below. Every endpoint page lists the ones it requires under **Access requirements**.
See [Product and feature entitlements](authenticating-with-gladstone-apis.md#product-and-feature-entitlements).

**Product (entitlement)**: A broad licensed area of the platform — Operator, Consumer, Integrations, Digital
Passes. Each has a short upper-case code (`FOH`, `CONSUMER`, `INTEGRATIONS`, `DIGITALPASSES`)
which is the form the platform matches on and the form to quote to support. **This is not the
same as the bookable [Product](#products-and-pricing) below**, which is a thing a member pays
for; the two words are unrelated and the entitlement sense only ever appears in an Access
requirements panel.

**Feature (entitlement)**: A narrower capability within a product — Prospecting, Online Bookings, Online
Joining — each likewise with a code (`PROSPECTS`, `ONLINEBOOK`, `ONLINEJOIN`). Where an endpoint
lists more than one, your token needs any one of them, not all. A module granted to your
integration satisfies both the product and the feature requirement of that name.

**Site**: A single physical location — one leisure centre, pool or gym. A tenant usually operates many.
Identified by a short string `siteId` such as `NORTH`, not a number.

**Site group**: A named collection of sites, used to apply configuration across several locations at once — for
example a discount that is valid at every site in a region. A `siteGroupId` is a short string, at
most 15 characters. `ALL` is a conventional identifier meaning every site.

**ObjectId-role tenant**: A tenant whose staff users' `roleId` is a 24-character hexadecimal string. Several
user-account fields and behaviours differ from a numeric-role tenant. See
[Retrieves all administrative users configured in the system](../reference/users/retrieves-all-administrative-users-configured-in-the-system.md).

**Numeric-role tenant**: A tenant whose staff users' `roleId` is a number rendered as a string. Several
user-account fields and behaviours differ from an ObjectId-role tenant. See
[Retrieves all administrative users configured in the system](../reference/users/retrieves-all-administrative-users-configured-in-the-system.md).

## Operations and integration acronyms

**SSO**: Single Sign-On — using an identity provider, such as Microsoft Entra, so a user can access
Gladstone products without a separate Gladstone password for each product.

**PED**: Pin Entry Device — the payment terminal used to take card-present payments, such as a
Verifone Android PED connected to Gladstone360 point of sale.

**URC**: Universal Reporting Connector — the Snowflake-backed reporting connection used by
customers who connect Power BI to Gladstone reporting data.

**AVD**: Azure Virtual Desktop — the hosted desktop environment used by some Gladstone Cloud and
Plus2 users to access applications and shared files.

**UTC**: Coordinated Universal Time — the time standard used by values that end in `Z`, such as
`2026-10-05T17:15:00Z`. A UK local time during British Summer Time is one hour ahead of UTC; a UK
local time during Greenwich Mean Time is the same as UTC.

## People

**Member**: Someone with a record at the tenant — typically, though not always, someone who holds or has held
a membership. Identified by an integer `memberId`. Two values are reserved and will be rejected:
`0` means "not a member" and `-999` means a purged record.

**Linked member**: A member associated with another member's account, such as a child linked to a parent, or an
employee on a corporate account. One member in the group is the **primary member**. Linking
determines who may book on whose behalf and who pays.

**Bookee**: A person occupying a space in a booking. Not the same as the member making the booking — a member
booking a badminton court for four people is one member and four bookees. Bookees may be members
themselves or guests, and can be charged at different rates.

**Paying member**: The member charged for a transaction, where that differs from the member the transaction is for.
A parent paying for a child's booking is the paying member; the child is the member.

## Products and pricing

**Activity**: Something a member can do — badminton, a swim session, a fitness class. Identified by a string
`activityId`.

**Product**: The bookable or sellable thing behind an activity, including resources such as courts, lanes and
rooms. Identified by a string `productId`. Product identifiers cannot contain the characters
``!£$%^&*()_+=[]{};:@~#?.,<>|``. Not to be confused with
[Product (entitlement)](#platform-and-access), the licensing code that controls whether your
integration may call an endpoint at all.

**Price level**: A named price band that determines what someone pays — for example adult, junior or concession.
Which price level applies to a member is resolved from their age, their membership type and the
site's configuration, in that order of precedence. You will usually receive a `priceLevelId` from a
pricing call rather than choosing one yourself.

**Time band**: A period of the day or week with its own pricing, such as peak and off-peak. A `timeBandId`
appears alongside a price because the same product costs different amounts at different times.

**Membership type**: A product a member can subscribe to — "Adult Monthly", "Junior Swim". Called a *subscription
type* in some older interfaces and in the database. Carries its own price levels, contract terms,
age restrictions and required documents.

**Usage subscription**: A membership that includes a number of uses rather than unlimited access — ten swims, say. When a
booking is covered by one, the pricing response reports it in `paidForbyUsageSub` and returns
`usagesRemaining`, and no payment is taken.

**Order key**: A whole number you choose for each person when you price memberships, sent as
`members[].orderKey` in the membership pricing request (`POST /api/pricing/memberships`). It must
be 1 or greater (`OrderKeys must be greater than 0`) and unique within the request
(`The order key for each member request must be unique`). The pricing quote echoes it on every
line it prices, as `memberships[].orderKey`; it is part of the signed quote, so send it back
unchanged. When you then
create the members or memberships, each member's `orderKey` says which quote line or lines that
person receives, and a key with no matching quote line is rejected. See
[Create members with memberships](../reference/joining/create-members-with-memberships.md) and
[Create a membership for a member](../reference/joining/create-a-membership-for-a-member.md).

## Booking

**Slot**: A specific bookable occurrence — this court, at this time, on this date.

**Slot reference**: An opaque identifier for a slot, returned by the availability endpoints. **Treat it as a black
box**: pass it back exactly as you received it. It is a JSON document encoded as a string, and its
internal structure is not part of the API contract — parsing or constructing one will break without
notice.

**Lease**: A short-lived reservation that holds the spaces in a slot while the member completes payment.
Booking is a two-step process: create a lease to hold the spaces, then confirm it to create the
booking. Leases **expire**, so the flow is time-sensitive, and each lease can be confirmed only
once.

**Lease id**: A UUID identifying a lease. Unusually, **you generate this yourself** and send it when creating
the lease, rather than receiving it back. Generate a fresh one per lease.

**Pricing quote**: A signed, timestamped price for a specific lease and set of bookees. Obtain it before confirming
a booking and pass it through **exactly as returned** — it carries a signature, and any
modification invalidates it. Quotes expire alongside the lease.

**Booking reference**: The customer-facing reference for a booking, shown to the member. Distinct from the internal
`bookingId` used in API calls. Not every site issues one, so it can be null.

**Alert list**: A waiting list for a slot that is fully booked. Members on it are promoted to a confirmed booking
automatically when a space is released.

## Money

**Sales invoice**: The financial record raised when something is sold — a booking, a membership, a product. Creating
a booking or membership generates one or more **unpaid** invoices; payment is a separate call
against those invoice ids. A booking is not paid for simply because it exists.

**Payment method**: How a payment is taken — card, direct debit, cash, and so on. Configured per tenant, so the
methods available to you vary by environment.

**EFT**: Electronic Funds Transfer. Used in Gladstone interfaces to mean the direct debit collection
process for recurring membership payments.

**RCP**: Recurring Card Payment. A subscription payment method that charges the member's stored card
automatically each period, as the alternative to collecting by direct debit (EFT). An RCP
membership is charged to the member's default RCP card: set `saveCardToWallet` and `saveRcpCard`
to `true` when paying with a new card, or set it afterwards with `PUT /api/members/{memberId}/rcp-card`.
See [Payments](payments.md).

## Compliance

**DMCCA**: The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act — UK legislation governing subscription
contracts, including how renewals and cancellations must be communicated. It places specific
obligations on integrations that sell memberships. See
[DMCCA required API updates](dmcca-required-api-updates.md).

## Products you may see referenced

These are Gladstone applications rather than API concepts. You will not call them, but they appear
in knowledge base articles and error messages.

**Gladstone360 (G360)**: The current staff-facing management platform.

**GO Operator**: The staff-facing web application for day-to-day centre operation.

**Operator address**: The web address your organisation uses to open GO Operator, for example
`https://yourorganisation.gladstonesoftware.cloud`. Its first part is your
account identifier (below).

**Account identifier (Support)**: The first part of your Operator address — `yourorganisation`
in `https://yourorganisation.gladstonesoftware.cloud`. Gladstone Support asks for it once, so it
knows which organisation's Operator sign-in to use, and remembers it in your browser. Opening
Support from Operator fills it in for you. See [Raising a support case](raising-a-support-case.md).

**Plus2**: The previous-generation management system, still in use at some sites.

**GMC**: Gladstone Management Console — the administrative interface for system-wide configuration.

**GO Mobile / MobilePro**: The consumer-facing mobile applications.

**GoConsumer**: The consumer-facing web products GoBook and GoJoin, used by members to book and to
join online.

**GoLearn / HomePortal**: The online products for managing courses and swimming lessons.

**Single API**: The Gladstone GO API, documented in this portal's API reference.

## Marketplace partners

Third-party providers that integrate with Gladstone. They appear in knowledge base articles.

**4Global / DataHub**: A marketplace provider that supplies Sport England Moving Communities data.

**ASP**: A marketplace supplier of access control hardware.