---
title: "Glossary"
---

As you read through the documentation, you will see ((commonly used terms|glossary)). These are the definitions for those terms, so you can familiarize yourself with them ahead of time. 

## Terms

Alerts
: [Alerts](managing-alerts.md) are triggered when a certain events occurs based on [rules](rules-engine.md) defined in the Rules Engine. 

Analysis reports
: [Analysis reports](reviewing-results.md#analysis-reports) are reports which run as tasks, rather than being generated on-the-fly. These reports are static, so any changes to your [inventory](using-the-inventory.md) may result in assets no longer being accessible from the report.

Asset
: An [asset](understanding-assets.md) is a unique network entity from the perspective of the system running the [Explorer](managing-explorers.md).

Automatic queries
: [Automatic queries](automating-queries.md) are certain queries you always want to run after a scan. After the query runs, you will be able to view its results in the [queries table](https://console.runzero.com/queries). 

Dashboard
: The [dashboard](reviewing-results.md#dashboard--inventory-views) provides trend data and insights that will help you assess how your inventory is changing over time.

Discovery scan
: A [discovery scan](discovering-assets.md) finds, identifies, and builds an [inventory](using-the-inventory.md) of all the connected devices and assets on your internal network.

Explorer
: The [Explorer](managing-explorers.md) is a lightweight scan engine that enables network and asset discovery.

Insights
: [Insights](reviewing-results.md#insights-from-queries) are queries that run automatically after each scan. They will populate on your [dashboard](reviewing-results.md#dashboard--inventory-views).

Inventory
: The [inventory](using-the-inventory.md) displays all assets within the Organization and can be sorted, filtered,

Organization
: An [organization](organizations.md) represents a distinct entity; this can be your business, a specific department within your business, or one of your customers.

Outliers
: [Outliers](reviewing-results.md#outliers) show how often different values occur in specific attributes of assets and services.

Queries
: [Queries](reviewing-results.md#sample-queries) are filters that can be applied to your Inventory to find assets of interest. 

Rules
: A [rule](rules-engine.md) defines the action that is taken based on a set of conditions. You can create rules to proactively alert your team when there are changes to things like Explorers, assets, scans, organizations, and sites.

Scheduled scans
: [Scheduled scans](discovering-assets.md#schedulescheduled-scans) allow you to set a date and frequency for your scan task.

Self-hosted
: The [self-hosted](self-hosting.md) version runZero allows you to run the entire platform on-premises or within your own cloud environment.

Site
: A [site](sites.md) represents a distinct network segment, usually defined by addressing or accessibility.