This article will help you become more familiar with some of the terms you will find in this Help Center, the DirectScale Platform, and the Direct Selling industry.

• Software and Technology Common Terms - List of terms commonly used in IT and software development.
• Direct Selling Glossary - List of terms commonly used in the Direct Sales, Social Selling, MLM, and Network Marketing industries.

A

Admin

DirectScale internal reference to Web Office Admin functionality.

Associate

Term used throughout the DirectScale Platform and Help Center that refers to:

• Distributors
• Customers
• Preferred Customers

Throughout this Help Center’s guides, you’ll see this term used primarily to refer to Distributors. For many tools, the distinction between Customers and Distributors is not important, as you manage them in the same way. You’ll find many of these tools detailed in this guide.

Also known as Representative or Independent Business Owner (IBO).

AutoShip

Recurring shipment of an automatic order.

Azure

A comprehensive set of cloud services that DirectScale uses to build, deploy, and manage applications through Microsoft’s global data centers network.

B

Back Office

DirectScale internal reference to the Associate-facing Web Office. Also known as the Distributor Portal

C

Client

A business using the DirectScale solutions. Each client is assigned a unique Client ID.

CloudSpark

An internal term for the Web Office Admin. Also known as the Distributor Portal Admin or Admin.

Compensation Plan

A complex set of business rules and conditions by which a client’s Associate may earn rewards, bonuses, and/or commission payments.

Generally, the compensation plan will:

• Specify incentives and rank qualifications that determine commission earnings.
• Outline the details for the system to manage and organize the complex Genealogy/relationship aspect between Associates, Preferred Customers, and retail customers.

Corporate Admin

This is the heart of the DirectScale Platform in that it acts as the database for many of the external or end-user facing elements.

Nearly all the data and statistics that show in the Corporate Admin are data streams from the commission and Genealogy engines. Also known as Data & Commissions and Disco. This part of the Platform:

• Houses the actual commission programming and manages all the 3rd-party integrations needed for a client to function properly (money in, money out, tax, ERP, 3PLs, etc.).
• Functions as the eCommerce backbone by managing pricing, inventory, stores, promotions, etc.
• Serves as the corporate-wide reporting engine for total sales, sales by market, etc.

The terms Corp Admin or Corporate Office refer to the Corporate Admin.

Customer

An individual who orders goods or services from a Distributor. See also Preferred Customer and Retail Customer.

D

Data & Commissions

See: Corporate Admin or Corp Admin.

Data Points

See Statistics (Stats).

DirectScale Platform

The DirectScale family of applications that includes:

• Web Office Admin
• Web Office
• Corporate Admin
• eCommerce Admin
• eCommerce Shop

Disco

A DirectScale internal reference to the Corporate Admin (Also known as Data & Commissions or Corporate Office).

Distributor

An independent salesperson who is engaged or under contract with a DirectScale client to purchase and/or sell goods or services to earn a commission.

Distributors earn commission through product sales and business building efforts of those recruited as resellers and who are part of their Downline. The client may determine the actual term to identify their own Distributors.

See: Associate.

Distributor Portal

See: Web Office.

Distributor Portal Admin

See: Web Office Admin.

E

eCommerce Admin

Client can control the look, feel, and functionality (brand experience) for all users with the eCommerce Admin (aka Retail Admin) to change/modify their eCommerce Shop content.

eCommerce Shop

Serves as the storefront and promotional website for the client. This lets Associates have a personal web presence and receive commissions for purchases and Enrollments that happen within the website.

Enrollment

Captures information from an individual interested in purchasing or reselling a client’s products or services and creates the appropriate account type (Distributor, Preferred Customer, Retail Customer, etc.).

• Guides someone through the process of placing an initial product order and/or creating a recurring AutoShip order.
• Guarantees new Distributors agree to any legal terms and conditions required by the client.
• Safeguards that new Distributors are placed in the organization or downline of a specific Distributor.

Enrollment may be accessed from the eCommerce Shop and the Web Office.

G

Genealogy

Relationship of Associates and customers within the client’s Distributor organization.

K

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

See Statistics (Stats).

Key Points of Interest (KPI)

See Statistics (Stats).

N

Notifications

Services that facilitate the communication between users in various methods (chat, email, and text messaging).

These services facilitate system communication for events like notification of new orders or Enrollments. They also provide channels for people to communicate with each other one-on-one or to broadcast messages to an Associate’s downline.

Three different services provide support for the different types of communication methods:

• TeamLink provides chat services within the Web Office.
• ZipLingo provides the email and text messaging service.
• Custom Notifications provide the interface for the processing and routing of messages between the different services, as well as Web Office and Corporate Admin.

All three of these services interact with each other to deliver the messages to the users, based on the method they set up for their personal preferences. This provides a variety of combinations that these services support to facilitate communication between users.

For example, a user starts a conversation via the chat interface in Web Office, but the message is sent via text message or email to the recipient.

O

Office

Industry reference or common term used to describe the Web Office functionality.

P

Preferred Customer

Individuals enrolled in an AutoShip or other programs qualify them to get certain perks such as wholesale pricing. A Preferred Customer’s specific rules are defined within a client’s Compensation Plan.

Public API Gateway

Used by 3rd-party developers to build custom applications that communicate with the different DirectScale services in a normalized manner. The gateway provides security, throttling, model transformation, and documentation for the public API set.

The gateway is built on the Azure API Management services, see Api Management for more information.

R

Representative

See Associate.

Retail Admin

See eCommerce Admin.

Retail Customer

An individual who purchases goods or services at retail price. Purchases can be made through a Replicated Marketing Site or directly from an Associate (per a client’s business rules). This customer typically does not qualify for discounts but may participate in all retail promotions.

S

Share Site

An application that lets Distributors and their downlines share social media content.

Statistics (Stats)

Data points that are defined in a Compensation Plan and can vary by client. Statistics are updated for orders or Enrollments that happen to Associates or with members of their downlines. These statistics drive business dashboards and reporting.

T

TeamLink

3rd–party company with which DirectScale contracts to provide the service for the chat function in the user interface. TeamLink also communicates with ZipLingo to send notifications when a user is offline.

W

Web Office

An application that the client’s Associates use. Each client may configure a custom Web Office experience for different use cases using the available elements and features dictated in Web Office Admin.

Commonly referred to as Back Office, Distributor Portal, or Office.

Web Office Admin

An application that the client’s admins use to configure general settings about how and what features (such as pages) are accessible from the Web Office.

See also: Cloudspark

Z

ZipLingo

3rd–party company with which DirectScale contracts to send Notifications via emails or text messages and provides custom development work.