We try to write tickets in plain language, but some terms are unavoidable. Here's a quick decoder for the ones that come up most.

Tickets and process

  • SLA — Service-level agreement. The published response and resolution time targets.
  • P1 / P2 / P3 / P4 — Priority levels. P1 is most urgent. See [Understanding ticket priorities](/kb/understanding-ticket-priorities).
  • Impact / Urgency — The two inputs to priority. Impact = how many people affected. Urgency = how time-sensitive.
  • Triage — Initial diagnosis. The technician's first read on what's wrong and who should handle it.
  • Escalation — Moving a ticket to a more senior engineer or manager because it's been open too long, the user is unhappy, or it needs different skills.
  • Reopen — Bringing a closed ticket back to active status.

Network terms

  • VPN — Virtual Private Network. A tunnel that makes your laptop look like it's inside the office network even when you're at home.
  • DNS — Domain Name System. Translates example.com into the IP address your machine connects to. "DNS issue" = name lookups failing.
  • DHCP — Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. Hands out IP addresses to devices joining the network.
  • Wi-Fi roaming — Your laptop hopping between two access points when you walk through a building.
  • Latency — Delay measured in milliseconds. Over 100ms feels sluggish; over 300ms is unusable for calls.
  • Packet loss — When the network drops some of the data you sent. Tiny amounts are normal; >2% causes problems.

Mail terms

  • MFA / 2FA — Multi-factor authentication. The second step (code, app push) after your password.
  • SPF / DKIM / DMARC — The three standards that prove an email actually came from your domain. Misconfigured = your mail lands in spam.
  • Mailbox quota — How much space you have. Hit the cap and mail starts bouncing.
  • Shared mailbox — A single address (e.g. sales@) multiple people can access.

Hardware terms

  • BIOS / UEFI — The firmware that runs before Windows boots. Settings here control boot order, virtualization, etc.
  • RAM / Memory — Working storage. More RAM = more apps open at once without slowdown.
  • SSD / HDD — Storage. SSD is fast, HDD is cheap. Most laptops have moved to SSD.
  • Driver — Software that lets Windows talk to a specific hardware bit (printer, camera, GPU).

Mail-to-ticket specific

  • Inbound parser — The robot that reads support@… and creates tickets from emails.
  • Suppression list — Email addresses we've stopped sending to because they bounce or marked us spam.