Glossary of Kantata OX Terms – Kantata Knowledge Base

This article should be used as a reference to help you understand the terms and phrases that you may encounter in Kantata OX and the Knowledge Base. These terms may be specific to project management, the professional services industry, or just unique to Kantata OX.

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Term	Description
Account Administrator	This is the highest account permission level that can be granted to account members and is often referred to as a “super user”. Account Administrators can manage all account settings, including inviting account members, implementing custom branding, setting default bill rates and cost rates for members, modifying user permissions, and performing general account maintenance. They also have all Access Group permissions by default.
Account Members	These are licensed users in Kantata who can perform different activities in Kantata, such as completing tasks, tracking time, logging expenses, or building reports. The actions they can complete are based on their account permission and project permissions.
Actual Hours	Also referred to as time entries, this is the number of hours a resource actually worked. These hours are often compared to estimated, scheduled, or allocated hours, which are forecasts.
Agent	Kantata Agents are powered by AI and simplify daily tasks, streamline operations, and help boost productivity—allowing you to focus on delivering successful projects and exceptional client experiences. Kantata Agents help you get quick answers, surface insights, and take action. . For more information, see Kantata AI Overview.
Allocated Hours	Also referred to as “allocations”, this is how much a resource is “planned” or “allowed” to work on a project based on who’s available and/or most capable of performing the work. In Kantata, soft allocations indicate that a team member or unnamed resource is tentatively “penciled in” to work on a project. Hard allocations mean a team member has been “confirmed” or “booked” to work on a project. Allocations are planned hours at the project level, while resource estimated hours and scheduled hours are planned hours at the task level. For more information on allocated hours, see Hour Types in Kantata OX.
Baseline	This represents the costs and schedules approved at the start of the project based on the budget and hours that were set during the initiation and planning phases of a project. Baselines are used as a basis for monitoring and evaluating performance. Assuming the scope of the project remains unchanged, they may be used to determine variance from budget or schedule. Baselines are available in the Task Tracker using the snapshots feature. A separate baseline feature is also available in the Gantt chart, a legacy tool.
Billable and Non-Billable Time	You can determine whether time is billable or non-billable for tasks and projects. Billable time is work performed for a project that will be billed to a client. Non-billable time accounts for work a company wishes to track but does not yield direct revenue, such as business development activities.
Bill Rate	A bill rate is the amount you charge a client for work performed by a particular resource, usually expressed in money per hour. For example, a consultant may have a bill rate of $100/hour. If using Rate Cards, bill rates can be defined per role and may vary from project to project. If not using Rate Cards, bill rates are set per user at the account level and can be overridden on a project-by-project basis. In both cases, bill rates can be modified on individual time entries.
Billing Milestones	A billing milestone is an item on your billing schedule that indicates an amount of money that you can bill your clients for based on a specific date or task completion.
Billing Mode	You can determine in the Task side panel how a task should be billed. The following options are available: Time & Materials—A pricing model where the amount you invoice is the total hours worked multiplied by the bill rate. Expenses may also be incurred and billed to the client. As a result, your final invoice amount (based on actual hours and resources applied) may differ from the project’s defined budget. Fixed Fee—A pricing model where the invoice amount billed to the client is determined as one fixed amount regardless of the resources and costs incurred to deliver the project. For example, a fixed-fee agreement for $100,000 is $100,000 whether the work performed actually cost $70,000 or $150,000.
Boards	Boards in Kantata OX support both kanban and agile methodologies, allowing you to plan out work in templates or add items to boards as you work on them.
Budget	This is the amount of money that you plan to spend on your project. In Kantata, you can also budget on a more granular level—on a task-by-task basis or based on expense budgets.
Budget Burn	The amount of budget that has been spent—based on hours and costs—compared to your total project budget. Budget burn is shown in a number of places across Kantata OX, including the Project List, the Project side panel, the Project Admin box, and in reporting.
Capacity	The total amount of time a resource can work within a given timeframe based on the hours in a user’s workweek with any holidays and time off deducted.
Change Order	Based on your project settings, you can require approval for budget and due date changes. Change orders allow you to leave an audit trail for changes.
Client	External project participants in Kantata who are not account members but can be invited to participate in projects. These are the people you are completing work for on a project. You can also add external members from the Talent Network to your account as clients. If someone invites you to their Talent Network, you are a client in their account.
Collaborator	This account permission is intended for account members who will collaborate on projects, such as individual contributors that perform the work.
Collaborator (External)	This account permission is intended for external members who will collaborate on projects, such as individual contributors outside of your company that perform the work.
Cost	This is the amount that your work costs based on the time spent on a project multiplied by the cost rates of the team members and resources that completed this work. During the Estimate stage of a project, you can see details on Estimated Cost in the Task Tracker and in the Overview tab of a project.
Cost Rate	How much it costs your organization to have a resource working on a project. This is not the same amount as the resource’s bill rate, which could be higher. For example, a resource may have a cost rate of $100 to you, but the bill rate—the amount you charge your client—is $200.
Critical Path	Critical Path is a feature in Gantt charts, which you can use to estimate the shortest length of time needed to complete a project and how much flexibility you have to complete unplanned work before the deadline. Clicking the Critical Path button highlights the task with the due date furthest out, including all dependent tasks whose start and end dates have a direct effect on the due date of the project.
Custom Fields	Custom fields are fields that you can set up in Kantata to help you track and manage data that is specific to your business and processes. Custom fields can also appear alongside native fields in the Forms feature. You can add custom fields for the following objects: User, Project, Task, and Group. User fields can also be configured to be Resource custom fields.
Dependency	Creating task dependencies in the Task Tracker or Gantt charts allows you to define relationships between tasks and visualize the sequence in which they must be completed in order to close a project. A dependency is the relationship between predecessor tasks—tasks that must be completed before another task—and successor tasks—tasks that cannot be started until another task has been completed. These dependency restrictions are controlled by start and due dates on tasks. You can add negative values to have a successor task start before another task’s due date. Tasks may have multiple predecessors or successors.
Dependency Lag Time	Lag time is the amount of time between tasks before a task can begin. You can set lag time in Gantt charts and in Task Tracker.
Dependency Lead Time	The amount of time that a task can be started prior to the due date of a predecessor. You can set lead time in Gantt charts and in Task Tracker.
Early Access	A page in Kantata OX that allows Account Administrators to activate features early, giving you more control over your feature adoption and change management processes. Activating features early gives users a chance to become familiar with these features earlier and to learn how they benefit unique processes.
Estimate	Kantata OX allows you to build estimates—also commonly referred to as project plans or statements of work (SOW)—within the project workspace using project stages. The Estimate stage of a project is an early stage that allows you to quickly and efficiently build a bottoms-up estimate for your clients—which involves building a task schedule, allocating roles to tasks, and estimating resource hours, costs, and margins—before any work on the project begins. To learn more, see Estimating in the Project Workspace.
Estimate at Completion (EAC)	Estimate at Completion (EAC) is what has already been spent plus what is expected to be spent by the time the project is complete. EAC is calculated by adding your actual fees with the future hours to show you an estimate of what the total hours and fees will be once the task work is completed. For more information on EAC calculations, see Project Completion Estimates.
Estimate to Complete (ETC)	Estimate to Complete (ETC) is the amount of money left to be spent by the time the project is complete. ETC is calculated by multiplying either scheduled hours or hard allocations by the bill rate from the day of the week specified in the Project Estimate Calculation Options forward. ETC is only visible when scheduled hours or allocations have been created. For more information on ETC calculations, see Project Completion Estimates.
Estimated Hours	A measurement of effort in time for how long a task will take to complete. In Kantata, this is measured at the task level—task estimated hours—and the resource level—resource estimated hours. For more information on task estimated hours and resource estimated hours, see Hour Types in Kantata OX.
Expense	Expenses in Kantata can be either billable or non-billable and can be logged to a specific task, project, or budget. If a project requires approval for expenses, you can add them to expense reports to submit them for approval.
Expense Budget	Expense budgets allow you to plan for future expenses on a project and compare them to your actual expenses. Creating expense budgets usually happens during the Estimate stage of a project, but they can be used during any project stage.
Fees	Fees represent the total amount of billable items associated with a project. This sum may include billable time entries, billable time adjustments, billable expenses (that affect margin), and additional items in invoices (that impact margin). Actual fees are often used in contrast to "estimated" or "scheduled" fees, which are forecasts. The calculation for actual fees may vary based on your project settings and Time & Expense account settings. For more information, see Project Completion Estimates.
Files	You can add files to your project when you create or reply to a post in the project’s Activity Feed, the Dashboard Activity Feed, or the Task side panel. Uploading files to the project improves the responses from Kantata AI features as agents can access the information in files.
Financial Management	Financial management tools are essential for determining project viability, planning budgets, managing risks, and improving future project management by ensuring financial accountability and value delivery. In Kantata, we offer features like the Billing Schedule to plan when clients are billed, Fees per Month to get clear, real-time insight into fee utilization on projects, and Revenue Management to help you complete month-end review, recognize revenue, and close periods each month.
Financial Period	The financial period in Kantata is from the beginning of a month to the end of the month. Once the period ends, you can complete the revenue approval process and close the period.
Forecast	Forecast calculations in Kantata consider future allocated hours, scheduled hours, and expense budgets.
Forms	Forms allow you to replace the default create project page with your own form in order to collect only the information that is relevant and essential to your organization and teams. You can configure Forms with your own field labels, placeholders, help tips, default values, and field rules—adapting Kantata OX to your organization's processes and requirements. Forms can be used to create projects, update projects, or display project information, including custom fields.
Gantt Chart	A Gantt chart is a visual representation of the project in a timeline view. It is a type of bar chart that shows all the tasks constituting a project. Tasks are listed vertically, with the horizontal axis marking time. The lengths of task bars are to scale with tasks’ durations. There are 3 Gantt charts in Kantata OX: Local Gantt—Within a single project workspace (one project) Global Gantt—At the project level across all projects Tasks Gantt—At the task level for all tasks in all projects
History	The History features in Kantata act as an audit logging system that tracks which users performed certain actions and when those actions were performed. You can see history at the task, project, and account levels using Task History, Project History, and Recent History respectively.
Insights	Insights is Kantata’s business intelligence (BI) tool that helps you synthesize and analyze large amounts of raw data to identify trends and surface insights using interactive reports. This can help you understand the underlying causes of your company’s performance and make informed, data-driven decisions.
Invoice	Invoices in Kantata can include the following objects: time entries, time adjustments, fixed fee tasks, expenses, fixed fee billing milestones, fixed fee expense budgets, and additional items. The items that you include in an invoice may vary depending on if the billing mode is Fixed Fee or Time & Materials.
Key Performance Indicator (KPI)	A Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a metric for measuring project success. KPIs are typically established before project execution begins. You can include KPIs in Insights reports.
Margin	Margin shows how profitable a project is. In Kantata OX, margin is calculated as `Margin = (Total Revenue - Cost) / Billable Revenue`. Margin can be viewed in various places throughout Kantata including: the project Overview tab, Summary Bar, Analytics reports, and Insights reports.
Organizations	Available as an add-on, the Organizations feature is made up of departments and geographies, allowing you to structure projects and account members. You can also limit access to projects and user information, keeping sensitive information safe from unauthorized users.
Permissions	Permissions control what users can see and actions they can complete. There are 3 permission types in Kantata: Account Permissions—Account permissions allow you to set the overall privileges—such as time tracking or managing account settings—for team members based on set permissions levels. Project Permissions—Project permissions allow you to determine which actions project participants can take within a project. Access Group Permissions—Access Groups allow you to group people by persona and control access to certain features. The account permission levels are represented in Access Groups and you can create additional custom Access Groups. This is a more flexible and robust system. Access Groups allow you to quickly grant and revoke access.
Project	Projects or workspaces are places where you can collaborate and get work done. In each project workspace, your internal and external team members can communicate through Activity Feed posts, create and update tasks, share files, and more.
Project Accounting	Project accounting is the practice of quantifying the performance of project-based activity. For projects relying primarily on human capital, this typically involves tracking time, expenses, budgets, bill rates, and other financial metrics that reveal the performance of a project. You can import and export project accounting files from the account settings.
Project Creator	This is an account permission that allows account members to create non-financial projects and view their own time entries.
Project Health	You can monitor and update project health from the Project side panel. Project health has 4 categories: Schedule, Scope, Budget, and Client. You can also assign an Overall red, yellow, or green rating. These status reports can also be viewed in Insights reporting.
Project Lead	This is an account permission that allows account members to create financial projects, and—with proper permissions—they can view and manage financial information in projects, such as invoicing.
Project Management	A management process that encompasses all phases of a project, from initiation to the meeting of objectives.
Project Stage	A distinct stage in a project management life cycle. In Kantata, there are two stages within a project: the Estimate stage and the Project stage. You can indicate which stage a project is at during project creation or move an active project to a different stage at any time.
Provider	The team that is providing the service. The Provider sends invoices and creates time entries and expenses.
Pulse	Pulse is a sentiment tool that allows you to send surveys to collect client and employee feedback, uncover actionable insights, and improve project outcomes.
Punch Clock	This is an account permission that allows account members to enter time for their projects.
Rate Card	Rate cards define the cost of resources across multiple currencies They allow you to standardize and reuse billing rates based on the resource’s project role. You can set up rate cards and determine their effective dates in the account settings, then apply them to projects.
Report Viewer	This is an account-level permission that allows account members to see Project and Task custom field information, skills information in Resourcing, and time entries for their team.
Report Viewer With Cost	This is an account-level permission that allows account members to see and perform all actions that a Report Viewer can, but they also can see cost information.
Reporting	There are two tools available for Premier and Enterprise accounts in Kantata OX that allow you to report on your data: Analytics and Insights. To view and create reports in these tools, an Account Administrator will need to give you the appropriate Access Group permissions.
Resource	In Kantata, this is a term for people, or team members, who are responsible to deliver projects for an organization. Unnamed resources represent the demand for specific resources on projects and the named resources that are available and have the skills to perform the work represent the supply. You can use Resource Requests to more accurately represent demand during later phases of your project planning. Resource Recommendations allow you to more easily see the supply available to you based on availability, skills, custom fields, and other criteria.
Resourcing	Resource management helps you anticipate the resources necessary to deliver future projects and plan accordingly. Using the tools in the Resource Center and a project’s Resourcing tab, you can optimize productivity and utilization to remain profitable. A resource plan summarizes all the resources required to deliver work (which is especially critical for services firms measuring staff utilization rates). Appropriate planning requires scheduling the resources on each task for the lowest cost rate to your company. Leading services firms target a specific utilization level, by balancing their maximum profit from employees’ time spent with non-billable activities, such as business development, training, and employee growth.
Resource Request	Resource Requests require users to submit requests for their staffing demand, which is based on unnamed resources. These requests are approved by a designated list of resource request approvers. Resource Requests can be submitted from anywhere in Kantata that you can access the Resource side panel—such as the Resourcing tab in a project, the Rates & Roles page, or the Resource Center.
Revenue	This is the amount of money your company has earned, based on your accounting standards, which vary by company and industry. Revenue does not factor in costs. If you charge a customer $100,000, that project’s revenue contribution is $100,000. In Kantata OX, you can see forecasted revenue, calculated revenue, and recognized revenue for each period in the Account Revenue and Project Revenue pages.
Revenue Recognition Method	The criteria that determines how the project’s revenue is recognized and accounted for. There are three options: Time & Materials, % Complete (Hours), and % Complete (Cost).
Risk	The probability of occurrence of a specific event that affects the pursuit of objectives. Risks are not negative by definition. In project management, opportunities are also considered risks.
Scheduled Hours	The number of hours a resource is scheduled to spend on each task for a project. For more information on scheduled hours, see Hour Types in Kantata OX.
Skills	You can build a library of skills in Kantata OX that can be assigned to individual team members and unnamed resources.
Status	You can set statuses for projects and tasks to quickly communicate the overall progress and/or health of projects and tasks. Each status has a label and a color associated with the status type. For tasks, you can create custom task statuses using Task Status Sets in the account settings and applying those sets to projects.
Talent Network	The Talent Network feature makes it easy for external partners and freelancers to join your Kantata OX account as external members. When you invite people and accounts to your network, you expand your resource pool, increase visibility into your whole team, and confidently deliver projects with external members.
Task	In project management, a task is a unit of work or activity needed for progress towards project goals. Tasks may be further broken down into subtasks. There are 4 task types in Kantata OX: Task—A task represents work that needs to be completed. This is the default task type. Issue—An issue is anything that can cause problems for a project. Deliverable—Deliverables are the final product or a product component that you plan to provide to a client or stakeholder. Milestone—Milestones indicate specific progress points or events in project timelines that are needed to complete projects successfully. You can also use weighted milestones to define various percentages of project completion. For more information on task types, see Task Types.
Team Lead	You can assign Team Leads to both the Provider side and Client side of a project from the Project Permissions page. Team Leads can be anyone in the project, not just Project Administrators. By default, their name and address will appear on invoices and other project information.
Template	Defines a common structure for work to be delivered. Project Managers can reproduce project plans and jobs by applying a template to a project, eliminating the need to re-configure repetitive items (tasks, milestones, or deliverables) and other elements of the project.
Time Lock	A time lock prevents time entries before a certain date from being modified and helps ensure historical records remain accurate for financial compliance.
Timesheet	A timesheet is a set of time entries for a specified week that represents the actual hours that a person worked. Timesheets can be submitted, approved, rejected, and canceled.
To Do	To Dos are the smaller items and details that can come up as the project progresses that can either be supplementary to the project’s WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) or remain separate from the project tasks. For example, if you need to contact a client for a document, you can create a To Do card for it, which you can then track, assign to a team member, use to communicate with your team, and more.
Utilization Rate	This metric reveals your employees’ efficiency and productivity. It’s based on what percent of their time they spend on both billable and productive activities. You usually manage two types of utilization: Total Utilization—This metric measures the percent of time your employees spend on any productive work, including business development and proposal writing. Billable Utilization—This metric is the percent of time you can bill to clients. Billable hours reflect your employees’ time spent specifically on revenue-generating activities (i.e. project tasks). Billable utilization is a critical concept for services organizations. A target utilization rate will vary based on your business and the role within the business. Utilization rates are displayed throughout Kantata including in Insights, Analytics, and Timesheets.
Variance	The difference between what was planned and what actually happened. Variance can be calculated for budget, hours, and utilization. Variance values are available throughout Kantata including in Analytics, Insights, the Project side panel, and the Task side panel.
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)	A hierarchical representation of the project plan detailing everything a project team is supposed to deliver and achieve. Each task has a unique WBS number based on its position and depth in Task Tracker.