Glossary

Latest update: August 5th, 2026

Employee

An employee is a person whose skills you manage in AG5. This is usually someone who works for your organization, but it can also be an external person, such as a temporary worker, identified by their contract type.

Grouping

Groupings and grouping types are what make AG5 so flexible (and, admittedly, a little more complex). A grouping is a named group of employees and/or skill requirements: anything you want to assign requirements to, or report on, as a unit.

Groupings work as tags on a position. When you tag a position with a grouping, everyone in that position picks up the requirements that grouping carries.

Every grouping has a grouping type, which says what kind of group it is. The grouping is the specific group; the grouping type is its category. For example, "Team Leader" and "Operator" are two separate groupings that share the type Job role. "Packing" is a grouping of the type Department, and "Paper4" is a grouping of the type Production line.

Common grouping types are: Job role, Location, Org Unit, Team, Production line, Department, Project, Activity, and Task. Admin users can add or rename these to fit your organization's needs.

A position can be tagged with one or more groupings (see also Position).

Position

A position describes what an employee does in the organization: their job or responsibility.

An employee's position (or positions) is what lets AG5 work out two things: which skill requirements apply to that employee, and which skills matrices they belong in.

This runs on the same flexible system as groupings: a position is tagged with one or more groupings, and every grouping has a grouping type. Through those tags, the position inherits the requirements each grouping carries.

For example, John's position is tagged with two groupings: "Operator 1," a grouping of the type Job role, and "Packaging," a grouping of the type Department. So John picks up whatever requirements are attached to the Operator 1 and Packaging groupings.

Potential Position

A potential position is a position an employee is not officially assigned to yet, but that you want to track progress toward. It lets you see which skills they would still need before they could take it on.

These requirements show only on the employee's detail page, not anywhere else in AG5 (for example, not in the Alert list or a matrix).

Personal Requirement

A personal requirement is a requirement that only applies to one employee, as opposed to a Skill requirement which applies to all employees with a certain tag in their position.

For example: only a handful of employees in your team/organization need to have a specific skill. They don't have a shared role or team or department to which we can link this requirement. Therefore, the requirement will be created as a personal requirement.

Warning: it's always preferable to use a regular skill requirement where you link a requirement to a grouping (a tag in a position) instead of using a personal requirement where you link a skill to a specific employee. Personal requirements require a lot of maintenance and when the employee leaves the company, you will need to recreate the requirement.

Skill exemption

A skill exemption excuses a specific employee from a skill requirement that would otherwise apply to them through their position. The requirement no longer counts for that person, so it will not show up as a gap for them.

For example: the requirement can be all Team leaders need to have skill Leadership 101. John is a Team leader, but for some reason, he's not required to have skill Leadership 101. In that case you will give John a skill exemption.

(Skill) Planning

A planning is a lightweight record that an employee is expected to achieve a specific skill by a given deadline. It links an employee, a skill, and a deadline date.

It signals that no further action is needed for now: the skill is on track to be achieved before the deadline.

A planning is not always a scheduled training with a fixed time, room, and trainer. It can also mark that you are waiting on something like an official certification document. Either way, it shows the skill is in progress and a positive result is expected before the deadline.

Plannings can be paired with email alerts (see Workflows).

Skill

A skill is anything an employee can hold or be qualified in, and anything you want to track the current status of. It is whatever you measure to see the gap between the level someone needs and the level they have.

"Skill" is a deliberately broad term. It can cover certifications, on-the-job training, access passes for parts of a building or platform, physical requirements, workshops, courses, accreditations, sign-offs on conduct, soft skills, hard skills, and more.

Skills attach to employees as achievements (results), and to groupings such as job roles or departments as requirements.

(Skill) Result

A skill result records the score an employee achieved for a skill on a specific date. It is created whenever an employee is assessed, for example through an exam, an assessment, or training on the job.

(Skill) Requirement

A skill requirement sets which skill, and at what minimum level, someone needs in order to be qualified for a position.

It ties together three things: a skill, a minimum score for that skill, and one or more groupings (for example a job role and/or a department).

Example:

All employees with a position tagged with grouping Jobrole: Team Leader need to have skill Leadership ABC with minimum score level 3 (Advanced).

Rating scale

Each skill has a specific rating scale that defines how the skill will be scored. For example: a certification is usually rated with a nominal scale (achieved, not achieved), but a training on the job can be rated with e.g. a 3 level scale (Basic, Advanced, Expert)

Skills matrix

A skills matrix is a grid that shows employees against skills. Each cell shows whether an employee holds a skill and at which level, compared to the level required for their position. Matrices make it easy to see at a glance who is qualified for what and where gaps exist. In AG5 you build and view matrices from the Matrices section.

Gap

A gap is a required skill that an employee is missing or does not yet hold at the required level. Gaps show where action is needed, such as planning training or recording a new result. This term replaced the earlier term 'Problem' in AG5 as of March 2026.

Compliance

Compliance measures how well employees meet their required skills. An employee is compliant for a skill when they hold it at or above the required level. Compliance % is the share of required skills, for an employee or across the workforce, that are currently met. A required skill that is not met counts as a gap.

Expiration and validity

Some skills are valid only for a set period. A skill can have a validity period, after which the achieved result expires and must be renewed through a new assessment or training. A warning period flags skills that are approaching their expiration date, so they can be renewed before they lapse. An expired required skill becomes a gap.

Skill revocation

Revoking a skill records that an employee's achieved skill is no longer valid, for example when a certification is withdrawn or an authorization is removed. The skill stops counting as achieved, and if it was required, it becomes a gap. Unlike expiration, a revocation is a manual withdrawal rather than a time-based lapse.