Know the terms the product uses

Organisation: The top-level body, for example a deanery, that owns programmes, users, and local templates.

Programme: A training programme inside an organisation.

Context: The organisation and programme selected in the app header. Everything you see and change belongs to that programme.

Platform admin: A user with platform-wide reach across all organisations and programmes.

Template: A local programme setup record used by an active programme.

Blueprint: A shared platform-level setup model that local teams can use as a starting point. Blueprints are managed by platform admins. Each blueprint carries its own training stages, capacity pools, ARCP outcome codes, validation rules, and intake cycle. A blueprint marked Example shows plausible values to demonstrate the specialty support; check its detail in Programme Setup before you plan real rotations against it.

Programme Setup: The workspace where local setup is initialized and edited. Requires programme management access.

Stage: A curriculum stage in the programme (for example, Stage 1 or Higher Specialty Training). Each stage has a colour, an expected duration, and optional entry and exit rules. Older pages and blueprints may call it a phase.

Capacity group: The pool of WTE that a site's capacity is counted against, so that a site's limits can differ by where a trainee is in the programme. Each site has a capacity limit per group. A placement counts against the group its training grade maps to, and several grades can share one group — Anaesthetics maps CT1 to CT3 to Stage 1 and ST4 to ST7 to the shared Stage 2/3 pool, so seven grades use two groups. Set in the Training Grade Mapping section of Programme Setup. A grade with no mapping row counts against no group at all, and a validation rule reports it.

Training grade: The grade assigned to a placement (for example, CT1, ST4).

It maps to a capacity group and is used in validation checks. A trainee's current

grade comes from their placement covering today, or their latest finished graded

placement; it is not edited separately on their profile.

Capacity window: The planning period used in reports and fill rate calculations. Defined by a start month (for example, August) and a duration in months (for example, 12).

Capacity override: A date-range-specific adjustment to a site's default capacity for a given group. Used when a site temporarily reduces or increases its accepted WTE.

Validation rule: A configurable rule that surfaces overlaps, gaps, capacity breaches, placements with a missing or unmapped training grade, stages out of order, or unmet curriculum requirements. Rules can be enabled, disabled, or set to different severities per programme.

Review outcome: A configured outcome option used in ARCP recording. Each outcome has a code, label, category (satisfactory/unsatisfactory), and optional sub-outcome (U-code).

Discipline: What a placement is *for* (for example "General ICM" or "Cardiothoracic"), as distinct from the site it happens at — one site can hold several disciplines. Set on the placement, not the site; a site only carries a default that a new placement starts with. Edited in the Disciplines section of Programme Setup.

Curriculum requirement: A minimum, and optional maximum, number of months of a discipline that a curriculum stage needs. Edited in the Curriculum Requirements section of Programme Setup, and checked by a validation rule once a programme's placements carry disciplines. Months are counted in whole-time-equivalent (WTE) months, not calendar months: 6 months at 0.5 WTE counts as 3.

Placement: One trainee at one site, from a start month for a number of months. Some app labels call it a block (for example Deleted Blocks), and the pathway view calls it a post. Each placement belongs to one trainee and one site, and can carry a WTE override, a training grade override, module tags, and notes.

Capacity Grid: The main planning view. Rows are sites, grouped by region, and each row shows the placements at that site; columns show months. Supports drag-and-drop, heatmap, compact view, and planner mode.

Heatmap mode: A toggle in the capacity grid that colour-codes columns by capacity pressure so shortage patterns are immediately visible.

Compact view: A density toggle in the capacity grid that reduces row height to show more of the plan at once.

Site: A placement location. Site types include hospital, leave, and out-of-programme. Leave and out-of-programme sites can be set to unlimited capacity.

WTE: Whole-time equivalent. Used for capacity calculations and reported in the gaps analysis. Each trainee has a baseline WTE, and individual placements can carry a WTE override.

Equivalent months: The WTE-scaled duration of a placement. A six-month placement at 0.5 WTE counts as 3.0 equivalent months. Shown on placements and in the pathway summary for LTFT trainees.

LTFT: Less than full time. A trainee whose baseline WTE or placement WTE is below 1.0.

Fill rate: The percentage of site capacity that is filled by planned placements for a given group and period. Shown in the Reports & Gaps tab and in the capacity grid header.

Module tags: Labels attached to a placement to track curriculum exposure for that placement (for example, ICM, Regional Anaesthesia). Used for programme-level reporting.

Scenario: A set of trial changes laid over the live plan in testing mode. Testing mode shows the live plan with these changes. Changes to a scenario do not affect the live plan until promoted.

Planner mode: The Live / Testing / View toggle in the app header. Live = editing the real plan. Testing = working in a scenario sandbox. View = read-only view of a scenario.

Promote: The action that applies a scenario's placement changes to the live plan and records a corresponding audit entry. A Review Testing Changes dialog lists the added, updated and removed placements first, so nothing reaches the live plan unseen. If a placement changed in the live plan after the scenario changed it, promote stops until you choose Use Live or Keep Testing for it.

Org Report: An organisation-wide reporting view available to users with user management access, showing fill rates, gaps, and active trainees across all programmes in the organisation.

Recent Activity: A collapsible section at the bottom of the sidebar showing the last three changes made in the programme. View all opens the full activity panel; What's new opens it filtered to changes since your last sign-in. The panel opens itself once per session on your first load of the app.

What's new: Two different things share this label. In the sidebar's Recent Activity section it means programme data changed since your last sign-in. In the header ? menu it means changes to RotationGrid itself — the product changelog.

Validation breach digest: An optional weekly email listing new validation issues in a programme. Switched on or off per user in account settings, with Email me about new validation breaches.

Trainee record: The detailed view for a trainee. It holds the pathway and placement list, the profile, ARCP history, admin notes, and the audit history.

ARCP: Annual Review of Competence Progression — the formal review process for UK postgraduate medical trainees. RotationGrid tracks ARCP events per trainee, including outcome codes and U-codes.

ARCP event: A recorded review outcome for a trainee, including the review date, outcome code, optional U-code for unsatisfactory outcomes, a free-text summary, and an optional next ARCP date.

Next ARCP date: An optional date on an ARCP event recording when the trainee's next review panel is due. Feeds into the upcoming ARCPs panel on the reports page.

GMC lookup: A verification feature that checks a seven-digit GMC number against the GMC register and auto-fills the trainee name if found.

Placeholder trainee: A pre-recruited slot where no real person has been confirmed yet. Shown with a TBC badge in the trainee list.

Outcome code: The result of an ARCP review (for example, Outcome 1 = satisfactory). Codes and labels are configured per programme in Programme Setup.

U-code: A sub-code applied when an ARCP outcome is unsatisfactory, specifying the reason (for example, U1 = insufficient evidence). Configured per programme.

Admin notes: Internal notes stored on the trainee profile. Visible only within the programme and not included in standard exports.

Audit log: A history entry that records who made a change, when, and what the before and after state was. Every create, update, and delete is logged.

Undo or redo: Recovery actions for reversible changes. Use Undo on the confirmation message, Cmd+Z or Ctrl+Z, or Undo and Redo in the audit history and Recent Activity.

Recycle Bin: The area where soft-deleted records can be reviewed and restored. Separate restore permissions apply for trainees, placements, and sites.

Magic link: A one-time sign-in link sent to the user's email. No password is needed. Available on the sign-in page alongside the standard password option.

Invite email: The email sent to a new user when an admin creates their account. The link lets the user set their own password.

Onboarding tour: A guided walkthrough of the main app areas that runs automatically on first login and can be re-triggered from the ? help menu.

Soft delete: A delete model where a record is marked deleted and can later be restored.

Capacity breach: A state where planned WTE exceeds configured site capacity.

Overlap: A state where more than one placement covers the same trainee month.

Gap: A state where unplanned months appear between scheduled placements.

Past overlap / past gap: An overlap or a gap with no current placement in it, for example two finished placements that overlap. The trainee pathway always shows it. The grid and the validation panel show it only when the check has Also flag past placements on.

Version conflict: A save failure caused by someone else changing the same record first.