Glossary¶
Definitions of the main terms used in the API and the Pontotel documentation.
Main Entities¶
Distance¶
Registration of the employee's justified absence (attested, leave, social security leave, etc.). Avoids missing leaves during the period of absence.
See: Distances →
Employee¶
The register of contributor inside Pontotel. Concentrates identification data, organizational structure (local, employer) and routine parameterizations (scale/journey/calculation rules). It's the central entity of the HR domain.
Key Difference: employee It's who works; user It's the one that accesses the system.
See: Employees →
Employer¶
It represents the employer (legal or physical person) identified by CNPJ or CPF. It is the root entity — all locations, employees and groups belong to an employer.
See: Employers →
Scale¶
Structure defining the sequence of worked days and days off over a cycle (e.g. 6×1, 12×36, 5×2). For each day of the scale, a journey is assigned. Depends on previously registered journeys.
See: Scales →
Vacation¶
Registration of the paid rest period of the employee. Synchronizing holidays with Pontotel prevents leaf inconsistencies and reports.
See: Holiday →
Group¶
Cluster mechanism to organize workplaces (and/or users) in operational "folders". Facilitate mass selection for reports and sheet filters.
See: Groups →
Shift¶
Defines hours within a working day: entry, exit, intervals and if there is work planned. It can be "with work" or "without work" (leave/rest). It should be registered before the scale.
See: Days →
Place of Work¶
Organizational unit where the collaborator is allocated. It doesn’t have to be a physical location — it can represent departments, teams, or branches. Sets region and time zone that impact holidays and timestamps.
See: Workplaces →
Point Marker¶
Log in or out of an employee at a given time. Always associated with an employee and timestamp must have a time zone (ISO 8601).
See: Tags →
User¶
The identity of System access Pontotel (login). You can be a manager, HR administrator, or collaborator. When you represent a collaborator, you must be linked to the employee to ensure consistency of the data (name, email, etc.).
Key Difference: user it's the one who gets it; employee It's who works.
See: Users →
Technical Terms¶
Bearer Token¶
Authentication method used in the API. JWT token is obtained via POST /login/ and sent in the header Authorization: Bearer {token} in all subsequent requests. Valid for an hour.
Business Key¶
Identifier with functional significance used for integration between systems: CNPJ (employer), CPF (employee), enrollment (employee). Preferable to internal ID to map records between systems.
CPF¶
Physical Person Registration — Single Person Identification Document in Brazil. Used as a business key for employees.
CNPJ¶
National Register of Legal Persons — a unique identifier of companies in Brazil. Used as a business key for employers.
Dirty Reload¶
MkDocs development server strategy (--dirtyreload) re-rendering only the modified pages. Do not detect changes in mkdocs.yml — in these situations it is necessary to restart the server.
ERP¶
Enterprise Resource Planning — enterprise management system (e.g. SAP, TOTVS Protheus). In integrations, the ERP is usually the "master system" for employee registration data.
Time Zone¶
Offset UTC applied to timestamps markings. Essential for consistency in companies with operations in multiple regions of Brazil (or international). Set by workplace.
ISO 8601¶
International pattern of representation of dates and hours. Format used in API: 2025-01-31T08:05:00-03:00. Always include the offset of the time zone.
Impotence¶
Property of an operation that can be executed multiple times without additional side effect beyond the first execution. Important in integrations to ensure that retainers do not duplicate data.
JWT¶
JSON Web Token — authentication token format used by the Pontotel API.
Registration¶
Internal identifier of the employee within the company. When standardized as an integration key, it allows stable mapping between the HR system and Pontotel.
Page¶
Mechanism for dividing large listings into pages. API returns count, next, previous and results. Use page and page_size Like Query Parameters.
Rate Limit¶
Requisition limit per time unit. Production: 500 req/hour, 50 req/minute. Sandbox: 1000 req/hour, 100 req/minute. Headers X-RateLimit-* report current consumption.
Sandbox¶
Test environment isolated in sandbox-apis.pontotel.com.br. Data doesn't affect production. Use for integration development and validation before going on air.
Incremental Synchronization¶
Synchronization strategy that only transfers modified records since the last successful execution. More efficient than full synchronization for regular use.