In short. RelèveMed's words, two lines each.
Period
The time to schedule, from one date to another. It goes through four stages: Draft, Collecting, Editing, Published.
Deadline
When answers are expected. Nothing closes by itself on that date: input stays open until a manager generates the schedule.
Manager
The person who prepares periods, then generates and publishes the schedule. A team can have several.
Participant
A physician taking part in a given period. Participation is set period by period.
Shift and slot
A slot is a cell of the calendar: the day or the night of a date. A shift is a slot assigned to a physician.
Weekend
From Friday evening to Sunday: Friday night is part of it, Friday's day shift is not.
Unavailability
A slot you cannot take, which the calculation must respect. It is recurring (a rule) or one-off (an absence). An exception reopens a cell closed by a rule.
Preference
A slot you would like to take. The calculation tries to respect it, without any guarantee.
Shift request
A specific date you want to work. Kept by your manager, it becomes a granted shift, which the calculation respects.
Rule
What you declare for a whole period: your wishes and your typical week.
Confirmation
The step that tells your manager you have finished answering. What you entered without confirming is still read by the calculation.
Carry-over of answers
Your rules copied from the previous period, if you had confirmed it. Your absences and shift requests are never copied.
Update
A correction to a schedule already published: the physicians affected get an email.
Exchange
A shift passed from one physician to a colleague, with or without a shift in return.
Calculation
What produces a period's schedule from the answers. Starting it closes input.
Lock
A locked cell: a new calculation keeps it and redoes everything else.
Minimum rest
The time to leave between two shifts: 48, 72 or 96 hours. It is set for the team, and for a period if needed.
Version
A published state of the schedule. A period's versions are in its History tab.
Revision
A draft of corrections laid over a published schedule. The team sees none of it until the update is published.
Fairness
How shifts, weekends and public holidays are shared among physicians, from one period to the next.
Balance
Where a physician stands against the team average: +1 means one shift more than their share.
Carry-over and cap
The carry-over is the balance passed on to the next period. The cap limits what can pass on.