Configuration

The Configuration Page shows some generally applicable settings that affect the overall Lighthouse behaviour.

Blackout Periods

Blackout periods let you mark specific dates or date ranges as non-working days — for example, public holidays, company off-days, or planned shutdowns.

Lighthouse uses this information in two ways:

• Forecasting: When running Monte Carlo Simulations, days that fall within a blackout period are skipped entirely. The simulation treats those days as if your team did no work, which means they do not count against the forecast duration and are not sampled for throughput. This keeps your forecasts accurate even when the future contains known non-working periods.
• Metrics charts: Blackout days are visually highlighted with a hatched overlay in run charts, Process Behaviour Charts, and the Cycle Time Scatterplot, so you can immediately see which dips or gaps in your data were expected rather than a sign of a problem.

Adding and Managing Blackout Periods

1. Navigate to System Settings → Configuration.
2. Locate the Blackout Periods section.
3. Click Add Blackout Period and provide:
   • Start date — the first day of the blackout.
   • End date — the last day of the blackout (can be the same as the start date for a single day).
   • Description — a short label such as “Christmas” or “Bank Holiday”.
4. Click Save to confirm. The period will take effect immediately for new forecasts and metric views.

You can add multiple blackout periods, edit existing ones, or delete them at any time. Changes apply globally across all teams and portfolios.

Blackout periods are a global configuration and apply to every team and portfolio in your Lighthouse instance.

Optional Features

Some features might not make sense to be enabled in all situations. And occasionally some new features will be deployed with the latest version of Lighthouse that we deem not ready for general use. In such a case you would find a toggle in the Optional Features setting which you can selectively enable or disable.

Eventually, the Features in preview will be integrated into the regular functionality, and the preview flag will be removed. In rare cases, a preview feature might get removed.

While preview features should be relatively stable, it can be that they will not work perfectly yet. If you enable them and encounter issues, please let us know about it. We’re looking forward to your feedback!

If you are enabling Lighthouse features for AI clients, MCP, or automation workflows, continue with AI and Automation. If the target instance requires authentication, create credentials in API Keys.

Terminology Configuration

Lighthouse allows you to customize the terminology used throughout the application to better align with your organization’s language and workflow conventions. This feature helps eliminate confusion by ensuring consistent terminology that matches how your team and organization refers to work items and concepts.

Configurable Terms

The terminology configuration allows you to customize the following terms:

Term Category	Default Value	Description	Example Alternatives
Work Item	Work Item	Individual units of work tracked in your system	Story, Task, Issue, Ticket, Item
Work Items	Work Items	Plural form of work item	Stories, Tasks, Issues, Tickets, Items
Feature	Feature	Larger units of work that contain multiple work items	Epic, Initiative, Theme, Component
Features	Features	Plural form of feature	Epics, Initiatives, Themes, Components
Cycle Time	Cycle Time	Time from when work starts until completion	Lead Time, Flow Time, Delivery Time
Throughput	Throughput	Number of items completed in a given time period	Velocity, Delivery Rate, Completion Rate
Work in Progress	Work in Progress	Items currently being worked on	WIP, In Progress, Active Work
WIP	WIP	Abbreviated form of Work in Progress	IP, Active, Current
Work Item Age	Work Item Age	How long an item has been in progress	Item Age, Story Age, Task Age
Tag	Tag	Labels or categories applied to work items	Label, Category, Type, Keyword
Work Tracking System	Work Tracking System	The external system that stores your work items	Issue Tracker, Project Management Tool, ALM Tool
Work Tracking Systems	Work Tracking Systems	Plural form of work tracking system	Issue Trackers, Project Management Tools, ALM Tools
Query	Query	Search criteria used to find work items	Search, Filter, JQL, WIQL
Blocked	Blocked	Items that cannot progress due to impediments	Impediment, Stuck, On Hold, Waiting
Service Level Expectation	Service Level Expectation	Expected time for work completion	SLE, Target Time, Goal, Commitment
SLE	SLE	Abbreviated form of Service Level Expectation	Target, Goal, Expectation
Team	Team	Groups of people working together	Squad, Crew, Group, Department
Teams	Teams	Plural form of team	Squads, Crews, Groups, Departments

How to Configure

1. Navigate to System Settings → Configuration
2. Locate the Terminology Configuration section
3. For each term you want to customize:
   • View the current default value and description
   • Enter your preferred terminology in the input field
   • Leave blank to use the default value
4. Click Save to apply your changes

Benefits of Customization

• Consistency: Eliminates confusion from mixed terminology throughout the application
• Familiarity: Use terms that your team already knows and understands
• Alignment: Match existing organizational vocabulary and processes
• Adoption: Reduce the learning curve for new users by using familiar language
• Communication: Improve clarity when discussing metrics and workflows with stakeholders

Best Practices

• Team Alignment: Involve your team in deciding on terminology to ensure everyone understands and agrees with the chosen terms
• Organizational Standards: Align with existing terminology used in your organization’s other tools and processes
• Documentation: Update any team documentation or training materials to reflect the customized terminology
• Consistency: Use the same terms consistently across all teams and portfolios in your Lighthouse instance

Changes to terminology are applied immediately throughout the entire application interface. All existing data and configurations remain unchanged - only the display labels are updated.

Periodic Refresh Settings

One of the main advantages of Lighthouse is the fact that it’s not only offering to run the forecasts on demand, but also continuously. To fine-tune this, you can adjust the several settings:

Refresh Types

There are two types of refreshes:

• Team
• Feature

The Team refresh fetches all items related to your team, and is equivalent to clicking the update icon on the Team page, while the Feature refresh updates portfolio data and is equivalent to using the refresh icon on the Portfolio page.

Setting Details

Each refresh type contains three different settings. All settings are specified in minutes. After adjusting the setting, the Update Settings button must be pressed for the changes to become effective.

Name	Description
Interval (Minutes)	The time between checks if the data should be updated. This means, after x minutes Lighthouse will check if the last update was older than what was defined in Refresh After.
Refresh After (Minutes)	The time after which a refresh will be triggered if the last one was more than this time ago.
Start Delay (Minutes)	The delay before the background task is started when the application starts. This can be useful as you may not want to trigger updates just after startup.

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