How to say "Real-time" in regards to regular process
We have a software product which relies on a 3rd party API to give us our customers' hourly usage data. Though the usage is recorded and changes by the hour, the data which the API serves is updated with new data approx. once per 24hrs.
This means that, at N+23 hours, the data we have in our product is "real-time" in respect to the API'S (since we are constantly polling them to check if there is any update), but not real-time in respect to the actual usage data behind the scenes.
A lot of our marketing material says "real-time", but I don't think that is accurate. I think it's some thing more like "as real-time as possible". I guess there is also "latest", but I don't feel that is exactly accurate either. Any suggestions?
Term: “Current as of...”
I used a similar process when I dealt with pulling data from an ERP system. We would record and report the refresh time stamp so it was always known. This was important to note because it would often account for discrepancies when compared to “live” data in the ERP system altered that day.
The data was refreshed daily on a schedule but could also be refreshed upon request. We would say that the data in our reporting db was “current” and often provide the time stamp to define the “as of” date and time. This was also critical in instances where the data refresh was unsuccessful and was therefore no longer current.
I agree that referring to this type of data as “live” or “real-time” would have given the wrong impression. Users often question why they do not see the changes they just made reflected in the data if it is not actually real-time.