Referring to third-party companies and products

Generally, Splunk docs and UI don't document how to configure third-party software products, but some Splunk offerings integrate with third-party products and address the products and components by name.

When referring to a third-party company or product in Splunk documentation or UI text, spell and capitalize the company name or product exactly as that company does on their website, and use an abbreviation after that only if they do on their website.

Don't include another company's trademark symbols, copyright symbols, service marks, or logos in Splunk documentation.

See the following table for examples of correct third-party references:

Do this	Don't do this	Rationale behind the change
Amazon Web Services (AWS)	Amazon Web Services (AWS™)	Don't include a trademark symbol with a third-party product. It's okay to abbreviate Amazon Web Services as AWS after you spell it out at the first reference on a page.
Microsoft Outlook	MS Outlook®	MS isn't an approved abbreviation for Microsoft. Don't include a registered trademark symbol with a third-party product.
Microsoft Teams	Teams	Always include Microsoft in the product name.
Google Cloud Platform (GCP)	Google CP	CP isn't an approved abbreviation for Google Cloud Platform. It's okay to use the approved abbreviation, GCP, after you spell out the full product name at the first reference on a page.

Using third-party product terminology

If you are documenting a Splunk product integration with a third-party product, maintain consistency with Splunk product terminology when writing about Splunk software and when referring to a general concept. For example, choose the word "search" instead of "query" when you're describing interactions with Splunk software. For more information related to Splunk-specific terminology, see the Splexicon.

You can match the third-party product terminology only if you are documenting a specific interaction with a component or page within the third-party product. For example, if you must instruct a user to go to a page titled Ingest Data in a third-party's product, document that exact label in your instructions. In all other cases, align with Splunk product terminology.

If you need to document how to integrate a Splunk product with a third-party product, see Documenting third-party products to determine what level of detail to provide.