Pipelines are full of records, and they're all linked together by a common element: the record in the primary pipeline. Think of pipelines as tables in a database, all joined using common keys. Every field and subreport has a pipeline associated with it. For fields, it indicates where the field gets its data, and limits the fields that can be selected. For subreports, the pipeline forms the basis of the subreport, and the contents of the subreport are repeated once for every record in its pipeline.
We have a whole series of pipelines available to us, plus one more for every type of certification defined.
For fields where the meaning is obvious from its description, we've left the description blank.