Which Watches each supplier service powers
A Watch is one of Scout's analyzers — a standing rule that looks at what your connected sources say and raises a point when something is wrong. On the PromoStandards screens, every service row carries small Watch chips showing which Watches that service could feed. This article is the map behind those chips.
What a Watch chip is, and is not
A chip says: this Watch can use this service, in this lane, while it is answering.
It is not proof that the Watch is enabled in your workspace, that it has run, that it found anything, or that it has been proved against a live supplier. Those are separate things.
Hover or focus a chip to read its explanation; on a touch screen the first tap opens the explanation and a second tap follows the link. Following it opens Scout's Watch catalogue — all eighteen Watches under their five categories — with a link back to PromoStandards. To change whether a Watch is on, or how it is tuned, go to Settings → Watches. The supplier connection lives in Connections; Watch configuration lives in Settings.
Some chips are marked as second wave. Those describe possible future coverage; they are not an active-monitoring promise. A service that is not answering does not light a chip as though it had answered.
The map
The chips are derived from Scout's Watch catalogue, not typed into the page, so they change when the catalogue changes. Codes below are the ones shown on the chips.
| Answering service | Lane needed | Watches it can feed |
|---|---|---|
| Order status | Your own account | SI-1 PO not acknowledged — or acknowledged differently than ordered · SI-2 Supplier is waiting on us · SI-3 Production delay · FO-2 Customer hasn't been told · PA-2 Supplier performance drift |
| Shipments | Your own account | SI-3 Production delay · FO-2 Customer hasn't been told · SI-7 Freight and transit estimates |
| Inventory | Shared feed or your own account | SI-4 Inventory short for a quote or order |
| Pricing & config | Shared feed or your own account | FI-3 Quote margin guard — missing supplier charges and the margin floor |
| Pricing & config | Your own account only | SI-5 Supplier price change, price expiration or discontinuation with an open quote |
| Product data | Shared feed or your own account | SI-6 Order-by date approaching · FO-3 PO pre-flight |
| Product data | Your own account only | SI-5 Supplier price change, price expiration or discontinuation |
| Invoices | Your own account | FI-4 Invoice reconciliation — purchase order versus supplier invoice · FI-5 Promised credit, reship or replacement not received |
| Media | — | None today |
| Purchase orders | — | None today. Scout reads the acknowledgment through Order status; purchase orders stay read-only. |
Why the lane matters
The lane is the difference between catalogue information and your information.
- Order status, shipments and invoices are transactional. They only exist for your account, so they light up on the own-account lane and never on the shared feed. This is why the four supplier Watches that promo shops feel most — an unacknowledged purchase order, a supplier waiting on you, a production delay, and the customer who has not been told — need your own supplier account.
- Pricing on the shared feed is list price. It is enough for the margin guard to notice charges a quote forgot, but not enough to prove a price change against your negotiated cost — so the price-change Watch lights only on your own account.
- Inventory and product data work on either lane, which is why the shared feed is a genuinely useful first step even before credentials arrive.
What a chip still does not prove
| Answering evidence | What it does not establish |
|---|---|
| Inventory | That Scout has a matching quantity requirement, or that stock is reserved for you. |
| Pricing and configuration | That catalogue pricing is your negotiated cost, or that a margin can be calculated without a cost source. |
| Order status | That the mailbox or order context exists, or that every Watch is turned on. |
| Shipments | That a partial shipment completes the order, or that the customer has been told. |
| Invoices | That an invoice is paid, or that Scout may make an accounting change. |
| Product and pricing changes | That a changed catalogue value is a real discrepancy without a matched open quote. |
Good to know
- The Watches also need evidence from your other connections. Comparing a supplier invoice with a purchase order needs the purchase order, which comes from your mailbox or your accounting file; the margin guard needs a cost source. A supplier connection on its own is half the picture.
- No Watch polls a supplier on its own. Every supplier read goes through the one engine described in Reading supplier Health and History, which is what keeps your daily call allowance predictable.
- Paid supplier access alone does not make a Watch run. A Watch's own enabled state, the evidence it requires and Scout's privacy boundaries stay separate gates.
- Enabling, disabling and tuning Watches is done in Settings → Watches by an Owner or Admin. Members can read the settings but not change them.
- If two sources disagree — the supplier says shipped, the mailbox says not yet — Scout keeps the disagreement and both pieces of evidence rather than choosing the more convenient story.