Configuring Watches

Every workspace gets the same eighteen Watches — the standing questions Scout asks of your connected data each morning — and every workspace tunes them for the way it works. This article walks through Settings → Workspace → Watches: turning a Watch on or off, finding one quickly, and setting the handful of thresholds that decide how patient each Watch is.

Only an Owner or an Admin can change these settings. Members and Viewers can open the section and read everything, including each Watch's current values, but the controls do not accept changes — the panel says Read-only. An Owner or Admin can change these settings. Watch settings are workspace-wide: there is no personal copy, and a change applies to everyone.

Screenshot: Settings → Workspace → Watches.

Getting there

1. Open the profile menu at the top right of the app and choose Workspace settings.
2. Under Workspace, choose Watches.
3. The header reads Workspace · applies to everyone in your workspace, and a line below it counts how many Watches are on — for example 18 of 18 enabled in this workspace.

If you have never looked at this screen before, the Explain Watches button opens a short explainer video.

Finding a Watch

Eighteen rows sit under five collapsible category headings — Financial, Follow-ups, Supplier Integration, Pattern Recognition and Support. Each heading shows how many of its Watches are on, how many points they raised and how many were marked wrong, and an accuracy bar. Four controls sit in the toolbar above:

• Search watches — type any part of a name or description.
• Category — a menu of the five categories with a count beside each; tick as many as you like, then Clear categories to start over.
• A status group with four choices: All (the default), On, Off and Needs attention. Needs attention collects the Watches that are missing a required source, the ones still marked Coming soon, any retired row, and any enabled Watch whose accuracy has fallen below 85 percent.
• A sort button that cycles through four orders: Category order (the default), Accuracy, Volume and Name.

While any filter is active a line reads N of 18 watches shown with a Clear filters button. If nothing matches you get No watches match those filters.

Turning a Watch on or off

1. Find the Watch's row.
2. Use the switch at the left of the row. A confirmation appears — for example Receivables past due turned off.

The same switch sits in the top right of the Watch's detail panel, so you can toggle it while you are reading about it. A Watch that is off raises nothing for anyone and shows Off where its accuracy figure would be. Turning it back on takes effect on the next morning run; Scout does not go back and raise points for the days it was off.

Opening one Watch

1. Select the row anywhere outside the switch. The detail panel slides in.
2. The panel opens with the Watch's code and category (for example SI-1 · Supplier Integration), its name and a one-sentence description.
3. Three figures follow: Points raised, Handled by a person, and Accuracy with the number marked wrong beside it. A dash means there is nothing measured yet.
4. Sources it needs lists each source category with the providers that can satisfy it, labeled Required, One required or Helpful. Select a provider's logo to jump straight to its card on the Connections page.
5. The settings block sits beside it — see below.
6. Its last points · 30 days closes the panel: a table of When, Point and Outcome, five at a time, with its own Search these points box. Outcomes read Closed, Marked wrong, Useful, Not useful, Muted or No action yet. With nothing to show it reads No visible points from this Watch in the last 30 days.
7. Use the back arrow, or press Escape, to return to the list.

Screenshot: one Watch's detail panel.

The thresholds you can set

Six Watches carry a threshold, offered as a small set of preset choices with one line of guidance under it. Choose a preset and it saves immediately. Where a Watch has been moved off its default, a Use default button appears with the default value printed on it.

Grace after terms and the margin floor also accept a number of your own: open Custom value under the presets, type it, and select Save. A custom value you have already set is kept and shown even though it is not one of the presets.

The shared reminder delay

Two Watches — FO-1 Waiting on a reply and SI-2 Supplier is waiting on us — share one workspace-level Reminder delay: how long a message of ours can sit unanswered before Scout raises it. The choices are 1 business day, 2 business days or 3 business days, and the default is 2. Because it is shared, changing it from either Watch changes it for both; the note under the control reads Used for customer and supplier follow-ups and links to the workspace setting itself.

Quiet hours

FO-2 Customer hasn't been told carries quiet hours as well. Tick Quiet hours, set From and Until, and select Save; the two times must differ. Quiet hours hold the prepared customer update until the next window opens — they do not send anything, because nothing sends itself. The Automatic sending checkbox on that Watch is deliberately fixed off and cannot be ticked: the note beside it reads Available when customer updates launch. A person sends every draft today.

Reorder windows

PA-1 Reorder windows, seasonal patterns and quiet accounts has three plain number fields instead of presets, each with its own Save: Lead time (days), default 14 — how far ahead of a projected reorder window the point should appear; Planning horizon (days), default 45 — how far out to look; and Minimum orders, default 3 — how many past orders an account needs before Scout will call it a pattern.

Watches with nothing to set

The remaining Watches have no thresholds. Their settings block reads No adjustable thresholds in the report, or Preferences will be available when this Watch launches while the Watch is still marked Coming soon.

Watches marked "Coming soon"

Most of the eighteen rows are marked Coming soon today: the Watch has a row, a description, a declared set of sources and its preferences, and its detection is still being built. Three are working now — FI-1 Receivables past due, FO-1 Waiting on a reply and PA-1 Reorder windows. A Coming soon Watch raises nothing, and Scout does not pretend otherwise: its accuracy column reads Coming soon rather than a number.

You can still set its switch and its thresholds. Where you do, the panel tells you what will happen: These preferences are saved for when this Watch launches. We do not publish dates for individual Watches.

When a change takes effect

A saved setting applies to the next run of that Watch, which is the next morning at the latest. It does not rewrite points that are already in your Inbox — if you widen the acknowledgement window from 2 days to 3, the point that has already been raised stays where it is until someone handles it or the evidence closes it.

If two administrators are in the section at once, the second save is refused rather than silently overwriting the first: the message reads Settings changed elsewhere. Review the current values and try again. If a save cannot be confirmed you get a Retry save button — use it rather than re-entering the value, because retrying the same save reconciles it.

Good to know

• Only an Owner or an Admin can write here. If you are a Member or a Viewer the controls are inert and the message reads Only an Owner or Admin can change Watch settings. See Roles.
• Presets are starting points, not limits — and a preset can never set a value outside what the Watch accepts.
• If Scout raises a Watch's version, your workspace keeps the thresholds you chose. A new default never quietly retunes a Watch you have already set.
• Tune from evidence, not from instinct: the Watch effectiveness report at the bottom of the section (What Scout has caught) shows what each Watch actually surfaced and how often it was right.
• A Watch whose required source is not connected is not a broken Watch. Connect the source and it starts answering; until then it shows under Needs attention.