The Map

The Map is the picture Scout draws of your book: every client, and every contact, job, quote, invoice and supplier that Scout has linked to them. Nothing on it was typed in by hand — each line is a link Scout observed in the sources you connected. Open it from Map in the header.

Screenshot: the Map, before a client is selected.

The line under the title says what you are looking at: Every line is a link Scout observed, compiled from email, deals, and invoices. Settled work fades out so what needs you actually rises to the surface.

What is on it

Six kinds of thing hang off a client, plus one special case:

Contacts — the people at that account, with what Scout has learned about them ("approves Mon–Wed").
Work — jobs and projects, with the job number, quantity and in-hands date.
Quotes — with the amount and the date sent or accepted.
Invoices — with the amount and the state (paid, past due).
Vendors — the suppliers and decorators on that account's work.
Identity matches — two records that may be the same customer or the same person, shown as a link waiting on your decision.

Every node carries a one-sentence explanation of why Scout drew the line, and a button that opens the thing itself — Open thread, Open quote, Open job, Open PO, Open in QuickBooks, Review match.

Filtering what you see

Tone: what needs you

Five chips across the top filter by tone, each with a count: All, Needs you, Worth knowing, Notice and Quiet. They match the point types in your Inbox — Needs you is a recommendation, Worth knowing is an observation, Notice is housekeeping such as a connection that needs attention, and Quiet is an account with nothing outstanding. The default is All.

Window: how far back

Under Showing, three choices decide how much history is drawn: Active (the default), 90 days and Everything. The window is generous in one specific way — a link that is still open stays on the Map even when it is older than the window, so a nine-month-old quote that nobody has answered does not disappear because you narrowed the view.

Settled work dims out rather than vanishing. Where links are hidden, a line tells you how many and offers Show everything: 8 settled links hidden — widen the window above to bring them back.

The key

Along the bottom, a key explains the drawing. The four colored dots are the tones above. The three line styles say how Scout knows about a link: a solid dark line for Declared — the link is stated outright in a source record; a solid amber line for Resolved — a decision settled it, such as an identity match you confirmed; and a dotted line for Derived — Scout worked it out from the evidence rather than being told.

The workspace overview

With no client selected, the right-hand side counts your whole book: Clients, Contacts, Projects, Quotes, Invoices and Vendors, each with a total and how many are active. Below it, Connections — everything Scout has linked repeats those counts against the sources they came from: Scout reads your connected sources, recognizes the objects inside them, and links what belongs together. The map is a view of those links. Where two sources disagree, Scout shows both and asks rather than choosing for you.

Opening one client

Select a client card on the left. On a narrow screen, use Clients to open the list first.
The Map redraws around that client, with a heading that counts what is showing and what is not — for example 4 linked · 8 settled.
Select any node to open its dossier on the right: the tone, a plain-language summary of the situation, the reason Scout drew the line, and the button that opens the record in its source.
Linked lists every resource on the account, so you can move between them without going back.
What Scout knows collects the durable facts about the account — "Prefers navy and cream; rejected bright colors twice", "Approvals Mon–Wed; off-site Thu–Fri" — each with what it was learned from and, where somebody confirmed it, who and when.
Open in the inbox jumps to the point about this account, when there is one.
Back returns to the whole book.

One client open on the Map, with its linked contacts, job, vendor and invoices, and the dossier panel showing what Scout knows about the account.

Screenshot: a client open on the Map.

Identity matches on the Map

When Scout thinks two records are the same customer or the same person — an accounting record named "S&F Grooming LLC" beside a client named "Suds & Fluff Grooming", or an unfamiliar sender writing about a job — it draws the possibility as an identity link and asks. Scout never merges records quietly, and until the link is confirmed that sender's replies do not count toward the account. The decision is made in the Inbox, with Same client or Keep separate; Review match on the node takes you there, and the Map redraws as soon as you decide.

Good to know

A brand-new workspace has an empty Map, and says so: The map draws itself. It fills in as your first connected source is read.
The Map is a view of links, not a second copy of your records. An invoice node names the invoice; the invoice still lives in your accounting system.
Scout never writes to the source. Every button on a node opens the record where it actually lives, read-only from Scout's side.
You only see what you are allowed to see. Accounts and work outside your scope are not drawn for you.
The Map and the Found ledger answer different questions: the Map is what is connected right now, Found is what the work has been worth.