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Alerts

An alert re-runs a saved prospecting question, or checks a portfolio, on a schedule you choose, and tells you what changed since its previous run. What it sends is a change report: the properties that changed, not a count.

Setting an alert

Turn an alert on when you save a prospecting question, or later from the gear on its bookmark. On a portfolio, use the bell in its toolbar. The same settings serve both:

• Notify me when — which kinds of change to report.
• Lens — the columns the report opens in, and the values an Updated change is checked against.
• How often — weekly, monthly, or quarterly.
• Where — every report reaches your notifications; tick Email to have it emailed as well.

Saving a question saves its alert with it. The next run and the last run show beneath the settings.

Notify me when

For a question:

• Added — a hereditament that did not match at the last run matches now.
• Updated — a hereditament that still matches has a different value in one of the lens's columns.
• Removed — a hereditament that matched at the last run no longer does.

For a portfolio, the list changes only when you change it, so there is no Added, and what you add or take out yourself is never reported:

• Updated — a hereditament in the portfolio has a different value in one of the lens's columns.
• Removed — the VOA has retired its record, as deleted or no longer on the list. It stays in your portfolio; the report tells you once, so you can find the record that replaced it.

A kind you do not tick is not watched: it appears in neither the change report nor the email.

Live or off

Alert · live means the alert runs on its schedule. Alert · off keeps its settings and stops it running. Turning an alert back on starts it afresh from that day: its first run records a new starting point, and what changed while it was off is not reported. The bell and gear show the state as a dot: green for live, red for off.

Change reports

Each run that finds a change sends a change report, in the app and by email as you chose. A run where nothing changed sends nothing; the alert shows when it last ran.

A change report opens on the question's or portfolio's own results page, showing only what changed, each row marked Added, Updated, or Removed. Filter by kind above the table. An updated value is highlighted; open the row to see the hereditament's history. A removed row shows the property as it was at the last report.

As at chooses between this alert's reports and names the moment the rows belong to. The question's own period stays as you composed it.

The starting point

An alert's first run records where the answer stands, so there is something to compare against. Its report is labelled Starting point and lists what matches, without change marks. This also happens the first time an alert set up before change reports existed runs again.

Back to the question

The arrow on a change report opens the saved question as it stands now. Results are kept for a while to save running the same question twice; when new data has arrived since, the question runs again by itself. The time they were fetched shows beside them.

The Alerts tab

In notifications, Alerts lists your alerts, with when each runs next, and beneath them your change reports, newest first. Narrow the reports to one alert to find an earlier one. The dashboard shows your live alerts in brief.

A run that could not finish

Now and then a run cannot finish. It shows in your change reports as the scheduled run could not be completed. We are told automatically and look into it; if it matters to your work in the meantime, contact your team lead or us. The next run compares with the last run that finished.