> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.emanate.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Monitors Overview
> Persistent watches that surface external signals about companies, markets, and topics you care about
A **Monitor** is a saved query that runs continuously in the background and surfaces matching events to your timeline. Use monitors to track funding rounds, hiring spikes, leadership changes, M\&A activity, regulatory filings, or anything else you'd otherwise need to manually search for every morning.
When a matching signal is detected anywhere on the open web, the event is delivered to Emanate and it appears in your timeline within minutes.
## When to Use Monitors
| Use case | Example query |
| ------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Funding-stage tracking** | "B2B SaaS companies in California that raised Series A funding" |
| **Hiring signals for outbound** | "US manufacturers that posted procurement-director openings in the last 30 days" |
| **Account intel** | "Press releases or job postings mentioning Acme Corp" |
| **Industry M\&A** | "Steel-industry mergers and acquisitions announced this quarter" |
| **Regulatory triggers** | "EPA enforcement actions on aluminum smelters" |
Each event arrives with full source URLs you can click through, plus a one-click path into [Expand](/monitors/expand-drafts) for deeper research.
## Creating a Monitor
Navigate to **Monitors** in the sidebar and click **Create Monitor**.
Two outcome-based choices:
| Type | When to use |
| ------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Find New Events** | You want to be notified whenever something new happens or appears (funding rounds, leadership changes, regulatory filings, M\&A across a market) |
| **Track Changes** | You already have a specific company, project, list, or page and want to know when something about it changes |
The choice drives how the underlying engine watches: *Find New Events* runs an ongoing scan across the open web, *Track Changes* re-evaluates a fixed target on the chosen cadence and reports diffs.
Pick a descriptive label. This is how the monitor shows up in the sidebar list (e.g. "California SaaS Series A", "PTC competitive moves").
Describe in natural language what you want to track. Be specific about:
* **Who:** companies, industries, geographies, sizes
* **What:** the signal you care about (funding, hiring, M\&A, leadership change)
* **When:** implicit "ongoing" by default; use phrases like "in the last 30 days" if recency matters
Use the **Query Builder** button if you want guided assistance structuring a more complex query.
| Frequency | Best for |
| ---------- | ------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Hourly** | Time-sensitive triggers (regulatory, breaking news) |
| **Daily** | Most monitors: funding, hiring, leadership changes |
| **Weekly** | Long-tail trend monitoring where freshness matters less |
Cadence is editable later from the Monitor detail view. See [Editing a Running Monitor](#editing-a-running-monitor) below.
Tags organize monitors across your workspace. See [Tagging](#tagging-monitors) below.
Emanate registers the monitor and starts receiving events. The first events typically arrive within the chosen frequency window.
### Editing a Running Monitor
After a monitor is created, the **Edit** action on the detail view lets you adjust:
* **Cadence:** bump from Daily to Hourly when something becomes time-sensitive, or back down when it's settled
* **Signals / preset chips:** for account-page monitors (see below), the watch-list of signals (CEO changes, funding, hiring, news, leadership, product launches, contracts) is editable inline
The natural-language query itself is locked once registered. To change *what* you're watching, create a new monitor and archive the old one. Saving an edit re-runs a baseline scan (\~5–10 minutes) so the new configuration has a fresh anchor.
## Account-Page Monitor Sidebar
In addition to the workspace-wide `/monitors` page, Emanate ships a separate **Monitor sidebar on the Accounts page** for account-scoped watches. These work the same way under the hood but are organized around the set of accounts you've attached, not a free-form query.
| Surface | What it's for |
| ----------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `/monitors` (workspace) | Free-form queries that scan the open web ("California SaaS Series A", "EPA enforcement actions") |
| Accounts page sidebar | Tracking a curated list of named accounts you care about |
### Creating an Account Monitor
Open the right-side **Monitors** sidebar on the Accounts page and click **+**. The Create Monitor dialog has:
* **Name + cadence:** same as workspace monitors
* **Signal preset chips:** quick toggles for CEO changes, funding, hiring, news, leadership changes, product launches, new contracts
* **Custom prompt:** optional free-form text alongside the chips
The dialog collects configuration only. You attach accounts in the next step.
### Attaching Accounts (Bulk)
From the Accounts table, multi-select rows and use the **Attach to Monitor** action in the bulk toolbar. Caps:
* **20 monitors per org** (account-scoped + workspace combined)
* **10 accounts per monitor** (members ceiling, picked based on a stress test for best-quality batches)
* **One monitor per account:** attaching an account to a new monitor moves it (a confirm dialog surfaces the move)
When membership changes, the underlying watch re-anchors automatically: last-write-wins with a 10-second debounce so rapid edits don't thrash.
### Lifecycle
* Empty membership → the monitor reverts to **draft** rather than being deleted; signals and name stick around so you can reattach later
* Members surfaced on the sidebar with a status chip and member preview
* An opt-in **Monitor** column on the Accounts table (off by default) shows which Monitor an account belongs to at a glance
## Tagging Monitors
Tags help you slice a long monitor list by theme, useful when one workspace has dozens of monitors across multiple campaigns or industry verticals.
### Adding tags
In the **Create** or **Edit** dialog, the **Tags** field is a popover with:
* **Search** existing tags from your other monitors
* **Multi-select:** add as many as you need; each tag appears as a removable badge
* **Create on the fly:** type a new tag name and click **Create "your tag"**
You can also add or remove tags inline from the monitor detail view by clicking the **+** next to the tag list, without opening the full edit dialog.
### Filtering the sidebar by tags
In the **Monitors** sidebar, click the **Tags** button (it shows a count badge) to open a filter popover:
* Select any combination of tags
* The list filters to monitors matching **all** selected tags
* Click a tag again to deselect
The filter persists across navigation until you explicitly clear it.
## The Monitor Detail View
Clicking a monitor in the sidebar opens its detail view, which shows:
* **Header:** name, query, frequency, tags (with inline `+` to add/remove), and category color
* **Edit** button: opens the edit dialog to update cadence + signals (see [Editing a Running Monitor](#editing-a-running-monitor))
* **Refresh** button: manually pulls the latest events without waiting for the next scheduled check
* **Events Timeline:** see [below](#events-timeline)
## Events Timeline
The timeline is the working surface. It's where every signal detected for this monitor lands.
### Calendar date picker
A row of **date pills** spans the past several days. Each pill shows:
* The day-of-week and date
* A **count badge** with the total events from that day
* An **unread badge** when there are unread events
Click any pill to focus the timeline on that day. Use the **calendar popover** at the top of the date row to jump to any date. The calendar grid shows per-day event counts so you can see at a glance which days had activity.
Use the left/right chevrons to page through older history.
### Event cards
Each event shows a card with:
* **"New" badge** if the event is unread
* A **summary** (clamped to 3 lines)
* **Detected time** and **source count**
* A **Mark as read** action (check-circle icon, hover to reveal)
* A **Generate Expand draft** button (see [Expand Drafts](/monitors/expand-drafts))
Click any card to open the full event modal:
* The complete event text
* Clickable **source URLs** so you can verify the original report
* Mark-as-read / mark-as-unread toggle
### Bulk actions
* **Mark all as read:** clears the unread state for the entire monitor
* **Mark this day as read:** clears unread on the focused day only
## Categorizing Monitors
When editing a monitor, you can assign a **category** (a color-coded label) to group related monitors visually in the sidebar, useful when you have monitors split between, say, "Inbound triggers" and "Competitive intel" workstreams.
## How Events Arrive
You don't need to do anything to receive events. Once a monitor is registered, the integration is autonomous:
1. The watch scans the web on the cadence you picked (hourly / daily / weekly)
2. Matching signals are delivered to Emanate
3. Emanate deduplicates by detection date and stores the event under your monitor
4. The event appears in your timeline (and the sidebar count badges update)
If you ever suspect events are missing, hit **Refresh** on the monitor detail view. Emanate will pull the latest directly.
## Next Steps
One-click path from a monitor event to an Expand search
Turn an Expand result into outbound
Use monitor signals to prioritize accounts
Ask the AI analyst about your monitor history