Alerts

SCOUT Alerts help you stay informed about updates related to your Projects, ensuring you are updated about newly identified publications, such as news articles, patents, scientific publications, and startups related to your saved query.

Email notifications and Alert overview

Once activated, alerts are delivered via email and displayed in your Alerts Overview within SCOUT. Email notifications provide regular updates, while the Alerts Overview offers a centralized place to track all your alerts. For more detailed instructions on managing these features, refer to the relevant help center articles.

When do we send alerts? 

It’s important to note that alerts are triggered based on the integration date of new data into the SCOUT database, not the original publication date. This means you might receive an alert for a patent that was published two months ago but was only recently added to our system. This approach ensures you’re always updated with the most relevant information as it becomes available.

How to activate/deactivate alerts

1. Click on the Settings (gear icon) for the Project you want to activate an alert for. You can find the settings in the Portfolio view or within the project itself (top right corner).
2. In the settings menu, select Configure Alerts.
3. Select Activate alerts‍
4. Choose Alert Preferences
   1. Items to Receive Alerts For: Select the types of updates you want to be notified about, such as news articles, patents, scientific publications, or organizations‍
   2. Notification Interval: Choose between daily or weekly alerts.‍
   3. Maximum Number of Results: Set the maximum number of results per alert. Keep in mind that a higher number means items may disappear from your overview faster. Currently, SCOUT stores the latest 10,000 results in the Overview.

Why are there discrepancies between results shown in panels and in the alerts?

Why do the panels (news, patents, science) sometimes show more results than the alerts in my overview or email notifications?
This happens due to the maximum results limit set for alerts. In emails, we provide a preview of the results, while the overview includes everything found until the maximum results limit is reached. You can adjust this limit in the Alerts Settings to ensure you receive more or fewer results as needed.

Why do the panels not show some publications that I see in my alerts overview?
Panels are continuously updated to display the most relevant and recent information. This is especially noticeable with news, where there’s a higher volume of publications. If you haven’t logged in for a while, you may notice that your alerts overview includes older publications that are no longer visible in the panels, as they have been replaced by more relevant documents over time.