Watches

A watch is something you've asked Oskar to look out for, in your own words, such as "tell me when a renewal payment fails" or "watch for customers using every seat they pay for". Oskar turns what you said into a set of checks it can actually make against your data. If you ask for something it can't see, it tells you rather than pretending.

Creating a watch#

Open Watches and pick one of the examples, or tell Oskar what you want in Talk to Oskar. For example:

• "Tell me when a renewal payment fails."
• "Watch for customers who are using every seat they pay for."
• "Let me know if a new customer hasn't got going after a week."
• "Tell me when an annual customer is a month from renewing."

Oskar works out the details, names the watch, and keeps your original words with it. You don't build any rules.

What a watch can check#

Every watch is made of one or more of these checks. A customer matches a watch only when every check holds.

Check	Matches a customer who…	Setting (default)
Payment failing	has a failed payment that's still unpaid, or a past-due subscription
Usage down	used the product at least this much less in the last two weeks than in the two weeks before	percentage (30%)
Usage up	used the product at least this much more in the last two weeks than in the two weeks before	percentage (50%)
Inactive	has had no product activity for at least this many days, after being active before	days (10)
Every seat in use	had as many people using the product in a day as they pay seats for
New customer	became a customer, or started a trial, within this many days	days (14)
Not set up yet	hasn't reached your first-week milestone, the action that shows a new customer is set up
Set to cancel	has set their subscription to cancel at the end of the billing period
Annual renewal soon	pays annually and renews within this many days	days (30)
On a plan	is on one of the named plans, as they're named in Stripe	plan names
Pays at least	pays at least this much a month, in their own currency	amount (0)
Stopped using a feature	used a tracked event in the two weeks before, but not in the last two weeks	event name, or any of your key features

So "tell me when a Team plan customer's usage drops by half" becomes On a plan: Team and Usage down: 50%.

A few checks depend on what Oskar knows about your business. Not set up yet only works once you've told Oskar which action shows a new customer is set up. Stopped using a feature with no event named uses the key features you confirmed during setup. Usage checks need PostHog connected and customers matched.

What a watch can't check#

If your request needs something outside these checks, such as support tickets, emails, or event properties Oskar doesn't read, Oskar won't create a watch that claims to check it, and it tells you so.

When watches are checked#

Oskar checks every watch each time your data syncs, each morning, and after each assessment.

When a customer starts matching a watch:

• it's noted in Latest from Oskar
• Oskar passes it to Jev, its decision model, which weighs it in that customer's next assessment

When a customer stops matching, the match is quietly cleared. On the Watches page, each watch shows who matches it now and its most recent past match.

A watch match doesn't automatically put a customer on your focus list. It's one more thing Oskar weighs, alongside everything else it knows about them. See Decisions and feedback.

Pausing and deleting#

Each watch can be paused, resumed or deleted from the Watches page. Pausing keeps the watch but stops checking it.

What watches never do#

Watches are checks inside Oskar. They never contact customers or change anything in Stripe or PostHog. See Read-only by design.