Business Environment Monitoring Quick-Start Guide#
Introduction
Business Environment Monitoring (BEM) is a preconfigured Squirro Cognitive Search application that provides real-time supply-chain monitoring and regulatory compliance screening of identified topics and risks.
You can use the BEM application to monitor suppliers, vendors, and other stakeholders for important insights such as ESG impacts, upcoming mergers and acquisitions, management changes, and more.
Who This Guide is Designed For
This quick-start guide is designed for end users who wish to trial the Business Environment Monitoring online demo found within the Squirro Marketplace.
Prerequisites#
To access the BEM demo, you’ll need a Squirro ID. If you don’t have one yet, see How to Register for a Squirro ID for instructions.
For instructions on how to open a Squirro online demo (such as BEM), see How to Access a Squirro Online Demo.
If you have any issues with the BEM application, contact Squirro Support for help.
Following Communities#
When you first load the Squirro Business Environment Monitoring application, you’ll be asked to select the topics that interest you.
These topics are part of Squirro’s Communities feature. Selecting relevant communities will help personalize your search experience and proactively provide you with insights tailored to the companies, sectors, and countries relevant to you.
You can select applicable Communities grouped by the following:
Company
Sector
Country
How to Follow Communities
Browse the tabs for relevant topics, clicking the plus icon on the individual companies, sectors, or countries that you’d like to follow.
When you’ve selected all your relevant communities, click the Let’s Go! button.
Tip: You can change which communities you add or follow at any time by navigating to the Communities tab in the top navigation menu.
Reference: You can learn more about how Squirro Communities work by visiting Communities.
Understanding the Overview Page#
After following your topics of interest, you’ll find yourself on the Overview page, which shows relevant community documents based on recency.
At this point, we recommend you visit the Explore page to take a deep dive into the signals that interest you, but you’re free to move anywhere within the application at this point.
The image below shows navigation options from the Overview page.
Links to the Explore page, where you can find easily-accessible insights.
Links to the Communities page, where you can add or remove followed topics.
Perform Squirro Cognitive Search on all connected data sources using the global search bar.
Links to your personal Account page, where you can update your personal information.
Get Help or navigate to additional resources like the Squirro Academy.
View personalized community documents displayed by recency.
View your saved documents (empty until you save your first document).
View your last read documents (empty until you begin reading documents).
View your saved search filters (empty until you perform filtered searches and save them).
Squirro Cognitive Search#
The BEM application is built on top of Squirro Cognitive Search. All Cognitive Search features are available within the application.
To learn more about using Cognitive Search as an end user, see Cognitive Search User.
Understanding Signals#
The BEM application delivers insights via Signals.
Signals are created using text classification, relying on semantic understandings of individual sentences to identify insights. Squirro generates these signals using both rule-based and machine-learning techniques.
You can filter by the following signals in the BEM application:
Board changes, involving any changes to a company’s Board of Directors (BoD) only
Company management changes, involving mentions of changes or additions to a company’s executive management team, but not the board. (See Board changes.)
ESG impacts, such as human rights abuses or environmental non-compliances.
Sanctions, such as regulatory fines or criminal charges.
Upcoming mergers and acquisitions involving communities identified within the project.
Lawsuits involving communities identified within the project.
Downsizings, including company layoffs, hiring freezes, and branch or store closures.
Equity-raising events, involving any mention or event of equity round activity.
Bankruptcies involving communities identified within the project.
Credit rating impacts, including updates, announcements, and mentions by agencies such as Moody, S&P, Fitch, DBRS, and more.
Opening a Document With a Matched Signal#
You can filter results by signal and open documents with matched signals in one of the two following ways:
Filtering results by signals on one of the Communities 360 pages.
Filtering results by signals on the Explore page.
When you click on a document filtered by a signal, Squirro opens the document and highlights the text that triggered the signal as shown below:
Understanding the Explore Page#
On this page, you can quickly access insights and sort and filter your results in different ways.
The image below shows navigation options from the Explore page.
Search all connected data sources using the global search bar.
Select or deselect specific signals.
Show filters currently applied to your results.
Filter results by Client Name, Country, or Sector labels.
Show results related to specific communities.
View a timeline of results.
View results by geographic location on a map.
Understanding Communities 360#
Clicking on a community name will bring up its Community 360 page. From this page, you can explore news, documents, and signals related to a specific company, sector, or country.
The image below shows navigation options from the Communities 360 Overview page.
Show all related news, sorted by relevance by default.
Show all related signals, sorted by recency by default.
Show related communities based upon co-occurrence in project documents.
Filter results by individual signal.
Display results by Relevancy or Date.
Follow or unfollow the displayed community.
Signals Page#
The signals page within Communities 360 shows all matching signals for your selected community. It allows you to browse total signal matches and filter results by individual signal.
The image below shows how signals are displayed:
Troubleshooting#
If you encounter any issues while using the BEM online demo, contact Squirro Support for help.