Watched tool adoption

For: an admin. Takes about 3 minutes.

What this means

When you mark a tool as Watching, you're telling Stacktic it's one person's tool, not a company tool. Stacktic leaves it out of offboarding and skips most signals for it. That's the right call for a one-seat license or a niche app one person uses.

Tools don't always stay that way. A tool one person tried can spread to the whole team. The Watched tool adoption signal tells you when a Watching tool has caught on. Then you can decide whether it's really a company tool now.

Why it matters

Watching tools aren't offboarded. When someone leaves, Stacktic doesn't create a task to remove their access to a Watching tool. That's fine when one person uses it.

Once lots of people use it, things change. Everyone who leaves keeps an account there, and nobody is asked to close it.

When it fires

Stacktic counts the active employees and contractors who have access to each Watching tool. The signal fires once that count reaches your threshold (10 by default).

It only fires for a tool that was below the threshold when you started watching it. Say a tool already had 50 people on it when you marked it Watching. You knew how widely it was used and decided anyway, so Stacktic doesn't flag it.

People who have left the company don't count toward the number. Their leftover access shows up as Ghost access on Managed tools instead.

Turning it on

This signal is off by default. To turn it on:

Go to Settings → Signals.
Find Watched tool adoption under Tools and turn it on.
Pick a threshold from the Flag at menu.

When you first turn it on, some Watching tools may already be over the threshold. Those show up on the Signals page in Stacktic. Stacktic doesn't post a Slack message for each one, because they aren't new. After that, a tool that crosses the threshold gets a normal notification.

What you can do about it

Open the signal. It shows two numbers:

how many active employees and contractors have access now;
how many had access when the tool was marked Watching.

Then pick one:

Mark it as a company tool. Use the Mark as company tool button on the signal, or on the tool's own page. The tool becomes Managed and is added to offboarding, and the signal clears right away. Next, give the tool an owner and a department, the same as any other Managed tool.
Keep watching it. If the tool really should stay Watching, dismiss the signal as not applicable. Stacktic won't raise it for that tool again unless someone removes the exception.

Frequently asked questions

Why is this number different from the tool's Access tab? The Access tab lists everyone who has access, including people who've left the company. This signal counts only current employees and contractors. They're the ones who show the tool is in use.

I lowered my threshold. Why didn't more tools show up? Only tools that were below the new threshold when they were marked Watching can fire. A tool that was already at or above the new number when it was marked Watching stays quiet.

Will it fire again if the tool keeps growing? No. It fires once, when the tool crosses the threshold. After that, the count on the signal keeps updating. If the count drops back below the threshold, the signal clears on its own.