What Scout can access and when to use it

Scout is NearbySpy's in-product assistant for Investigators. It is built into your dashboard and answers questions about your work using the same permissions you already hold. This article describes what data Scout can see, how it decides what to look at, and when reaching for it actually saves you time.

What Scout can access

Scout operates inside your account boundary. Anything you can read in the dashboard, Scout can read on your behalf — and nothing beyond it. In practice that means:

• Cases you are a member of, with your specific Case role.
• Operations inside those Cases, including their type, status, assigned Operators, and activity.
• Evidence you have access to, including filenames, dates, uploaders, and metadata.
• Notes, comments, and Reports you can already open.
• Help Center articles, which Scout uses to answer how-to questions. See How Scout uses Help Center articles and links.

Scout cannot see data from Cases you are not on, other Investigators' private dashboards, or anything that requires a higher Case role than you hold. RBAC applies to Scout the same way it applies to you — see Case roles: Owner, Admin, Investigator, Viewer, Client for the full role hierarchy.

What Scout cannot do

• Scout cannot delete Evidence, Cases, or Operations. Destructive actions stay in the human-driven UI.
• Scout cannot send documents for signature on your behalf. DocuVault envelopes require explicit confirmation from you. See Preparing PDFs and sending for signature.
• Scout cannot change billing, upgrade your plan, or buy Featured placements. Those flows require explicit checkout — see Completing Elite checkout.
• Scout cannot bypass your Two-Factor or password policy. If a workflow requires re-authentication, Scout will hand control back to you.

When Scout is the right tool

• Surfacing what is in front of you. "Show me every Operation in this Case marked in_progress" or "List Evidence uploaded by anyone other than me this week" are the questions Scout was built for.
• Understanding the platform. Scout is a strong on-demand reference for how a feature works, citing the underlying Help Center article.
• Drafting before editing. Asking Scout to draft a short Note, a comment, or the first paragraph of a Report and then editing it yourself is faster than starting from scratch.
• Routine summarization. "Summarize this Case so far" is useful when handing off to another Operator or onboarding a new team member.

When to skip Scout

• Anything legally significant. Final signed Reports, retainer language, and external communications still need a human author of record.
• Anything irreversible. Use the dashboard for deletions and ownership transfers.
• Anything where you are unsure of the source. Always verify Scout's claims against the underlying Evidence or document — it is a tool, not a witness.

How responses are scoped

Each conversation is tied to your account and, often, to a specific Case context. When you open Scout from inside a Case, it automatically narrows its attention to that Case and its content. When you open it from the global dashboard, it can range across everything you can read. The scope is always shown in the conversation header.