Use Signals
Run Orion's anomaly feed to watch your prism metrics automatically, read each signal by severity, and investigate meaningful moves in Discover
Time: ~5 minutes
You'll need: At least one saved Prism with a metric and a date field
Role: Tracer, Weaver, or Luminary (deleting a signal needs Weaver or above)
Signals does the watching for you โ there is no rule to define. Orion takes every metric behind your saved prisms, pulls a long weekly history, and flags the ones that moved unusually versus their own recent average. By the end you'll know how to run a scan, read the feed by severity, and investigate a move.
Before you start
- Build and save at least one Prism with a metric and a date field โ a scan only covers prism-backed metrics, so an empty feed often just means you haven't built the relevant prism yet. Use Discover to build it.
- Have the Tracer, Weaver, or Luminary role. Anyone can run a scan and dismiss a signal; deleting one permanently needs Weaver or above. See Signals.
- Note the difference from Alerts: Signals finds the surprises automatically; use an alert when you already know the exact line you care about.
Steps
Open Signals
Click Signals in the left sidebar. You land on the Signals tab (the other tabs are Alert Rules and History).
Run a scan
Click Scan now in the top-right. Orion scans every prism-backed metric and the button shows Scanningโฆ until it finishes. You don't have to run it manually โ a scan also runs automatically each day at 6:00am UTC.
Read the feed top-down
Signals appear ordered by severity โ Critical, Watch, Positive, then Info. Start with Critical cards, then Watch. Each card shows the metric's current value, the week-over-week arrow, and comparison chips: WoW %, YoY %, and Z-score (in ฯ).
Read Orion's analysis
The Orion's analysis block states what was observed in plain language. It deliberately stops at the observation and reminds you to check possible drivers โ it is a flag to investigate, not a confirmed cause.
Check the root cause breakdown
Where a dimensional breakdown is available, the card shows Root cause by <dimension> with the top contributing values and how much each moved, so you can see which segment drove the change.
Investigate in Discover
Click Open in Discover โ to open the underlying prism and explore โ change the grain, add filters, or drill in to confirm the move and its driver before you escalate.
Dismiss when handled
Click Dismiss to clear a card once you've looked into it. Signals stay in the feed for seven days after a scan, or until you dismiss them.
Result
You have a live anomaly feed that refreshes on demand and daily, ranked so the most serious moves sit at the top. Opening a signal's detail view adds Acknowledge, Snooze 24h, and Ask Orion actions, plus Recommended Actions โ choosing Take action logs the choice to your Decision Trail. If a scan finds nothing, you'll see "All metrics look normal," which means everything is within its normal range.
Next steps
- Use Alerts โ define your own threshold rules for the conditions you already know.
- Monitor Semantic Health โ keep the model healthy so the metrics Signals scans are trustworthy.
- Decisions โ where actions taken from a signal are logged.