> For the complete user guide index, see [llms.txt](https://portraitresearch.com/documentation/llms.txt).

# Create a Monitor without companies

[Canonical page](https://portraitresearch.com/documentation/monitors/scheduled-briefs/)

## Applicability

- **Task:** Configure a tickerless Monitor for a recurring topic brief
- **Access:** Portrait account with company-free topic Monitors enabled, applicable usage, and source access
- **Audience:** Portrait users maintaining ongoing coverage
- **Surfaces:** web
- **Availability:** Production for accounts with company-free topic Monitors enabled
- **Content type:** how-to
- **Last reviewed:** 2026-09-22

If your account offers **Monitor topics or events**, choose it to create a Monitor without a company list. The review step may call the draft a scheduled brief; after you save it, the Monitor list shows the empty company scope as **General coverage**. It uses Monitor signals and update surfaces, with different source and email options from a company-scoped Monitor.

Use this path when the development matters but the affected company is not known in advance, for example a named regulatory decision or event category. Matching coverage is not guaranteed.

## Creating one

In the monitor builder, choose **Monitor topics or events** instead of **Monitor specific companies**. If that option is absent, the account is not enabled for company-free Monitors; create a company-scoped Monitor instead or [contact the team](https://portraitresearch.com/documentation/more/contact-us/). Do not try to substitute an empty company set. Then:

1. Describe **what Portrait should look for** — one signal per line, in plain language.
2. Choose an email **schedule**: **Morning**, **Evening**, or **Morning and evening**. **Real-time**, **Daily digest**, and **Weekly digest** are for company-scoped Monitors.
3. Name the Monitor, check the optional destination Project, review the completed sections in the stepper, and select **Create brief**. Creating a Monitor commits estimated ongoing usage. If that commitment would exceed the available credits under the account's current policy, Portrait refuses creation and no Monitor is created; review **Settings → Usage** and reduce the scope or contact your account team. The manual submit creates it directly.

The manual form uses the default source selection; it does not include a source-selection step. Review **Sources** on the saved Monitor. Company-free Monitors support documents and news, without the **Web** or **Podcasts** source switches.

## Verify and refine

Confirm that the saved item appears in the Monitor list with no companies, the intended signals and sources, and the selected email schedule. Matching updates land in [Inbox](https://portraitresearch.com/documentation/monitors/inbox/) and can also be delivered by email when alerts are enabled. Narrow a noisy topic or revise one that depends on wording the source is unlikely to use.

## Evaluation and email timing

Active company-free Monitors are evaluated in two daily cycles, configured to start around **10:30 UTC** and **22:30 UTC**. Queuing and processing add delay; these are approximate cycle times, not guaranteed email arrival times. Convert UTC to your local time for the date concerned, including daylight-saving changes.

**Morning** selects email from the first cycle, **Evening** the second, and both selects both. These labels do not mean your local morning or evening. Selecting only one email cycle, or turning email alerts off, does not stop evaluation or Inbox updates from the other cycle. See [Manage a Monitor](https://portraitresearch.com/documentation/monitors/manage-a-monitor/) to change scope or stop ongoing monitoring.

A launch brief can provide initial background after creation. It is separate from later updates and from [a 90-day summary](https://portraitresearch.com/documentation/monitors/generate-90-day-summary/). You can [export available updates to PDF](https://portraitresearch.com/documentation/monitors/export-monitor-updates/) from the web app.

## Up next

[Track a thesis](https://portraitresearch.com/documentation/monitors/create-thesis-monitor/)

Build a monitor around a specific investment thesis.

## Recurring Easel investigations

This page describes company-free **Monitors**, not Scheduled Research. To repeat an Easel investigation with saved instructions and a local-time cadence, use [Scheduled Research](https://portraitresearch.com/documentation/scheduled-research/overview/). Do not apply a Monitor's pause or notification semantics to a scheduled Easel task.