Websites.
Some of what moves your numbers is not in any of your systems. A competitor's price list, a commodity index, a regulator's rate page. It is public, it changes, and somebody is supposed to be checking it.
Data comes in, so it can be reported on, trended and watched.
It reads on a schedule
Not once when you set it up. The page gets read again, so what you are looking at is what it says now rather than what it said the day somebody added it.
It notices the change
The interesting part of a competitor's pricing page is not the price. It is that the price moved, and when.
It reads next to your numbers
An index is context. An index against your input costs is a decision, and that only works because both are in the same place.
Public pages only
If a page needs a login, this is the wrong connection for it. That is what integrations and Action MCPs are for.
Where this usually comes from.
Outside context that changes your numbers and that nobody has time to check every week.
Anything behind a login, and anything a site's terms prohibit reading automatically. If the data matters that much, it deserves a real connection.
Six kinds of connection, and they are not interchangeable.
Picking the wrong one is the most common mistake people make in their first fortnight, so here is the whole set in one place.
Purpose-built pipelines into the systems you already run
EVA reaches into another system and does something
Your own SQL, read directly and joined to everything else
Spreadsheets and CSVs that never had a system to live in
Contracts, leases and policies she can read and cite
Websites, answered.
How often is a website connection read?
On a schedule you choose when you set it up. The right cadence depends on the page - a commodity index is worth reading daily, a competitor's pricing page rarely changes more than a few times a year.
Can it read pages behind a login?
No. This connection is for public pages. Anything that needs credentials should go through an integration or an Action MCP, where authentication is handled deliberately and the access is scoped.
Will I be told when a watched page changes?
Put a Pulse on it and yes. That is usually the reason for adding one: not to look at the page, but to be told the week it moves.
Is it acceptable to monitor a competitor's public page?
Reading a public page is ordinary competitive research, but a site's terms of use can say otherwise and some publishers restrict automated access. You are choosing which pages to add, so the judgement about a particular site stays with you.
Connect one and see.
Bring your messiest system and your simplest one. Fourteen days is enough to find out whether this works on both.