The trust badge on every number: why we rung-rate our own outputs
Measured, computed, estimated, default. Four badges that travel with every number in the product — and why provenance beats precision.
Two numbers on a planning screen can look identical and mean completely different things. One is a measured shipment quantity from your own transactions. The other is a default lead time someone typed in 2019 and never revisited. Same font, same confidence, wildly different trustworthiness.
We fixed that by refusing to let a number appear without saying where it came from.
The four rungs
- ●A measured — straight from your transactions. The gold standard.
- ■C computed — a model output, fully traceable to its inputs.
- ▲E estimated — an analogue or an assumption stands in for missing data.
- ◆D default — a fallback value, flagged so nobody mistakes it for fact.
Every figure in SangamIQ wears one. Composite numbers take the lowest rung of their inputs — a plan built on one default is only as trustworthy as that default, and the badge says so.
Why provenance beats precision
A precise-looking wrong number is more dangerous than an honestly rough one, because it invites action it hasn't earned. By making provenance visible, the planner's attention goes exactly where judgment is needed: the estimates and defaults, not the measured facts.
It also keeps us honest. When drift-watch expires an assumption after 365 days, the number it fed doesn't quietly keep pretending — it strikes red. Trust you can see is trust you can check.
Every number in SangamIQ shows its work — see our live accuracy page, or start free and put your own CSV through it in ten minutes.