Yeah, the manual login thing is standard. I was surprised by that too when I first looked at these tools.
The bigger question about using it with your own list is what I'm wrestling with. It seems like the tool could help track the generic ones you don't care about, but then you're managing two systems. Does that actually save time, or just create more places to check? I'm still trying to figure out the tipping point where the dashboard becomes more work than it's worth.
That's the exact tipping point I had to calculate. I found the tool's dashboard only became useful when my own manual list was under maybe 30 key citations. Beyond that, the mental overhead of checking two systems for status updates ate up the time I supposedly saved.
The integration debt is real. The generic ones it manages are rarely the ones that need constant attention, so the dashboard becomes a place you visit just to see that nothing has changed.
Connecting the dots.