Usage calculation of self-service experiences

Calculates usage across self-service experiences, including Service Portals, Engagement Messenger, Community, and Web Embeddables. The dashboard displays the total of aggregated sessions across all self-service experiences.

Service portals, Engagement Messenger, and Community usage calculation

Service portals, Engagement Messenger, and Community are billed for the aggregate number of sessions in a month generated by unauthenticated-guest and authenticated-external users (internal users are excluded). Total sessions in a month is the sum of guest user sessions and external user sessions after deducting search engine bot sessions.

To view the Customer Portal Usage dashboard, navigate to All > Customer Service > Administration > Portal Usage.

Note: This definition tracks usage of self-service experiences based on the user roles and ignores usage of non CSM portals or roles. Sessions are tracked for the following roles:

External roles: sn_esm_user, sn_customerservice.requester, sn_communities.community_user
Internal roles: sn_customerservice.self_contributor
Unauthenticated roles: Guest

A user session is a period of activity on the self-service experiences by any of the following session types:

Guest session: Session where the user isn't logged in
Bot session: Separate count of sessions generated due to bots and crawlers
External session: Session where the user is an external user, typically a customer, or consumer who is logged in

The aggregate session count is based on the following calculations:

Image omitted: aggregate-session-count-csp.png
The infographic displays the calculation for aggregate session count by subtracting guest sessions and bot sessions, and then adding external sessions.

A user session times out after a specific period of inactivity.

User access to the self-service experiences is tracked as follows: per session, per day, and per experience. If the same user logs in from multiple browsers or devices, each login is counted as a separate session. Each first call of a page in an experience starts a session and, the usage metrics are calculated for the 24 hours window.

The default session timeout is 30 minutes. This setting can be adjusted using a system property. For more information about modifying the session timeout setting, see Manage user sessions.

Site session calculation examples

A user logs in, logs out, and then logs in again.

Step User activity Billable count incremented
1 User visits the experience as an anonymous or guest user Yes
2 User logs in Yes
3 User logs out No
4 User logs in immediately after logging out Yes

A user logs in and continues the session past midnight:

Step User activity Billable count incremented
1 User visits the experience as an anonymous or guest user Yes
2 User logs in Yes
3 User session continues past midnight Yes
4 User logs out No

Web Embeddables sessions usage calculation

Web Embeddables sessions are also billed for the aggregate number of sessions in a month generated by external users (users with sn_esm_user role or sn_customerservice.requestor) and unauthenticated guest or visitor users (snc_visitor role).

To view the dashboard, navigate to All > Customer Service > Administration > Portal Usage.

Note: This definition tracks usage of Web Embeddables based on the user roles and ignores usage of non CSM portals or roles. Sessions are tracked for the following roles:

External roles: sn_esm_user, sn_customerservice.requester
Unauthenticated roles: Guest and snc_visitor

A user session is a period of activity on Web Embeddables component on the third-party website by any Web Embeddables component. The following session types:

Web Embeddables authenticated external session: Session where the user is logged in and role is sn_esm_user role or sn_customerservice.requestor accessing through an embeddable component.
Web Embeddables guest session: Session where the user is not logged in or is OTP verified to access the submitted requests.

The aggregate session count is based on the following calculations:

Image omitted: we\_session\_count\_formula.png
The infographic displays the calculation for aggregate session count by adding guest sessions and external sessions.

User access to the Web Embeddables component is tracked as follows: per session, per day, and per module. If the same user logs in from multiple browsers or devices, each login is counted as a separate session. Each first call of a Web Embeddables component starts a session, and the usage metrics are calculated for the 24 hours window.

The default session timeout is 30 minutes. This setting can be adjusted using a system property. For more information about modifying the session timeout setting, see Manage user sessions.

Site session calculation examples

A user logs in, logs out, and then logs in again.

Step User activity Billable count incremented
1 User visits the Web Embeddables as an anonymous or guest user Yes
2 User logs in Yes
3 User logs out No
4 User logs in immediately after logging out Yes

A user logs in and continues the session past midnight:

Step User activity Billable count incremented
1 User visits the Web Embeddables as an anonymous or guest user Yes
2 User logs in Yes
3 User session continues past midnight Yes
4 User logs out No

Step	User activity	Billable count incremented
1	User visits the experience as an anonymous or guest user	Yes
2	User logs in	Yes
3	User logs out	No
4	User logs in immediately after logging out	Yes

Step	User activity	Billable count incremented
1	User visits the experience as an anonymous or guest user	Yes
2	User logs in	Yes
3	User session continues past midnight	Yes
4	User logs out	No

Step	User activity	Billable count incremented
1	User visits the Web Embeddables as an anonymous or guest user	Yes
2	User logs in	Yes
3	User logs out	No
4	User logs in immediately after logging out	Yes