Usage calculation of self-service experiences
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Summary of Usage calculation of self-service experiences
This document explains how ServiceNow calculates usage for self-service experiences, including Service Portals, Engagement Messenger, Community, and Web Embeddables. Usage is measured by aggregating user sessions monthly and is important for billing and monitoring purposes. The system tracks sessions generated by unauthenticated guests and authenticated external users, excluding internal user activity.
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Service Portals, Engagement Messenger, and Community Usage Calculation
- Session Types Tracked: Guest sessions (unauthenticated), external sessions (authenticated external users), and bot sessions (excluded from billing).
- Tracked Roles: External roles include
snesmuser,sncustomerservice.requester,sncommunities.communityuser; internal rolesncustomerservice.selfcontributor; and unauthenticated as Guest. - Session Definition: A user session starts with the first page call and times out after 30 minutes of inactivity (configurable). Multiple logins from different browsers/devices count as separate sessions.
- Usage Metrics: Calculated per session, per day, and per experience within a rolling 24-hour window.
- Billing Examples: Logging in does not increment billable count, but guest visits and multiple login sessions do. Sessions continuing past midnight are billed for both days involved.
- Dashboard Access: Usage data is available in the Customer Portal Usage dashboard via All > Customer Service > Administration > Portal Usage.
Web Embeddables Session Usage Calculation
- Session Types Tracked: Guest sessions and authenticated external user sessions using roles
snesmuser,sncustomerservice.requester, orsncvisitorfor visitors. - Session Definition: Begins with the first call to a Web Embeddables component on third-party sites, with a default 30-minute inactivity timeout (configurable).
- Usage Metrics: Sessions are counted per session, per day, and per module, with each login from different devices/browsers counted separately.
- Billing Examples: Both guest visits and authenticated logins increment billable session counts; logging out does not. Sessions continuing past midnight count for both days.
- Dashboard Access: Usage is viewed in the same Portal Usage dashboard as other self-service experiences.
Practical Implications for ServiceNow Customers
- Understanding session calculation helps optimize usage and manage licensing costs for self-service channels.
- Customers can monitor their monthly session usage via the Customer Portal Usage dashboard to track billable activity.
- Configuring session timeout settings allows control over session duration, impacting usage counts.
- Usage tracking excludes internal users, focusing billing on external and guest users engaging with 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 .
- External roles: sn_esm_user, sn_customerservice.requester, sn_communities.community_user
- Internal roles: sn_customerservice.self_contributor
- Unauthenticated roles: Guest
- 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
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.
Table 1. Example of a site session calculation for the following user journey Step User activity Billable count incremented 1 User visits the experience as an anonymous or guest user Yes 2 User logs in No 3 User logs out No 4 User logs in immediately after logging out Yes A user logs in and continues the session past midnight:Table 2. Example of a site session calculation for the following user journey when they continue 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 No 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 .
- External roles: sn_esm_user, sn_customerservice.requester
- Unauthenticated roles: Guest and snc_visitor
- 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.
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.
Table 3. Example of a site session calculation for the user journey below 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:Table 4. Example of a site session calculation for the user journey below when they continue 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