User Experience Analytics data sources for data visualizations

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
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    Summary of User Experience Analytics data sources for data visualizations

    ServiceNow’s User Experience Analytics (UXA) enables customers to visualize key usage metrics through various data sources within the Usage Insights application. These data sources provide detailed analytics on events, pages, sessions, and users, helping organizations understand application usage patterns and user behavior. Access to add Usage Insights data sources requires theadmin,analyticsadmin, oranalyticsviewerroles.

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    Key Data Sources and Their Use

    • Events: Tracks triggered application events. Customers must select the application, event, and can apply filters by event properties (e.g., Country, Department, Role) to analyze occurrences and distribution. Useful for Bar and Pie/Donut visualizations with grouping capabilities. Supports up to 500 custom filters by default.
    • Pages: Tracks page views and usage metrics such as average view duration and load time. Requires selection of application and page, with optional custom filtering for precise analysis.
    • Sessions: Tracks session counts with categories such as All Sessions, New Sessions, Returning Users, Short Sessions, Long Sessions, and custom-defined conditions. Applicable to Single Score visualizations and supports condition building.
    • Users: Measures active unique users and user categories like All Users, New Users, Never Returned Users, Multi Device Users, and custom conditions. Supports Single Score visualizations and condition customization.

    Important Considerations

    • A date range must be specified for all Usage Insights data sources across all visualization types to ensure accurate data representation.
    • Some visualization types do not support Usage Insights data sources, including Calendar, Geomap, Heatmap, Pivot Table, Simple List, Indicator, and Scorecard.
    • Time series and score data visualizations fully support all Usage Insights data sources, allowing detailed analysis over time.

    Supported Visualization Types per Data Source

    • Events: Supported in Scores (Single score, dial, gauge), Time series, Bars, Pies/Donuts, and Pivot tables with grouping by event properties.
    • Sessions and Users: Supported in Time series, Scores, Pies/Donuts, and Bars with grouping and stacking options.
    • Pages: Supported in Time series and Scores; not supported in other visualization types.

    Practical Benefits for ServiceNow Customers

    By leveraging these UXA data sources, customers can create insightful visualizations that help monitor application usage trends, identify user behavior patterns, and optimize user experience. The ability to filter and customize conditions enables targeted analysis, while support for multiple visualization types ensures flexibility in reporting.

    You can show metrics related to Usage Insights in a data visualization component. The available metrics depend on the visualization type.

    Note:
    Users require the admin, analytics_admin, or analytics_viewer role to add Usage Insights data sources to a visualization.

    The Usage Insights application, available in the ServiceNow® Store, provides several data sources.

    Events
    This data source tracks the events that are triggered on the application. When you select Events as the data source on a visualization, you also must select the application and the event. Apart from this, you can also select the event conditions and specify the event property. For example, you can filter the events based on Country, Manager, Department, Role, etc. In a Bar or Pie/Donut visualization, use the Group by field to select an event property. You can then view the number of occurrences and the values distribution of that single event property.
    Note:
    The default maximum number of custom filters you can save for user experience analytics application is 500. You can modify the number of custom filters in the uxa.query_builder.max_num_of_user_filter property.
    Pages
    This data source tracks page views or usage metrics for a specific page on the application. When you select Pages as the data source on a visualization, you must also select the application and the page. Apart from this, you can add custom conditions to filter data for more accurate analysis.
    • Page Views
    • Average View Duration
    • Average Load Time
    Sessions

    This data source tracks the number of sessions triggered on an application.

    When you select this data source on a visualization, you also must select the application and the category. For Single Score visualizations only, you can select a condition as the category. You can add or edit conditions in the condition builder.

    • All Sessions: Represents the number of all sessions created on the application.
    • New Sessions: Represents the number of sessions that were created in the most recent time period.
    • Returning Users: Users who have created more than one session.
    • Short sessions: Number of sessions shorter than 20 seconds.
    • Long sessions: Number of sessions longer than 300 seconds.
    • Custom: You define this category by creating at least one condition.
    Users

    The number of active unique users using the application. When you select this data source on a visualization, you must also select the application and the category of user. For Single Score visualizations only, you can select a condition as the category. You can add or edit conditions in the condition builder.

    • All Users: Represents the number of all users in the application.
    • New Users: Represents the number of users who have performed their first session.
    • Never Returned Users: Users who have created only one session.
    • Multi Device Users: Users who have created a session with more than one device.
    • Custom: You define this category by creating at least one condition.
    Important:
    You must specify the date range for all Usage Insights data sources on all visualization types.
    The following data visualizations do not support Usage Insights data sources:
    • Calendar
    • Geomap
    • Heatmap
    • Pivot table
    • Simple List
    • Indicator Scorecard

    Time series and score data visualizations support all Usage Insights data sources.

    Table 1. User Experience Analytics data sources
    Metric Supported visualization type Group by Response
    Events
    • Scores (Single score, dial, gauge)
    • Time series
    • Bars, including Pareto
    • Pies and donuts
    • Pivot tables

    Bars, Pivot tables, and Pies/donuts: Supported by the event's property

    Other visualization types: Not supported

    Time series: Number of events in the date range

    Scores: Number of occurrences of the event

    Bars, Pie/Donut, Pivot: Breakdown of event in date range by property

    Sessions
    • Time series
    • Scores
    • Pies and donuts
    • Bars

    Supports Group by and Stack by

    Time series: Number of sessions in the date range

    Scores: Number of created sessions. Responses can also be filtered by conditions.

    Users
    • Time series
    • Scores
    • Pies and donuts
    • Bars

    Supports Group by and Stack by

    Time series: Number of active or new users in the date range

    Scores: Number of active or new users. Responses can also be filtered by conditions.

    Pages
    • Time series
    • Scores

    Not supported

    Time series: Number of active or new users in the date range

    Scores: Number of active or new users. Responses can also be filtered by conditions.