The Session Replay player is a tool that allows you to watch captured user sessions to get valuable insights into user behavior on your site. The player gives you a detailed view of the user's experience, while also providing key contextual information to help you analyze specific events and interactions. This article explains how to use the Session Replay player.
Key Features
To help you understand the main features of the player, we’ve broken it down into four areas:
1. Metadata bar: information relating to the user’s session to help you understand the session environment.
2. Pageview and event stream: a list of URLs for each page the user visited including real-time event data.
3. Timeline: a visual indication of session activity and inactivity that allows you to jump to areas of interest.
4. Player settings and configuration: provides customisation of the default player settings.
Metadata bar
The metadata bar provides context about the session, such as: date and timestamp (based on Contentsquare user project settings), country, browser, screen resolution, operating system, and user ID. Hover over each of the data points for more information. You can see the timestamp of your end-user (based on their timezone), by hovering over the displayed date and timestamp.
Pageviews and event stream
The pageview and event stream is hidden by default and can be accessed by clicking the numbered list menu, in the top left corner. From here you can view URL paths, time spent, corresponding events and timestamps, and frustration scores.
Additional functionality available in the pageviews and event stream:
- Quantify the impact of events (Growth, Pro, and Enterprise plans): use the checkbox next to each event to jump to Impact Quantification and further analyze the impact of that event. You can quantify up to nine events from the current pageview.
- Shortcut to error details (plans with Experience Monitoring): expand an error and click See in Error analysis to view the error’s details page.
- Filter and search: focus on activity of interest by filtering user actions, events, and more. Enter keywords in the search bar to find a specific pageview, action, or event (search for any visible term from the list).
- Zoom in to (and out of) a pageview: available inside the three-dot menu next to a pageview, zooming lets you get a closer look at a pageview’s corresponding events and playback the singular pageview. Zoom back out to the full session anytime.
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Copy pageview URL, variables and page events: Click the three-dot menu to copy the pageview URL. For Pro and Enterprise plans, see and copy the Custom Variables (cVars) or Dynamic Variables (dVars) fired during the pageview or session.
- Note: If you have Application Performance Monitoring integrations such as Dynatrace, Datadog, or Blue Triangle, you will see dVars as clickable links. You will be able to click this link to the user's session in your Application Performance Monitoring tool.
Timeline
The timeline has thicker lines to represent user activity and thin lines to indicate periods of inactivity.
Following along, starting at the left side of the timeline, you can:
- Control the playback: play/pause the replay, skip between next/previous pageview, skip between next/previous session replays.
- See playback time: see the current playback time in relation to the entire session time.
- Zoom in to (and out of) the playing pageview: use the magnifier icon to get a closer look at a pageview’s corresponding events and playback the singular pageview. Zoom back out to the full session anytime.
- Click on insights icons (and Errors, if available on your plan): to quantify, navigate through each one and see in Error Analysis (if Errors is available on your plan).
- Add/view comments: hover over any part of the timeline to add a new internal comment, or click any visible comment icon to see an existing one.
- Capture a snapshot: hover over any part of the timeline to capture a snapshot that you want to save for future reference or reuse for a zoning.
- Go to the next pageview or session: at the end each pageview or session, use the Next pageview button (if watching at pageview level) or Next session button (if watching at session level).
Player settings and configuration
- Share replay: this allows you to share a replay with another person who does not have a Contentsquare account. For more details, visit our article on How can I share a replay of a session?
- Full-screen: will expand the player to occupy your full-screen.
- Open in a new tab: will open the player in a new tab, occupying the full tab window instead of as a modal.
- Go to another player: Switch to the URL player to analyse similar pageviews in different sessions. This helps you contextualise user interactions on a specific page (e.g. all sessions that included a checkout page error). Switch back to the full session player for a broader overview of the user’s journey.
- Fit: Select the viewport size.
- Settings: Edit the player settings and replay speed.