Identifying Users

Request Metrics protects user privacy by default. Users are not tracked across browsers or sites. However, it is often useful to know when a user or customer is seeing poor performance or running into other user experience problems.

Warning: If you send sensitive data, or data that may make the user identifiable, you must obtain consent from the end-user in compliance with local regulation. See End User Data for more.

Anonymous Users

By default the Request Metrics dashboard displays anonymous user names. These are generated from basic information about the user include their anonymized fingerprint. These user names look like, “Firefox/Windows in USA (FEAB04C)”. Identifying users allows you to override this behavior.

Identify a User

You must have a unique ID, name or other value to identify the user. When you identify the user, Request Metrics will use your user ID in place of its own user finger printing. All user information shown in dashboard is then based on your identifier. The only required field is the user’s unique identifier:

// Any string based unique id works, even GUIDs or email addresses
RM.identify("usr_448273eaf76d");

TIP: It is best to identify the user at the same point that RM.install() is called. If RM.identify() is called later, events may be sent without identification.

Add More Context

Additional metadata can be included in the RM.identify() call. This gives you additional context and visibility into how specific subsets of users are experiencing your site.

Display Name and Email

Two special metadata keys are used by the Request Metrics dashboard. The name key overrides the username displayed in the UI and email builds mailto links in various parts of the UI.

RM.identify("usr_448273eaf76d", {
  "name": "Jane Austin",
  "email": "jane@example.com"
});

Custom Metadata

Arbitrary key/value pairs are also supported. These can be anything important to you or your users.

RM.identify("usr_448273eaf76d", {
  "key": "Example value",
  "subscriptionLevel": "Pro Plan",
  "vip": "yes"
});