This page explains what happens between a visitor opening your site and a session appearing in Vision.
What the script records#
The script uses rrweb to record the structure of each page and what changes on it: clicks, scrolling, mouse movement, typing (as masked characters), navigation between pages, window resizes and JavaScript errors. Stylesheets are recorded with the page so the replay looks like your site. It also reads purchase events from the Google Tag Manager data layer to detect conversions.
Before anything leaves the browser, the script masks form values and sensitive text and leaves out password and payment fields. See Privacy and security.
The script is small (under 40 KB compressed), loads asynchronously and sends data in batches every 10 seconds on desktop and 15 seconds on mobile, with a final batch when the visitor leaves the page.
When a visit becomes a session#
Vision keeps a visit only when it looks like a real person using the site:
- Consent The visitor accepted analytics consent, unless the site records without a banner. See Recording consent.
- Not excluded The browser was not excluded with Exclude my browser, and the visitor is not a known crawler or bot.
- Long enough The recorded events span at least 30 seconds, and data arrived in at least two batches 20 seconds apart.
- Active The visitor moved the mouse, scrolled, clicked or typed. Pages left open in the background are discarded as Idle tabs (no activity).
Visits that do not meet these rules are never stored and never count toward your quota. Vision counts them in the Ignored figure, with a reason.
Session boundaries#
| Rule | Value |
|---|---|
| A visit across several pages | One session, as long as the visitor stays on your site in the same tab. |
| New session after inactivity | After 30 minutes without activity, the next action starts a new session. |
| Session closed by Vision | 35 minutes after the last activity. |
| Longest session | 60 minutes. A longer visit continues in a new session. |
| Largest session | 5 MB of recorded data. |
From visit to insight#
| Step | When |
|---|---|
| Session listed in Sessions | Shortly after the first batches arrive. |
| Timeline and friction tags | A few minutes after the session ends. |
| Automatic AI summary (sessions with friction) | After the timeline, within the daily limit. |
| Patterns updated | Regularly, by a background job. |
Sampling near your quota#
When your organisation has used 90% of its monthly quota, Vision records half of the new visits until the month resets. Cart and checkout pages are always kept, so purchase journeys are never sampled out. Skipped visits are counted as Sampled out. See Usage and limits.
Data retention#
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Raw replays | 30 days |
| Timelines, friction tags, summaries and patterns | 13 months |
After 30 days a session keeps its timeline and summary, and the replay shows Replay expired (kept 30 days) — timeline still available.