User Session that shares the same userSessionId

[Weilin1]

Hi, 

I have always been under the impression that userSessionId is unique however recently i noticed that there are sessions that share the same userSessionId. I also do notice that these sessions that share the same userSessionId, has a gap of about an hour between the end of the previous session and the start of the next session. 

Hence i would like to check, does Dynatrace use the same userSessionId, for user who start a session then become inactive for more than 35 mins then resume their session again. 

Else what would be the reason Dynatrace use the same userSessionId for these session?

Also usually for a web session the the userSessionId looks like BFDJKFHDUEHKFHJEKJDFDBKJ-0, i always assumed that the 0 behind represents the first session and if its BFDJKFHDUEHKFHJEKJDFDBKJ-1, it means that Dynatrace has split the session into 2, e.g. if its more than 8hrs, more than 200 useraction.

Is there anywhere i can read about the naming convention?

Thanks in advance!

[Taylor-Sanchez]

Hi @Weilin1 ,

Yes, the user session identification is unique in a sense that the Dynatrace achieves this by storing a persistent cookie that contains a unique identifier for that specific user within the users browser, even when they are actively in the session anonymously. Dynatrace will use the same session identifier, so long as the user doesn't disable their cookies or clear them (this causes the unique identifier to be regenerated).

You can read more about identification here:
https://docs.dynatrace.com/docs/shortlink/user-session#user-session-identification

Additionally, not too sure what you need specifically by the naming conventions, but you can attach more meaningful naming conventions for your users through tags here for analysis:
https://docs.dynatrace.com/docs/shortlink/user-tagging

Hope this helps!

[Weilin1]

Hi @Taylor-Sanchez ,

Thanks for the reply. I supposed that is more to do with internalUserId, where Dynatrace try to associate the user. 

However i am trying to understand more about userSessionId, because every session is different hence they should have a different userSessionId? But in my case why are they they same?

Thanks.

[Taylor-Sanchez]

Hi @Weilin1 ,

A little confused by your statement here - according to the documentation, and based on what you're describing, that description is the userSessionID, is it not? For example, when looking at this screenshot, the highlighted sections would be the user session IDs, but the internal user ID would be the individual user here, and their ID would be the same in the second screenshot as it correlates to that individual user? They should be the same if it's still the same user for that session, given all requirements have been met for the session to end. 

[Weilin1]

Hi @Taylor-Sanchez ,

I am sightly confused here too. 
Boxed in red is the internalSessionID - am i right?
And boxed in green are the session, and they should have unique session id? or are they supposed to have the same session id?  

[Taylor-Sanchez]

@Weilin1 ,

Yes, those that you have boxed in green are the individual sessions, where those boxed in red are the user session IDs (synonymous with the internal User ID). The same session ID is used when the cookies that follow the user on their browser correlates them with a session in Dynatrace. For easier readability into this, consider the usage of User Tags to be able to easily identify these users, even when they close out a session. The only time that this would change would be if the user changes their own internal privacy settings.

[Weilin1]

Hi @Taylor-Sanchez , 

Can i then try to understand why is there is need for userSessionId and internalSessionId, if they are synonymous?

From this documentation,

Element Type Description

internalUserId	string	The unique ID of the user that triggered the user session.
userSessionId	string	The unique ID of the user session.

It does not seems to suggest that they are synonymous, cause one is the unique ID of the user while the others is the unique ID of a session.  and if userSessionId is unique, why is it duplicated for another user session (back to my initial question)? 

Thanks.