Configuration for User Monitoring and Replay

👁️ GermainUX User Monitoring and Session Replay Configuration

GermainUX User Monitoring and Session Replay can be configured globally or for an individual UX Monitoring Profile. These settings control whether sessions are recorded, when sessions end, which events appear in the replay player, what data is excluded, and how custom insights are displayed.

🔛 Enable or Disable Session Replay for a Profile

Session Replay is enabled by default for each UX Monitoring Profile.

To change this setting:

1. Go to Germain Workspace -> Settings → Analytics -> UX Monitoring Profiles.

2. Select the profile you want to update.

3. Enable or disable Session Replay Monitoring.

4. Click Save.

This setting affects only the selected profile.

⛔ Disable Session Replay Globally

To stop collecting Session Replay data across all profiles:

1. Go to Germain Workspace -> Settings > System > UX and Session Replay Settings.

2. Disable Session Replay Data.

3. Click Save.

The global setting takes precedence over profile-level configuration.

⏱️ Configure Session Timeout

By default, an ongoing session times out when GermainUX receives no new event for one hour. The session is then marked Timed Out and closed. The next event starts a new session.

To change the timeout:

1. Go to Germain Workspace -> Settings → System -> UX and Session Replay Settings.

2. In the Session Replay section, update Session Timeout (in minutes).

3. Click Save.
   

   

🎞️ Configure Session Recording

⏰ Maximum Recording Duration

By default, GermainUX does not impose a maximum session-recording duration. To limit the duration, set settings.constants.maxSessionDurationMillis in the Monitoring Profile's Init Script.

The following example limits a recording to one hour:

settings.constants.maxSessionDurationMillis = 3_600_000; // One hour in milliseconds

👥 Start a New Session When the Username Changes

Use createNewSessionIfUsernameChanges to control how GermainUX handles multiple user logins from the same browser or desktop.

Add the appropriate setting to the Init Script used by RUM JS or the RUM Browser Extension.

💡 Configure the Events and Transactions Stream

The Session Replay player displays correlated events and transactions beside the recording. By default, it includes every KPI configured as a child of the User Session Replay KPI.

To control which KPIs appear:

1. Go to Germain Workspace -> Settings → Analytics -> KPIs.

2. Select User Session Replay.

3. Update the Child KPIs selection.

4. Click Save.
   

   

📊 Configure User Activity Periods

Orange bars at the top of the Session Replay player identify periods of user activity.

Each period represents a sequence of user events within the monitored application.

To select which event types contribute to these activity periods:

1. Go to Germain Workspace -> Settings → System -> UX and Session Replay Settings.

2. In the Session Replay section, update the User Activity selection.

3. Click Save.

This configuration applies to all UX Monitoring Profiles.

Configure Dead, Error, and Rage Click Monitoring

GermainUX can identify dead clicks, error clicks, and rage clicks during monitored sessions. These signals help reveal unresponsive controls, technical failures, and user frustration.

See Configure Dead, Error, and Rage Click Monitoring.

🔒 Data Privacy and Exclusions

GermainUX gives you control over the data collected by RUM JS and the RUM Browser Extension. Depending on your privacy, security, and regulatory requirements, data can be excluded, masked, anonymized, or encrypted.

See:

🔕 Exclude Bots and Crawlers

You can exclude selected user agents from User Monitoring and Session Replay. This prevents bots and crawlers from affecting UX analytics or consuming unnecessary storage.

Default exclusions include:

The default exclusions can be enabled during initial RUM JS deployment through the Bot/Crawler Agent Exclusion option.

To update the list for an existing profile:

1. Go to Germain Workspace -> Settings → Analytics -> UX Monitoring Profiles.

2. Select the profile.

3. Add, modify, or remove entries under Excluded User Agents.

4. Click Save.

🗺️ Include or Exclude IP Addresses

Use IP ranges to control which clients are monitored:

Both lists are empty by default. An empty included list means that all IP addresses are eligible for monitoring. Enter either a single IP address or a range defined by its starting and ending addresses.

To configure IP filtering:

1. Go to Germain Workspace -> Settings → Analytics > UX Monitoring Profiles.

2. Select the profile.

3. Add addresses or ranges under Excluded IP Ranges or Included IP Ranges.

4. Click Save.

For example, you could exclude 10.0.1.1 while including the range 192.168.0.0 through 192.168.255.255.

👤 Exclude Usernames

You can exclude named users from monitoring—for example, automated, synthetic, administrative, or test accounts.

The monitoring component must first identify the username. If the extracted username matches an entry in Excluded Usernames, GermainUX stops collecting monitoring data for that user.

To manage excluded usernames:

1. Go to Germain Workspace -> Settings → Analytics -> UX Monitoring Profiles.
   

   

2. Select the profile.

3. Add, modify, or remove entries under Excluded Usernames.

4. Click Save.

🤖 Exclude Headless Browsers

You can exclude headless browsers to prevent automated or synthetic scenarios from being recorded as real-user activity.

To change this setting:

1. Go to Germain Workspace -> Settings → Analytics -> UX Monitoring Profiles.
   

   

2. Select the profile.

3. Enable or disable Exclude Headless Browsers.

4. Click Save.

🔎 Configure Phrases of Interest

Phrases of Interest detect specified text or regular expressions displayed in the monitored application. When a match occurs, GermainUX creates a record under the Phrase of Interest Appeared KPI and marks the event in the recorded session.

This capability can identify events such as promotional discounts, errors, warnings, out-of-stock notices, confirmations, and compliance-related language.

✨ Add a Phrase from Session Replay

1. In Session Replay, highlight the text you want to monitor.

2. Right-click the selected text.

3. Select Add text to Phrases-of-Interest.
   

   

   
   

4. Review the new entry under Analytics > UX Monitoring Profiles > [Profile].
   

   

The phrase will be monitored in subsequent sessions associated with that profile.

⚙️ Use a Regular Expression

To make a phrase more dynamic:

1. Go to Analytics > UX Monitoring Profiles > [Profile] > [Phrase of Interest].

2. Enable Regex.

3. Enter the regular expression.

4. Click Save.

For example, the following expression detects discounts from 60% through 99%:

\([6-9][0-9]%\sOFF\)

🔔 Create a Watch

From Session Replay, select Add Watch on this Phrase-of-Interest to receive an alert the next time the phrase appears, every time it appears, or every time it appears until a specified date.

📌 Add a Custom Insight or Timeline Tab

Custom Insights—also displayed as custom tabs in the Session Replay player—highlight events that matter to your organization. For example, an eCommerce team can add an Add to Cart tab that marks every product-addition event on the replay timeline.

To create a custom timeline event:

1. Go to Germain Workspace -> Settings →System -> System Settings -> UI Config.

2. Navigate to Analysis Dashboards > User Session Replay > portlets > Replay of User Session > timelineEvents.
   

   

   
   

3. Click Add.

4. Configure the event.

5. Click Create.

Example configuration:

{
  "label": "Add to Cart",
  "tooltip": "Product added",
  "color": "black",
  "height": 10,
  "icon": "fa-solid fa-cart-shopping",
  "zIndex": 1,
  "timelinePosition": "above"
}

After the configuration is saved, the custom tab becomes available across recorded sessions, and a cart icon appears on the timeline whenever a matching product-addition event occurs.