Data Management in Fullstory is an interface for you to create structure and meaning out of the raw data being captured in Fullstory. It allows you to understand and use it for anyone in your organization easily. Below, we'll discuss the key concepts of Data Management in Fullstory.
Accessing Data Management: You can access Data Management from anywhere in Fullstory by opening the side navigation and selecting Data Management. You can also navigate to Data Management sections via Settings > Data Management.
Jump to section:
Events
Navigate to Settings > Data Management > Events.
Events are definitions of key actions users have taken. Put another way; they are behaviors or verbs, things users do when engaging with your site or app.
Users can create and manage Events in two ways. They can assign a semantic meaning to auto-captured events with complex criteria in Fullstory or send instrumented events via API integration, giving them a human name to use in different areas of the UI, such as segments, metrics, conversion, and other library objects. This helps users across all businesses to get meaning out of the raw data and makes it easy to understand.
For example, take advantage of future revenue searches by creating an Order Completed event to track successful order paths on your eCommerce site.
Read more about defining the events that matter to your business here.
Properties
Navigate to Settings > Data Management > Properties.
Properties act as additional context for events, pages, and users. They provide dimensions to groups by filters like events, pages, and users (i.e. page events and properties describe what happened on the page).
Use custom user properties like displayname, to give each visitor to your site a distinct display name in the Fullstory UI that you can easily search for later. An admin or architect can manage the properties that have been sent to Fullstory via an API and archive properties that are deprecated or that were created by mistake (typos, etc). Additionally, you have the ability to see what API events are connected to specific properties in the Connections column.
Pages
Navigate to Settings > Data Management > Pages.
Page definitions represent important destinations in a customer’s digital experience. Fullstory will automatically suggest page groupings and names using AI-suggested pages. You can also define pages manually or send page data using the API. Once pages are set up, anyone within your Fullstory organization can access pages across metrics, segments, journeys, and more.
For more information on grouping similar URLs together and the analytical benefits, see Pages in Fullstory.
Elements
Navigate to Settings > Data Management > Elements.
Elements are definitions or semantic meanings of CSS and other Elements that represent key pieces of data that customers use regularly. They are valuable for the key actions taken through the digital experience and represent permanent actions important for business-critical data points.
- Let
StoryAI automatically suggest elements that are important on your site.
- Take control by manually naming elements.
- Set up watched elements so you know when elements appear, even when there's no user interaction.
- Visually review all existing elements on a page using Data Studio.
Archiving
Admin and Architect users can archive data objects (Events, Properties, Pages, and Elements) to keep your Data Management interface organized. Archiving removes items from their respective tables and search results.
To archive an item, navigate to its Data Management section, click the vertical ellipsis (⋮) at the end of the row, and select Archive. Only the original creator, an Admin, or an Architect can archive data objects. Learn more about user roles and permissions here.
Note: Archiving removes objects from search filters and analytics, but does not affect data capture. For example, archived properties are still captured in session replay event logs, and archived watched elements continue to be watched.
Archiving an event, element, property or page will continue to count towards rate limits and cardinality limits. You can monitor if this is an issue for your account by going to Settings > Integrations > API Errors .
If you no longer wish to see data in Fullstory, you will need to stop this being passed into Fullstory from the source, e.g. updating API calls or creating custom data layer rules. If you have any questions around archiving / deleting elements, events, properties or pages, please reach out to the support team.
Indexed Element Attributes
Navigate to Settings > Data Management > Indexed Element Attributes.
Indexed Element Attributes allow you to take advantage of more stable attributes on your selectors, even while class names constantly change. By indexing specific element attributes like data-testid, data-component, or custom attributes, you can create more reliable element selectors for search, heatmaps, and named elements.
Admin and Architect users can configure which attributes are indexed by creating pattern rules that specify which attribute values to include or exclude. Fullstory also autoconfigures commonly used attributes based on your captured sessions.
For detailed information on configuring and using Indexed Element Attributes, see Using Indexed Element Attributes in Search & Page Analytics.
Recommendations
Navigate to Settings > Data Management > Recommendations.
Data Recommendations (also known as "specifications") provide industry-specific lists of recommended data to track in Fullstory. By assigning your elements and pages to these recommendations, you give your data meaning and help Fullstory surface better insights aligned with industry best practices.
Fullstory currently offers two specifications:
- Digital Experience specification - Elements and pages relevant to all websites and web apps (enabled by default for all organizations)
- E-commerce specification - Elements and pages relevant to online stores (enabled by default for e-commerce organizations)
When you assign data to these specifications, it will be prioritized in search results and unlock automatic insights in features like Conversions analysis.
For detailed information on using Data Recommendations, see Getting Started with Data Recommendations.