User actions - Best practices

Before creating User Actions, ensure that you understand the end user's workflow in the application. While a process may have an expected sequence of steps to complete, it is completely possible that users may take a different path to complete the same workflow.
For example, a contact in the Salesforce Sales Cloud application can be accessed using the Contact module as well as the Opportunity module. It is common practice to create User Actions on the Contact module, since the assumption is that this is the expected path that the end user takes. However, if you miss creating User Actions in the Opportunity module, you miss out on tracking the engagement of users who access contacts using the Opportunity module. As a result, the User Action analytics data shows that Step 2 of a process has higher engagement than Step 1, which may sound illogical.

While selecting an element to create a User Action, add Display Rules to identify the element for which the action is tracked. Using Display Rules with User Action, improves the performance of tracking the actions.
Ensure that you add the correct Display Rules while creating User Actions.

Here are some commonly made mistakes that you can avoid while adding Display Rules to User Actions.

• Display Rules configured for one User Action conflict with another User Action, resulting in inconsistent latching behavior.
  Solution:
  Identify all possible paths in the application and check whether the CSS selectors used on one page or URL have been reused in configuring the Display Rule of another User Action.

• If the UI of the underlying application changes, the CSS Selectors used to configure Display Rules may also change. As a result, User Actions dependent on the Display Rules may not be evaluated.

  Solution:

  Reselect User Actions to manage UI changes and verify the User Actions before making them live on the application.

• An incorrect operator is used when more than one Display Rule is added. For example, the Display Rule is configured as Selector A AND Selector B instead of Selector A OR Selector B.

  Solution:
  Use the AND operator when the User Action needs to be evaluated only if all the conditions are evaluated as true.
  Use the OR operator when the User Action needs to be evaluated if any one of the conditions is evaluated as true.

While creating User Actions, ensure that you always select the outermost individual element of the UI. Doing so ensures that any action performed inside the element is also tracked as part of the User Action.

Adding relevant and recognizable Tags to the User Action is a great way to organize and filter out actions that are specific to a particular page or process.

You can add tags while creating a User Action.

After creating User Actions, ensure that you push them to the Production stage to make them live for your end users. Unless the User Actions are pushed to Production, they won't be able to capture data.

For more information, see Push Whatfix content and widgets to Production.

Use the User Action Analytics insight to get the User Actions engagement data.

If you have created User Actions in a sequence that represents a process, use the Funnel capability to see on which step of the process your users are dropping off. The Funnel insights also show how much time your users take to complete a process.

For more information, see Funnels.

To use User Actions in Insights, i.e., Funnels, Trends, User Journey, or Cohorts, the action needs to be completed at least once for you to see them in the Custom Events dropdown.