How do I use the Targeting tab in Session Recording?

Table of contents

In this help, we’ll discuss how to use the Targeting tab to:

Set which countries, devices, operating systems and browsers should be recorded
Block certain IP addresses from being recorded
Enable recording of bot sessions
Set recording rules for subdomains
Set rules for throttling the number of recorded visitors

Set which countries, devices, operating systems and browsers should be recorded

You can target your session recording depending on where the session come from
By default, all visitors are being recorded
You can target recording by location, device, operating system and browser
Either select only record from allowed countries/devices/operating systems/browsers to create a whitelist or select never record from blocked countries/devices/operating systems/browsers to create a blacklist
Click Select locations/devices/systems/browsers to pick which ones should or shouldn’t be recorded (depending on what you chose in the previous step)

Choose whom to target

For locations, devices, operating systems and browsers, you can select which ones you want to target in your study. You can target absolutely everyone, just a selection of them (whitelist), or everyone except for a selection of them (blacklist).

Creating whitelists and blacklists

To pick locations, devices, operating systems or browsers to be or not to be targeted, simply check the right ones on the list.

Block certain IP addresses from being recorded

Session Recording allows you to block certain IP addresses or IP ranges (e.g. if you want to block recording sessions from your own team)
Either insert an exact IP adress or define an IP range using wildcards (e.g. 192.168.1.*)
Click Add IP to insert another IP address/range to block
For example: You can use this feature to add the IP address of your company router. By doing so, you can prevent recording of sessions coming from your own employees.

Blocking IPs

You block both IPs and whole IP ranges by adding them into the blocked IP list.

Enable recording of bot sessions

By default Session Recording automatically recognizes bot sessions and filters them out (as they normally don’t tell you anything about real users and only waste your session quota)
However, you can opt to record specific bots by checking which bots are blocked by clicking Select bots
Alternatively, you can enable recording of all bots by unchecking do not record selected bots
Don’t enable bot sessions unless you’re absolutely sure that you know what you’re doing

Set recording rules for subdomains

Session Recording records all subdomains of your website/web app by default
You can enable or disable session recording on subdomains (e.g. only record on production.example.com but not on staging.example.com)
Either select record individual subdomains to create a whitelist or select record all other subdomains except to create a blacklist
Click Select subdomains and in the modal window that opens, write the subdomain you want to add to the whitelist/blacklist (depending on which one you chose in the previous step)
You can either enter an exact subdomain (e.g. staging.example.com) or use a wildcard to match all subdomains on that level (e.g. *.example.com)
All subdomains need to have the study’s domain as their top domain (e.g. if your domain is example.com, staging.example.com is a valid subdomain, staging.examples.org is not)

Add subdomain

After you have added a valid subdomain to your list, it will appear as seen here. If the subdomain you are trying to add to your list is not correct, you won’t be allowed to add it.

Set rules for throttling the number of recorded visitors

Session Recording records all visitors of your website/web app by default
Select Record first N visitors to stop recording new visitors after a certain number of visitors has been reached
Select Record each N-th visitor to determine how often a new visitor should be recorded
Select Record a percentage of total visitors to determine how many visitors should be recorded as a percentage

Limit the numbers of recorded visitors

You might not need to record absolutely everyone. In that case, pick one of these options to limit how many or how often users should be recorded.

General Tab Sessions Tab