Custom queries, segmentation, and aggregation of session data

Dynatrace captures detailed user session data each time a user interacts with your monitored application. This data includes all user actions and high level performance data. Using either the Dynatrace API or Dynatrace User Sessions Query Language (USQL), you can easily run powerful queries, segmentations, and aggregations on this captured data. To assist you, this topic provides detail about keywords and functions, syntax, working with Real User Monitoring tables, automated queries, and more.

User Sessions Query Language isn't SQL, and Dynatrace doesn't store user session data in a relational database. User Sessions Query Language is a Dynatrace-specific query language, though it does rely on some SQL concepts and the syntax is similar, which makes it easy to get started.

Select your preferred approach:

In the Dynatrace menu, go to Query user sessions.
Enter the query, and select Run query.

Timeframe selector with USQL

With the timeframe selector, user session data can be filtered based on a selected analysis timeframe. Select a new timeframe.

Timeframe selector controls

The global timeframe selector serves as a time filter that, in most cases, enables you to select a specific analysis timeframe that persists across all product pages and views as you navigate through your analysis.

The Presets tab lists all standard timeframes available. Select one to change your timeframe to that preset.
The Custom tab displays a calendar. Click a start day, click an end day, and then click Apply to select that range of days as your timeframe.
- Selected calendar intervals are set to end on start of the next day (with the time set to 00:00). For example, if you select September 3 to September 4 on the calendar, the timeframe starts on September 3 at time 00:00 and ends on September 5 at time 00:00, so you never miss the last minute of the time range. You can edit these displayed times.
The Recent tab displays recently used timeframes. Select one to revert to that timeframe.
The < and > controls shift the timerange forward or backward in time. The increment is the length of the original timerange. For example, if the current timerange is Last 2 hours (the two-hour range ending now), click < to shift the timerange two hours back, to -4h to -2h (the two-hour range ending two hours ago).
Hover over the timeframe to see the start time, duration, and end time.

Timeframe selector expressions

If you select the current timeframe in the menu bar, an editable timeframe expression is displayed.

Reading from left to right, a timeframe expression has a start time, a to operator, and an end time.
If there is no explicit end time, the to and now are implied. For example, -2h is the same -2h to now.
Supported units: s, m, h, d, w, M, q, y (you can also use whole words such as minutes and quarter)

Example timeframe expressions	Meaning
`today`	From the beginning of today to the beginning of tomorrow.
`yesterday`	From the beginning of yesterday to the beginning of today. Like `-1d/d to today`.
`yesterday to now`	From the beginning of yesterday to the current time today.
`previous week`	The previous seven whole days. If today is Monday, you get the previous Monday through the previous Sunday (yesterday).
`this year`	The current calendar year, from January 1 of this year at `00:00` through January 1 of next year at `00:00`.
`last 6 weeks`	The last 42 days (6 weeks * 7 days) ending now. Equivalent to `-6w to now`.
`-2h`	From 2 hours (120 minutes) ago to the current time (`now` is implied). Equivalent to `Last 2 hours` and `-2h to now`.
`-4d to -1h30m`	From 4 days (96 hours) ago to 1.5 hours ago.
`-1w`	The last 7 days (168 hours), from this time 7 days ago to the current time (`now`). Equivalent to `-7d` and `-168h`.
`-1w/w`	From the beginning of the previous calendar week to the current time (now). If you used `-1w/w` on a Friday afternoon at 3:00, you would get a range of 11 days 15 hours, starting with the beginning of the previous week's Monday, because `/w` rounds down to the beginning of the week. If you used `-1w` without `/w` on a Friday afternoon at 3:00, the start time would be exactly 7 days (168 hours) earlier: the previous Friday at 3:00 in the afternoon. In general, `/` used in combination with a unit (such as `/d`, `/w`, `/M`, and `/y`) means to round down the date or time to the beginning of the specified time unit. For example, `-3d` means exactly 72 hours ago, whereas `-3d/d` means three days ago rounded down to the nearest day (starting at time `00:00`, the beginning of the day). Use `now/d` to mean the start of today.
`-1w/w + 8h`	Starting from the beginning of last week plus 8 hours (8:00 AM Monday). Note that you can use the `+` and `-` operators with units, timestamps, and `now`.
`-1d/d+9h00m to -1d/d+17h00m`	Business hours yesterday, from 09:00 - 17:00 (9 AM to 5 PM).
`2020-08-16 21:28 to 2020-08-19 10:02`	An absolute range consisting of absolute start and end dates and times in `YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm` format. If you provide a date but omit the time (for example, just `2020-08-16`), the time is assumed to be the beginning of day (`00:00`) If you provide a time but omit the date (for example, just `21:28`), the date is assumed to be today
`1598545932346 to 1598837052346`	Unix epoch millisecond timestamps.

Autocomplete with USQL

Auto-completion is available for query statements based on the currently entered text. Auto-complete is context-sensitive and based on the current cursor context. It intelligently anticipates what text you may want to type next.

Autocomplete information returned from the API contains a list of suggestions, with the most likely values sorted to the top of the list, along with the necessary adjustment to the query text and the resulting cursor position after the adjustment. This allows you to place the cursor at a more useful position once text has been added, such as inside brackets when you select a function.

The fields list only contains valid fields or functions for the selected table, and its context-sensitivity shows only numeric fields when the cursor is placed inside a function-call that only works on numerical data, such as SUM(), or AVG().

Field-values are only suggested for enumeration based fields. No actual query to Elasticsearch is done for auto-completion.

You can execute API calls using your preferred client. Find the related API documentation in User sessions API. Alternatively, you can use the API Explorer. To access it from the previous Dynatrace web UI, select Environment API v1 from the user menu.

To execute these calls, you need the User sessions (DTAQLAccess) permission assigned to your API token. To learn how to obtain and use your token, see Dynatrace API - Tokens and authentication.

Timeframes in Environment API

User session data should always be accessed with a timeframe. It can be costly to access large timeframes because of the high number of potential single matches to queries.

The timeframe is usually not part of the query itself but is sent in separate parameters of the API call. You can find details in the API documentation.

You can, however, use the time fields like starttime and endtime to select a timeframe. You can also use these fields in functions, for example, to find out what time during the day most user sessions start, as in HOUR(starttime).

Keywords and functions

The following keywords have been defined to access user session data:

AND, AS, ASC, BETWEEN, BY, DESC, DISTINCT, FALSE, FROM, GROUP, IN, IS, JSON, LIMIT, NOT, NULL, OR, ORDER, SELECT, STARTSWITH, TRUE, WHERE, LIKE, FILTER

The following functions have been defined to access user session data:

SUM, MAX, MIN, AVG, MEDIAN, COUNT, YEAR, MONTH, DAY, HOUR, MINUTE, DATETIME, TOP, PERCENTILE, KEYS

Keywords, functions, and column names are case-insensitive. String-matches in WHERE conditions are case-sensitive.

Syntax

A typical query is built from the following keywords:

SELECT <columns> FROM <table> WHERE <condition> GROUP BY <grouping> ORDER BY <ordering>

However, the only mandatory elements are SELECT <columns> and FROM <table>.

1SELECT browserType, userId, city, AVG(userActionCount) AS "Average user action count", AVG(duration) AS "Average duration", count(*) AS "Sessions", SUM(totalErrorCount) AS "Errors" FROM usersession WHERE ip between '52.179.11.1' and '52.179.11.255' GROUP BY browserType, userId, city

Frequently used keywords

SELECT `<columns>`

Selects one or more columns from the specified data table or performs aggregation functions from the set of supported functions.

1columns: [DISTINCT] <column>, <column>, ... | function(<parameter>) |
2<column> AS <alias> | JSON

1SELECT country, city, browserfamily FROM usersession
2SELECT DISTINCT country, city, useractioncount FROM usersession
3SELECT country, city, avg(duration) AS average FROM usersession GROUP BY country, city

FUNNEL

Allows you to use a predefined funnel format for a query. Can be used to chart the flow of specific user actions. Can also be combined with custom session properties and other conditions.

It changes the syntax of any query to the following:

1SELECT FUNNEL (<condition> AS <alias>, <condition>, ...) FROM <table> WHERE <condition>

Instead of running the following three queries:

1SELECT COUNT(*) FROM usersession where useraction.name = "AppStart"
2SELECT COUNT(*) FROM usersession where useraction.name = "AppStart" AND useraction.name = "searchJourney"
3SELECT COUNT(*) FROM usersession where useraction.name = "AppStart" AND useraction.name = "searchJourney"  AND useraction.name = "bookJourney"

The following single query returns the same result:

1SELECT FUNNEL (useraction.name = "AppStart", useraction.name = "searchJourney", useraction.name = "bookJourney")
2FROM usersession

To list the number of users that successfully booked the journey:

1SELECT FUNNEL (useraction.name="login", useraction.name = "searchJourney", useraction.name = "bookJourney")
2FROM usersession

FROM `<table>`

You can only specify one table. Tables for user session data are as follows.

usersession contains information on user sessions.
useraction stores data on user actions.
userevent provides information on user events, such as page changes or rage events.
usererror contains more data on error events, which are errors and crashes.

1SELECT country, city, browserfamily FROM usersession
2SELECT name, starttime, endtime, duration FROM useraction ORDER BY duration DESC

WHERE `<condition>`

You can combine multiple conditions using Boolean logic and parentheses within the WHERE clause, such as WHERE (city = 'Barcelona' AND country = 'Spain') to include only cities named Barcelona that are in Spain.

1condition: (condition AND condition) | (condition OR condition) | field IN(...) |
2field IS <value> | field IS NULL | field = <value> | field > <value> | field < <value> |
3field <> <value> | field IS NOT <value> | field BETWEEN <value> AND <value> | ...

However, only the right-hand side of conditions can contain a value, so you can't compare between two fields.

1SELECT country, city, browserfamily FROM usersession WHERE country = 'Albania' AND screenWidth > 1000
2
3SELECT TOP(country, 20), TOP(city, 20), TOP(duration, 10), AVG(duration) AS average
4FROM usersession
5WHERE duration BETWEEN 1000 AND 2000
6GROUP BY TOP(country, 20), TOP(city, 20), TOP(duration, 10)

When your query contains multiple "equal" conditions for the same field via OR, use the IN function instead, as it's more performant. For example, you can rewrite the following query using the IN function.

Before

1SELECT COUNT(*) FROM userevent
2WHERE pageReferrer = "/some/page/referrer/1"
3  OR pageReferrer = "/some/page/referrer/2"
4  OR pageReferrer = "/some/page/referrer/3"
5  OR pageReferrer = "/some/page/referrer/4"
6  OR pageReferrer = "/some/page/referrer/5"

After

1SELECT COUNT(*) FROM userevent
2WHERE pageReferrer IN ("/some/page/referrer/1",
3  "/some/page/referrer/2",
4  "/some/page/referrer/3",
5  "/some/page/referrer/4",
6  "/some/page/referrer/5")

GROUP BY `<grouping>`

Whenever fields are aggregated, you must specify corresponding GROUP BY keywords to indicate how the aggregation is to be performed.

1grouping: <column>, ...

1SELECT city, count(*) FROM usersession GROUP BY city
2SELECT MONTH(starttime) as month, count (*) FROM usersession
3GROUP BY month

LIMIT `<limit>`

Allows you to limit the number of returned results. For example, you can select only the top 10 results when it is combined with ordering.

The framework always applies an upper limit to prevent system overload. If LIMIT is not used, 50 results are returned by default.

1SELECT city, starttime FROM usersession ORDER BY starttime DESC LIMIT 10

LIMIT can also be used to increase the number of results in cases where the LIMIT clause is missing, because then a default limit is applied.

ORDER BY `<ordering>`

Allows you to order the results by columns, in either ascending or descending order. The order is ascending if not specified.

The ordering is done by frequency. For example, the top 5 returned cities are the most frequently occurring ones. By specifying a field in the ORDER BY clause, you can add a sort-by value for strings, dates, and numbers.

Ordering by enums or by function values such as AVG and SUM orders the returned results, but you may not get the top items. For example, if you request the top 5 results by AVG(duration), requesting only 10 may add results even at the top.

1ordering: <column> ASC | <column> DESC | <column>, ...

1SELECT useraction.name, starttime FROM usersession ORDER BY starttime DESC

You can achieve ordering of counts by adding the DISTINCT keyword.

1SELECT DISTINCT city, COUNT(*) FROM usersession ORDER BY COUNT(*) DESC

You can achieve ordering of functions in the select list by stating the column name only or the alias defined in the SELECT.

1SELECT avg(duration) AS average, count(*) as number, day(startTime) as startDay
2FROM usersession where duration < 2000
3GROUP BY startTime
4ORDER BY average

1SELECT avg(duration) AS average, count(*) as number, day(startTime) as startDay
2FROM usersession where duration < 2000
3GROUP BY startTime
4ORDER BY number DESC, average ASC

LIKE

Allows you to compare data with an expression by using wildcard characters to match the specified pattern. You can use the following characters:

% or *: Matches any string of 0 or more characters
?: Matches any single character

String values are case-sensitive. For example, SELECT city FROM usersession WHERE userId LIKE "*dynatrace*" matches me@dynatrace.com but not me@dynaTrace.com. To avoid this, use the ? wildcard character as in this example: SELECT city FROM usersession WHERE userId LIKE "*dyna?race*"

To escape a wildcard character, add a backslash \ before it. For example, \%, \*, and \? are treated as standard string literals %, *, and ?.

To escape a backslash \ itself, add another backslash \ before it. The resulting \\ entry is treated as a single backslash \.

If you add two backslashes \\ before a wildcard character (resulting in entries like \\%, \\*, or \\?), such an entry is treated as one escaped backslash \ and one wildcard character. For example, the \\* entry matches \abc, \123ABC, or \.

Summary of how to escape wildcard characters:

Entry	Treated as	Matches
`\%`	`%`	`%`
`\*`	`*`	`*`
`\?`	`?`	`?`
`\\`	`\`	`\`
`\\%`	`\` and any string of zero or more characters	`\abc`, `\123ABC`, `\`, etc.
`\\*`	`\` and any string of zero or more characters	`\abc`, `\123ABC`, `\`, etc.
`\\?`	`\` and any single character	`\a`, `\1`, `\A`, etc.

Examples of how to escape wildcard characters:

1SELECT userId FROM usersession WHERE userId LIKE "AU\%40KWM"

The query matches userId that equals AU%40KWM.

1SELECT userId FROM usersession WHERE userId like "AU\*40KWM"

The query matches userId that equals AU*40KWM.

1SELECT userId FROM usersession WHERE userId LIKE "AU\?40KWM"

The query searches for a userId that equals AU?40KWM.

1SELECT userId FROM usersession WHERE userId LIKE "AU\\%40KWM"

The query has one escaped backslash \ and one wildcard character %, so the query matches a userId such as AU\40KWM, AU\abcd40KWM, AU\ab12340KWM, or AU\777_12340KWM.

USQL queries that have 11 or more LIKE conditions with * or % at the beginning or inside the search pattern (but not at the end) are rejected from execution.

Usually, we simply count the number of LIKE conditions used in the query. For example, there are five LIKE conditions in the query below—we count each occurrence of LIKE in the WHERE clause and the CONDITION function.

1SELECT CONDITION(COUNT(userSessionId), WHERE useraction.name LIKE '*search.html'),
2       CONDITION(COUNT(userSessionId), WHERE useraction.name LIKE '*booking-payment1.html')
3FROM usersession
4WHERE city LIKE "%York"
5    OR city LIKE "S*Francisco"
6    AND city LIKE "L*inz"

However, when the FUNNEL function is used, the calculation becomes more complicated. For this function, we internally transform one query into several queries. After that transformation, we count the number of LIKE conditions in those internally transformed queries.

For example, the following query:

1SELECT FUNNEL (useraction.name LIKE "*start", useraction.name LIKE "Jou%rney", useraction.name LIKE "bookJourn*ey") FROM usersession

is changed to the following three queries:

1SELECT COUNT(*) FROM usersession where useraction.name LIKE "*start"
2SELECT COUNT(*) FROM usersession where useraction.name LIKE "*start" AND useraction.name LIKE "Jou%rney"
3SELECT COUNT(*) FROM usersession where useraction.name LIKE "*start" AND useraction.name LIKE "Jou%rney" AND useraction.name LIKE "bookJourn*ey"

This means there are actually six LIKE conditions in the FUNNEL query above.

FILTER

Allows you to filter for functions that have numeric values, thereby displaying only specific results from aggregations.

1SELECT useraction.application,
2AVG(usersession.doubleProperties.bookings)
3FILTER > 1500
4FROM usersession
5WHERE usersession.doubleProperties.bookings IS NOT NULL
6GROUP BY useraction.application

The WHERE and FILTER functions aren't interchangeable. While you can use the WHERE clause only on absolute values, the FILTER function works on aggregated values as well.

Frequently used functions

MIN(field)

Queries the minimum value of a numeric or date field.

1SELECT MIN(duration), MAX(duration), AVG(duration), MEDIAN(duration)
2FROM usersession

MAX(field)

Queries the maximum value of a numeric or date field.

1SELECT MIN(duration), MAX(duration), AVG(duration), MEDIAN(duration)
2FROM usersession

AVG(field)

Queries the average value of a numeric or date field. May be NaN if the field is always null.

1SELECT MIN(duration), MAX(duration), AVG(duration), MEDIAN(duration)
2FROM usersession

MEDIAN(field)

Queries the median value of a numeric or date field.

1SELECT MIN(duration), MAX(duration), AVG(duration), MEDIAN(duration)
2FROM usersession

SUM(field)

Computes the sum of a numerical field.

1SELECT TOP(name, 20), SUM(duration) FROM useraction
2GROUP BY name

COUNT(field), COUNT(*), COUNT(DISTINCT field)

Counts the number of rows that match.

COUNT(*): Counts the number of matching items.
COUNT(<field>): Counts the number of matching items where <field> is not null.
COUNT(DISTINCT <field>): Counts the number of different values for <field> within the selected items.

1SELECT country, COUNT(*), COUNT(city), COUNT(DISTINCT city)
2FROM usersession
3GROUP BY country

Results returned by the COUNT(DISTINCT <field>) function are approximate to prevent high memory usage. If COUNT(DISTINCT <field>) is used on a high-cardinality field, results might be even more rough. High-cardinality fields are those fields that have only few duplicates.

Table	Fields
`usersession`	`ip` , `userSessionId` , `internalUserId` , `userId`

Dynatrace rejects and doesn't execute the queries with COUNT(DISTINCT <field>) that might consume a lot of memory. This happens for all extremely high-cardinality fields, for example, for the dateTime fields like usersession.startTime, usersession.endTime, or useraction.networkTime.

Table	Fields
`usersession`	`startTime` , `endTime` , `replayEnd` , `clientTimeOffset`, `duration` , `replayStart`
`useraction`	`domContentLoadedTime` , `startTime` , `firstPartyBusyTime` , `documentInteractiveTime` , `navigationStart` , `totalBlockingTime` , `largestContentfulPaint` , `visuallyCompleteTime` , `cdnBusyTime` , `endTime` , `domCompleteTime` , `networkTime` , `loadEventStart` , `serverTime` , `firstInputDelay` , `responseStart` , `thirdPartyBusyTime` , `duration` , `loadEventEnd` , `responseEnd` , `frontendTime` , `requestStart`
`userevent`	`startTime`
`usererror`	`startTime`

1SELECT country, COUNT(*), COUNT(city), COUNT(DISTINCT city)
2FROM usersession
3GROUP BY country

TOP(field, n)

Returns the top <n> results from a field. The default is 1 (the top value) if n is not specified.

1SELECT TOP(name, 20), SUM(duration)
2FROM useraction
3GROUP BY name

If TOP(<field>, n) is selected and the results are grouped, but <field> is not part of the grouping, the top-n elements return as a list within a single field.

1SELECT TOP(country, 20), TOP(city, 3), COUNT(*)
2FROM usersession
3GROUP BY country

YEAR(datefield), MONTH(datefield), DAY(datefield), HOUR(datefield), MINUTE(datefield)

Returns the given element extracted from a date field.

YEAR: The four-digit year.
MONTH: The month number, between 1 and 12
DAY: The day of the month, between 1 and 31.
HOUR: The hour value, between 0 and 23.
MINUTE: The minute value, between 0 and 59.

1SELECT starttime,
2DATETIME(starttime), YEAR(starttime), MONTH(starttime), DAY(starttime), HOUR(starttime), MINUTE(starttime)
3FROM usersession
4ORDER BY starttime DESC

DATETIME(datefield [, format [, interval]])

Formats the selected date field with the given format string. The default format is yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm.

The allowed letters within the format string are:

y: year
M: month
d: day of month
H: hour (0-23)
h: hour (1-12)
m: minute
s: second
E: day of week (Mon-Sun)

The year|month|week intervals are for a single interval. For d (days), h (hours), m (minutes), or s (seconds), you can use a number followed by the letter for the format string, such as 5m. For example, SELECT DISTINCT DATETIME(starttime, 'HH:mm', '5m'), COUNT(*) FROM usersession counts sessions in five-minute time blocks.

1SELECT DATETIME(starttime, 'yyyy-MM') FROM usersession
2SELECT DISTINCT DATETIME(starttime, 'HH:mm', '5m'), COUNT(*) FROM usersession

Similar to other date functions (YEAR, MONTH, DAY, HOUR, and MINUTE), you can use DATETIME to format a result (even the result of other functions like MAX, MIN, AVG, or CONDITION), create histograms, or retrieve a list of timestamps where there are results, for example, the days of a week when an application was used.

1SELECT application, DATETIME(MAX(starttime)) AS LastUsedTime FROM useraction GROUP BY application
2
3SELECT DATETIME(starttime, "HH") AS hourOfDay, COUNT(*) FROM usersession GROUP BY hourOfDay
4
5SELECT application, DATETIME(starttime, "E") AS daysOfWeek FROM useraction GROUP BY application
6
7SELECT DATETIME(CONDITION(MAX(startTime), WHERE name = "index.jsp")) FROM useraction

CONDITION(function, condition)

Allows you to combine multiple functions with various conditions.

The allowed functions within the format string are as follows:

MIN()
MAX()
AVG()
SUM()
PERCENTILE()
MEDIAN()
COUNT()

You can combine multiple conditions using Boolean logic and parentheses with the CONDITION function, such as CONDITION(COUNT(*), WHERE city = 'Barcelona' AND country = 'Spain') to include only cities named Barcelona that are in Spain.

1CONDITION(function, condition)
2
3condition:
4(condition AND condition) | (condition OR condition) | field IN(...) |
5field IS <value> | field IS NULL | field = <value> | field > <value> | field < <value> |
6field <> <value> | field IS NOT <value> | field BETWEEN <value> AND <value> | ...

You can also use the FILTER clause filter for functions that have numeric values, thereby displaying only specific results from aggregations.

1SELECT CONDITION(COUNT(usersessionId), WHERE userActionCount > 2 AND useraction.name = "search.jsp") FILTER > 1000, city FROM usersession GROUP BY city

1SELECT CONDITION(COUNT(usersessionId), WHERE userActionCount > 2 AND useraction.name = "search.jsp") FROM usersession
2
3SELECT CONDITION(SUM(usersession.duration), WHERE name = "index.jsp") AS c1, CONDITION(SUM(usersession.duration), WHERE name = "search.jsp") AS c2, CONDITION(SUM(usersession.duration), WHERE name IS NOT "index.jsp" AND name IS NOT "search.jsp") AS c3 FROM useraction WHERE (duration > 1000 OR usersession.userActionCount > 4)
4
5SELECT CONDITION(SUM(usersession.duration), WHERE name = "index.jsp") AS c1 FROM useraction WHERE (duration > 1000 OR usersession.userActionCount > 4) ORDER BY c1
6
7SELECT DATETIME(CONDITION(MIN(startTime ), WHERE useraction.application = "RUM Default Application" ), "yyyy-MM-dd" ) FROM usersession

PERCENTILE

Represents a value below which there's a percentage of data points lower in value. Useful in detecting the speed of your application for customers who receive the slowest response time.

1SELECT name, usersession.country, usersession.browserFamily,
2AVG(duration),
3MEDIAN(duration),
4PERCENTILE(duration, 99)
5FROM useraction
6WHERE useraction.name = "easytravel/rest/login"
7GROUP BY usersession.country, usersession.browserFamily, name
8ORDER BY usersession.continent

KEYS(customProperty)

Returns keys of user action or user session properties according to the property data type defined in the argument.

Check the table below to understand whether keys of user action properties or keys of user session properties are returned.

KEYS(customProperty)	Table	Action properties	Session properties
`KEYS(<dataType>Properties)`	`useraction`
`KEYS(<dataType>Properties)`	`usersession`
`KEYS(useraction.<dataType>Properties)`	`useraction`
`KEYS(useraction.<dataType>Properties)`	`usersession`
`KEYS(usersession.<dataType>Properties)`	`useraction`
`KEYS(usersession.<dataType>Properties)`	`usersession`

The <dataType> part of the function can take the following values:

string
long
double
date

1SELECT KEYS(stringProperties) FROM useraction WHERE application = "easyTravel demo application"
2SELECT KEYS(useraction.longProperties) FROM usersession WHERE applicationType="WEB_APPLICATION" ORDER BY keys(useraction.longProperties)
3SELECT KEYS(usersession.stringProperties) FROM useraction WHERE usersession.city ="Berlin"

For fetching distinct keys of action or session properties, use DISTINCT KEYS(customProperty).

1SELECT DISTINCT KEYS(stringProperties) FROM useraction WHERE useraction.application = "easyTravel demo application" ORDER BY keys(stringProperties)
2SELECT DISTINCT KEYS(doubleProperties) FROM usersession

Mathematical operations

The following operations are supported as part of queries:

operations on numbers
operations on numeric and dateTime fields
operations on certain functions such as YEAR, MONTH, DAY, HOUR, MINUTE
operations on numeric values and display them in different uses of measurement

Syntax

Number/NumericField/DateTimeField/Function OPERATOR Number/NumericField/DateTimeField/Function

Function: YEAR, MONTH, DAY, HOUR or MINUTE Operator: +, -, *, /, %, or MOD

1SELECT 7 + 80 * 100, duration + startTime, MONTH(startTime) - 1
2FROM usersession

Conditions

All conditions must start with an identifier, such as a field name, and must be compared against a value. Two fields can't be compared against each other.

Quoted text is always case-sensitive.

Basic operators

The basic operators for comparison are =, !=, <>, <, >, <=, >=, IS, and IS NOT.

To check if the value of a field is present, compare the field against NULL.

1SELECT userId FROM usersession WHERE userActionCount > 3

Ranges

Ranges are handled by keywords such as BETWEEN or NOT BETWEEN, <lowerLimit>, and <upperLimit>.

1SELECT DISTINCT ip FROM usersession
2WHERE ip BETWEEN '192.168.0.0' AND '192.168.255.255'

1SELECT startTime FROM useraction
2WHERE NOT startTime BETWEEN $NOW - DURATION("2h") AND $NOW

1SELECT ip, browserType, userId, city
2FROM usersession
3WHERE NOT ip BETWEEN '52.179.11.1' AND '52.179.11.255'

Sets

The IN keyword can be used shorten "WHERE" <field> = val1 OR <field> = val2 OR <field> = val3.

1SELECT userId FROM usersession WHERE city IN ("NEW YORK", "San Francisco")

String conditions

The "STARTSWITH" string condition checks whether a string or an enum field starts with the specified text.

1SELECT city FROM usersession WHERE userId STARTSWITH "dynatrace"

Datetime values

When conditions are run on a datetime field, the following value formats are supported:

Format	Description	Example
—	Unix timestamp as a number in milliseconds	`1514152800000`
`yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ssZ`	ISO datetime with the time zone	`2017-12-24T21:00:00+01:00`
`yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss`	Date with optional time	`2017-12-24 21:00`
`yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss`	Date with optional time	`2017/12/24 21`
`MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss`	Date with optional time	`12/24/2017`
`dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm:ss`	Date with optional time	`24.12.2017 21:00:00`

For the formats where time is optional, the following time formats are supported:

Format	Example
`HH:mm:ss`	`08:20:59`
`H:mm:ss`	`8:20:59`
`HH:mm`	`08:20`
`H:mm`	`8:20`
`HH`	`08`
`H`	`8`

If the time is missing, the default 00:00:00 is assumed.

Sometimes, queries with datetime values might yield incorrect results due to the Daylight Saving Time conversion. If the date in the query is before the Daylight Saving Time end date (for example, before November 7, 2021 02:00), try using the ISO datetime with a time offset, for example, 2021-10-05T17:30:00+03:00.

1SELECT starttime FROM usersession WHERE starttime > "8.8.2018 8:00"

Advanced syntax constructs

Query IP ranges

The IP field can be queried for ranges of addresses. Both BETWEEN ip > <lower ipaddress range> AND ip < <upper ipaddress range> or BETWEEN <lower ipaddress range> AND <lower ipaddress range> work.

1SELECT * FROM usersession WHERE ip > '211.44.94.0' AND ip < '212.113.5.0'
2SELECT * FROM usersession WHERE ip BETWEEN '211.44.94.0' AND '212.113.5.0'

Query timeframe selector

You can use the following keywords to select the start time and end time as defined in the timeframe selector.

TIME_FRAME_START
TIME_FRAME_END

1SELECT * FROM usersession WHERE startTime >= $TIME_FRAME_START AND endTime < $TIME_FRAME_END

Timeframe selectors can be used to limit the timeframe on queries that are run on secondary tables (useraction). By default, the timeframe filter is applied on the usersession table, even if the query is run on any secondary table. To apply the filter on a secondary table as well, you can use the timeframe selector to add a condition on the startTime field of the secondary table. See the following example to fetch the name and duration of user actions that occurred only in the query timeframe:

1SELECT name, duration FROM useraction
2WHERE startTime BETWEEN $TIME_FRAME_START and $TIME_FRAME_END

Query relative timeframe

You can select a timeframe relative to the time when the query was run. The current time is expressed with the $NOW variable.

$NOW [+/-] DURATION("[number]TIME_UNIT")

The following time units are supported to express the duration:

y: year
q: quarter
M: month
d: day
w: week
h: hour
m: minute
s: second

1SELECT * FROM usersession WHERE startTime >= $NOW - DURATION("1q") AND endTime <= $NOW
2SELECT * FROM useraction WHERE startTime BETWEEN $NOW - DURATION("2h") AND $NOW
3SELECT * FROM useraction WHERE usersession.startTime >= $TIME_FRAME_START - DURATION("2h") AND $NOW - DURATION("1h")

The timeframe selected in the Dynatrace web UI or Dynatrace API still applies to the results, even if timestamp-based filtering is used as part of your query.

Secondary tables for `usersession`, `useraction`, `userevent`, and `usererror`

When using SELECT with usersession, useraction, userevent, or usererror, columns from the other table can be accessed and included in the results by prefixing column names with the table name.

Selecting a logical view of the usersession or the useraction table. Multiple values concatenate in the resulting column when adding information from useraction into a query on usersession.

1SELECT city, useraction.name FROM usersession
2SELECT usersession.city, name FROM useraction

You can use other secondary tables userevent and usererror in the same way.

1SELECT usersession.country, name, page FROM userevent
2
3SELECT usersession.country, name, type FROM usererror
4
5SELECT country, userevent.name, usererror.name FROM usersession

When you query from the usersession primary table, you can combine fields from other secondary tables (useraction, userevent, and usererror). You can use fields from the secondary tables in the WHERE condition too.

1SELECT city, useraction.name, userevent.page, usererror.type FROM usersession
2
3SELECT city, usererror.name, userevent.page, useraction.duration FROM usersession WHERE usererror.name IS NOT NULL

Listing all user sessions that contain a user event or a user action from the same application.

1SELECT * FROM usersession
2WHERE userevent.application = "a" OR useraction.application="a"

When you query from any of the secondary tables (useraction, userevent, or usererror), you can use fields only from the usersession primary table; you can't use fields from other secondary tables. For example, the query below fails, as the selected table is userevent, which means that only fields from userevent or usersession can be selected.

1SELECT usersession.city, useraction.name, userevent.page, usererror.type FROM userevent

The same limitation applies to other secondary tables—useraction and usererror.

The following queries won't fail, as only fields from the selected secondary table and from the primary table are used.

1SELECT usersession.userId, name, duration FROM useraction
2
3SELECT usersession.userId, name, type FROM usererror

Applied conditions differ in meaning depending on the table. For example, consider that you want to list all user sessions that contain user actions with names a and b:

1SELECT * FROM usersession
2WHERE useraction.name = "a" AND useraction.name = "b"

This means, the session must contain a user action with name "a" and a user action with the name "b". Running the same query on the useraction table returns an empty result as the same user action can't have two different values for the name.

If you want to select user session data for a specific user action that matches several criteria, run the following query on the useraction table.

1SELECT usersession.*, * FROM useraction
2WHERE useraction.name = "a" AND useraction.duration > 1000

In this case, each user action in the result satisfies both conditions.

Let's take a look at another query.

1SELECT COUNT(usersession.userSessionId)
2FROM usersession
3WHERE userevent.name = 'Page change'
4  AND userevent.pageGroup = '/Booking'
5  AND userevent.type = 'UserTag'

Because the query is run on the usersession table, the conditions are applied on the total set of user events that belong to a single session. This means that any user session with user events that satisfy the conditions is reflected in the count. For example, if a user session contains three user events that each satisfy one of the given conditions, the user session is reflected in the count.

If you run the same query on the userevent table, the conditions are applied on each individual user event. This means that only user sessions that have at least one user event that satisfies all conditions are reflected in the count.

1SELECT COUNT(usersession.userSessionId)
2FROM userevent
3WHERE userevent.name = 'Page change'
4  AND userevent.pageGroup = '/Booking'
5  AND userevent.type = 'UserTag'

Filters for primary tables

Filters can be applied only to primary tables. Consider the following example:

1SELECT useraction.name FROM usersession WHERE useraction.name=”abc”

This query returns a list of all user actions from only those user sessions that contain user actions called abc. This happens because the query is applied on all user sessions that match your filter (which is the primary table) instead of the user actions (which form the secondary table).

1SELECT name FROM useraction WHERE name=”abc”

This query retrieves the list of all user actions called “abc” from all user sessions (which form the primary table).

SELECT * FROM table

1SELECT * FROM usersession
2SELECT useraction.* FROM usersession
3SELECT city, useraction.* FROM usersession
4SELECT *, useraction.* FROM usersession

An asterisk * by itself selects columns from the main table, not the secondary table. For example, fields from useraction are not included in SELECT * FROM usersession, unless you include useraction.*.

JSON export

1SELECT usersessionId, browserFamily, useraction.name, useraction.duration, JSON
2FROM usersession LIMIT 5

Escaping strings

String literals can be put within single or double quotes. However, if you want to use the same quotation mark inside the string, simply double it.

1SELECT * FROM usersession WHERE userId = "some 'custom' name for ""my user"""
2SELECT * FROM usersession WHERE userId = 'some ''custom'' name for "my user"'

Funnel charting

Funnel charting allows you to track steps through your digital service and investigate the areas of struggle faced by your users. In conjunction with Session Replay, this functionality allows you to see at which point your user is struggling in your application.

1SELECT FUNNEL(
2useraction.name = "AppStart (easyTravel)" AS "Open easytravel",
3useraction.name = "searchJourney" AS "Search journey",
4useraction.name = "bookJourney" AS "Book journey",
5useraction.matchingConversionGoals = "Payment" OR useraction.matchingConversionGoals = "booking-finished" AS "Booked")
6FROM usersession

You can also filter for a specific segment. An example of this is using Session properties to extract the list of high priority customers.

1SELECT FUNNEL(
2useraction.name = "AppStart (easyTravel)" AS "Open easytravel",
3useraction.name = "searchJourney" AS "Search journey",
4useraction.name = "bookJourney" AS "Book journey",
5useraction.matchingConversionGoals = "Payment" OR useraction.matchingConversionGoals = "booking-finished" AS "Booked")
6FROM usersession
7WHERE stringProperties.memberstatus="GOLD"

Available user session data tables and fields

For user session data, the following tables are available.

usersession contains information on user sessions.
useraction stores data on user actions.
userevent provides information on user events, such as page changes or rage events.
usererror contains more data on error events, which are errors and crashes.

Secondary tables for usersession, useraction, userevent, and usererror include a description of how data in one of those tables is available in the other.

The fields are described in User sessions API - User session structure.

You can also check the UserSession object in the API Explorer.

Run USQL queries for custom reports

A REST interface allows you to get results for your custom queries. All you need is to create a unique API token with the User session query language privilege. The ability to query user session data this way is useful in automated testing, data verification, and other automated functions. It includes the following endpoints:

/table: Returns the data as a flat table, even when grouping by various items and performing hierarchical aggregations against the user session data.

/tree: Returns the data as a full hierarchical tree based on the input.

The following query-parameters are available:

query: Needs to be encoded when put into a URL, for example, %20 instead of spaces. startTimestamp/endTimestamp: Allows you to define points in time, passed as the number of milliseconds since the Unix epoch. If not specified, this defaults to the last two hours.

This code:

1curl --location --insecure -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Authorization: Api-Token _token_" \
2-XGET "https://{your-environment-id}.live.dynatrace.com/api/v1/userSessionQueryLanguage/table?query=select%20city,count(*)%20from%20usersession%20group%20by%20city"

provides the following result:

1{
2    "columnNames": ["city",    "count(*)"],
3    "values": [
4        ["Dublin",    23],
5        ["N. Virginia (Amazon)",    80],
6        ["Portland",    56]
7    ]
8}

This code:

1curl --location --insecure -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Authorization: Api-Token _token_" \
2-XGET "https://{your-environment-id}.live.dynatrace.com/api/v1/userSessionQueryLanguage/tree?query=select%20country,city,count(*)%20from%20usersession%20group%20by%20country,city"

provides the following result:

1{
2    "branchNames": ["country",    "city"],
3    "leafNames": ["count(*)"],
4    "values": {
5        "United States": {
6            "Portland": [56],
7            "N. Virginia (Amazon)": [83]
8        },
9        "Ireland": {
10            "Dublin": [24]
11        }
12    }
13}

Learn more about user sessions API.

Convert queries into USQL custom metrics

You can convert some queries into USQL custom metrics for your web, mobile, and custom applications.

USQL custom metrics are available as user session custom metrics (USCMs) and user action custom metrics (UACMs). User action custom metrics are supported since Dynatrace version 1.260.

In the Dynatrace menu, go to Query user sessions.
Enter the query, and then select Run query.
For a list of supported fields, see the detailed guides for your web, mobile, and custom applications.
Select Create custom metric.
Enter the metric name, and then review the proposed settings.

Limitations

Dynatrace stores and retains Real User Monitoring (user actions and user sessions) for a limited period of time. See Data retention periods for details.
The default result set is 50 but the number of results can be increased to a maximum of 5000 by using the LIMIT keyword.
The number of potential maximum bucketed results is limited to a maximum of 100,000. The default is 10,000.
This affects how TOP() is applied when DISTINCT or GROUP BY is used. If no TOP() is specified, 10,000 possible results are spread evenly across the specified columns. These default values can be overwritten by specifying a TOP() for each column. The multiplied TOP()- values can't exceed 100,000 results.
- The TOP() function can be used to increase the number of different values per aggregation.
- The maximum number of different results per aggregation is limited to 1000.
- The following query uses at most 10,000 theoretical possible results: select browserFamily, city, count * FROM usersession group by browserFamily, city
- The following query includes TOP() and can therefore use up to 100,000 (100 × 1000) theoretical possible results: select TOP(browserFamily, 1000), TOP(city, 100), count * FROM usersession group by browserFamily, city
Joins aren't allowed.
Only one table is allowed per SELECT.
Searches for string-values with regular expressions aren't supported.
Two different fields can't be compared. For example WHERE field1 = field2 doesn't work.
WHERE conditions only work on fields, so neither WHERE true nor WHERE COUNT(*) > 3 is supported.
Only closed user sessions can be queried. Live user sessions aren't taken into account.
Ordering is partially supported.

For example, ordering by mathematical operation is not supported.
```
1SELECT endTime - startTime AS duration FROM usersession ORDER BY duration
```
Functions aren't allowed in the GROUP BY clause. Therefore, if you want to group by month, specify an alias.
FUNNEL can't be used with the SELECT * functions, keywords such as JSON, and the GROUP BY, ORDER and LIMIT statements.
For mathematical operations, support for GROUP BY, ORDER BY, and other operations on functions is not available.
A maximum of 10 conditions can be applied to FUNNEL.

Custom queries, segmentation, and aggregation of session data

Timeframe selector with USQL

Timeframe selector controls

Timeframe selector expressions

Autocomplete with USQL

Timeframes in Environment API

Keywords and functions

Syntax

Frequently used keywords

SELECT <columns>

FUNNEL

FROM <table>

WHERE <condition>

GROUP BY <grouping>

LIMIT <limit>

ORDER BY <ordering>

LIKE

FILTER

Frequently used functions

MIN(field)

MAX(field)

AVG(field)

MEDIAN(field)

SUM(field)

COUNT(field), COUNT(*), COUNT(DISTINCT field)

TOP(field, n)

YEAR(datefield), MONTH(datefield), DAY(datefield), HOUR(datefield), MINUTE(datefield)

DATETIME(datefield [, format [, interval]])

CONDITION(function, condition)

PERCENTILE

KEYS(customProperty)

Mathematical operations

Syntax

Conditions

Basic operators

Ranges

Sets

String conditions

Datetime values

Advanced syntax constructs

Query IP ranges

Query timeframe selector

Query relative timeframe

Secondary tables for usersession, useraction, userevent, and usererror

Filters for primary tables

SELECT * FROM table

JSON export

Escaping strings

Funnel charting

Available user session data tables and fields

Run USQL queries for custom reports

Convert queries into USQL custom metrics

Limitations

SELECT `<columns>`

FROM `<table>`

WHERE `<condition>`

GROUP BY `<grouping>`

LIMIT `<limit>`

ORDER BY `<ordering>`

Secondary tables for `usersession`, `useraction`, `userevent`, and `usererror`