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What is User Identification?
What is User Identification?

Learn more about how User Identification works.

Gabriel avatar
Written by Gabriel
Updated over a week ago

Overview

By default, UserGuiding stores user history on the browser's local storage. The container code installed on your platform recognizes your end-users (based on unique browser sessions) and creates unique user IDs for them.

Each user's event history (seeing a guide or responding to any survey) is linked to their unique IDs. As long as the user's browser session is the same, their event history is kept.

However, suppose they clear the browser's local storage, change the computer/browser, or log in through incognito mode. In that case, a new ID is generated for the same user, leading to the same user being counted multiple times.

Alternative to the default method, we have a feature called User Identification.

Benefits of Enabling User Identification

With this feature, you can send precise user IDs to your end-users. This cancels out the Monthly Active Users (MAU) quota dependency on unique browser sessions. Instead, you start defining your exact MAU count with the IDs you send us.
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For instance, if you send 2,000 IDs for 2,000 different users, only those people can see the live UG contents (Guide, Checklist, etc.) you have. Your MAU quota will be exactly 2,000 users for that month.
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This feature has additional perks, such as having persisted user data at UserGuiding, detecting event history for specific users, and accessing our user API. You can learn how to enable User Identification through this article.

How does it work when User Identification is enabled?

The User IDs, other user attributes, and onboarding material usage data are kept in the cloud and retrieved accordingly each time an end-user visits your web platform, where UserGuiding is installed. You can access the onboarding material usage data by using the User API.

How does it work when User Identification is disabled?

As you may already know, UserGuiding generates random unique user IDs and stores them in your browser's local storage. In addition, users' UserGuiding histories and their properties are also kept in local storage.

Therefore, when a browser's local storage is cleared, user IDs and histories are also wiped out. We offer User Identification to keep the user data persisted in the cloud as a solution.

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