Insights Glossary

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Term	Definition
Account	Represents a buyer of your subscription product or service. Each Account object in Insights holds analytics data summarizing billing, collections, and subscription lifecycle events. Account objects typically correspond to organizational entities in B2B business models and individual people in B2C business models.
Attribute	Numeric or alphanumeric field that updates with no set frequency (e.g. Account Name or Industry) that describes an Account, User, or Event.
Batch	A set of one or more files that represents a complete (or incremental) snapshot of a data source at a point in time. Each file in a batch corresponds to a record type and contains zero or more records. Each batch has record types marked with the same Batch Date. Batches are saved permanently by Insights and can be "replayed" at any point in the future to reconstruct historical metric trends.
Batch Date	A timestamp on each batch that marks the set of raw data as the "source of truth" for the analytics generated by the system at that moment in time.
Calculated Field	Any Account or User field that Insights calculates using a standard set of patterns. Calculated Fields can be either metrics or attributes. For example, you may feed an event into Insights every time one of your subscribers views a video on a webpage. You can use the Count metric pattern (described below) on those events to create a metric called "Videos Viewed per Day".
Data Source	Represent an external provider of information related to your subscribers. Insights tracks changes in each data source by capturing regular incremental batches from each data source.
Data Types	Specifies the type of data a field in Insights can hold. Insights supports the following basic data types: Attribute values: string, picklist, number, true/false, date, and datetime. Numeric values: integer, decimal, currency, time interval, and percent Date formats: fixed and relative, ISO-8601 compliant is preferred. Insights will automatically determine the data type for each field based on data passed into Insights unless explicitly cast during your Implementation or modified in Settings.
Dataflow	A process in Insights that extracts data from Batches and transforms and loads it into Insights as: New or updated Account records and Account Primary Fields New or updated Users and User Primary Fields New Event records New Session records
Engagement Score	A predictive measurement of how different types of usage and other actions contribute to the Accounts' propensity to renew. The score is designed so that account(s) with the lowest predicted probability to renew have scores of 1, and those with the highest predicted probability to renew have scores of 100.
Event	Represents an individual activity performed on an Account or by a User. Events performed by a user are called Usage Events. This is in contrast with events performed on a user such sending him a promotional email, which is called a Marketing Event. Events occur at moments in time and always have an Event Type associated with them that describes the behavior performed by the subscriber (e.g. Logged In, Viewed Web Page).
Layout	The webpage arrangement of dashboard components used to present your Accounts' attribute and metrics. Account Layouts are configurable by Team Members with the Admin role and in addition to being a centerpiece of the Insights user experience, can be embedded on Salesforce Account Layouts.
Metric	Metrics are fields in Insights that quantify an Account or User's behavior at a repeating time interval -- either daily, weekly, or monthly. Metrics are always numeric. Metrics can be configured as either Primary Fields or Calculated Fields.
Persona	A descriptive representation of a User or Account's overall behavior profile with your product or service over the past four weeks.
Primary Field	Any Account or User field that you send directly into Insights from your other systems. For example, your application database may count the number of videos each subscriber views each day and you may want that data in Insights. You can send that number into Insights every day as a daily primary metric called "Videos Viewed per Day".
Record Type	Record types represent different objects from a data source. There can be one to many record types in a batch. The data for each record type file may be in CSV (comma- or pipe-delimited) or JSON object format.
Session	Represents a period of focused activity in your product or service by a single user. Your implementation of Insights will use either implicit or explicit sessions. Implicit Sessions: Your Insights tenant is configured to create new session records for your users any time a user initiates a new event and more than two hours have elapsed since his last event. Explicit Sessions: Your Insights tenant has session calculations turned off and it is your responsibility to send session records into Insights from your application or analytics tool.
Standard Field	Pre-built set of attribute and metric fields for both Account and User records available with every Insights tenant. Insights standard fields have proven to be generally useful for all customers and offer a starting point for additional custom attributes and metrics that you will want to track about your subscribers. View a full listing of Insights Standard Fields.
Segment	A group of subscribers (Accounts or Users) filtered by some criteria that is saved and whose members update dynamically Account and User data is updated. Segments are intended to help you understand how your subscribers behave in aggregate and serve as a basis for your growth, retention, and expansion business strategies and tactics.
Stream	A accumulation of all your subscriber data sources that encapsulates the entire Insights data lifecycle from data source batch ingestion to transformation, aggregation, loading, and data presentation and use in the Insights product interface.
Team Member	Anyone who has an account and permission to access Insights. Team members are assigned one of two roles in Insights: User: Affords access to view Account, User, and Segment dashboards as well as manage Segments. Admin: Affords all the same access as the User role, plus the ability to administer tenant settings.
User	Represents a user of your subscription product or service in Insights. Each User object in Insights holds analytics data usage and behavioral events. User objects typically represent individual people in both B2B (where the User may be an employee of a company who has purchased your subscription) and B2C business models (where the User is both using and paying for your service or product).