Session Playback

Last Updated November 5, 2025

Brief Overview

Session Playback is an advanced data collection level in WalkMe Insights that enables you to view accurate recreations of real user sessions.

When enabled, Insights captures everything occurring in the Document Object Model (DOM), saves copies of all assets, and sends this information to WalkMe servers. This data allows Insights to recreate how users experienced your application—providing a complete, visual understanding of their interactions.

Session Playback builds on Digital Experience Analytics (DXA) to deliver the most detailed view of user activity available in WalkMe Insights.

Data retention

Session playback data remains accessible in WalkMe Insights for one year.

Use Cases

Use Session Playback to complement your analytics data with visual context and deeper behavioral insight.

Understand how users interact with your site and where they encounter friction
Identify why users drop off in funnels or guided flows
Validate behavior patterns observed in Digital Experience Analytics (DXA)
Support QA and troubleshooting with visual reproductions of user sessions
Provide Support teams with context to improve response time and resolution quality

Data Collection

Session Playback includes all data from WalkMe Engagement Analytics and Digital Experience Analytics (DXA), plus additional interaction-level information required to recreate user sessions.

Additional data includes:

Mouse position and movement
Page HTML snapshots and DOM changes
Input fields (if explicitly configured)
Focus in and out of fields
Changes to visible elements
Page scrolls
Text selection
Media playback
Page size

Captured assets are cached to ensure that sessions remain available even when your website content changes.

As a result, Session Playback can accurately recreate the following assets and visual behaviors:

HTML and CSS (including all standard web page and app elements)
CSS animations and hover effects
Vector graphics (SVG) and animations
Embedded iframes
Script-modified input values
Window resizing events
AJAX URL navigation
HTML5 audio and video playback
Multi-touch events (on mobile devices)

Enable Session Playback

You can enable Session Playback in the WalkMe Admin Center to begin viewing accurate recreations of user sessions.

In the WalkMe Admin Center, go to the Systems page
Select the relevant system
Open Data Settings
Select Data Selection Level
Choose Session Playback and Digital Experience Analytics
Select Save and Publish

Note

If the Data Collection Level settings are not visible, contact your Customer Success Manager or WalkMe representative to have them enabled.

Technical Notes

Public assets are retrieved directly from your web server for accuracy and security
The EU Data Center does not support Session Playback
Sites that are developed using Shadow Dom technology, such as Salesforce Lightning, do not support Session Playback
Session Playback does not currently support Mobile

Supported browsers

Session Playback operates on the following browsers:

Internet Explorer 11 and later
Edge
Chrome
Firefox
Safari (version 8 and later)

Note

Analytics events may still be collected from other browsers, but Session Playback recreations are only available for the browsers listed above.

Configuring session storage and security

Sessions are encrypted and stored securely on Amazon AWS, where they are retained for one year by default.

WalkMe Insights only tracks user activity on websites where WalkMe is installed. You can manage what data is collected using Traffic Management settings to exclude specific user groups or environments.

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