web-session

How many sessions does it take for a user to create an account or purchase something?
Now you can track these metrics!

What is a session anyway?
This is how a web session is defined by Google Analytics:

a period of time (30 minutes by default) that is extended automatically upon user interaction.

How does it end?

• after 30 minutes of inactivity.
• at midnight (based on your GA settings, not client timezone).
• campaign query change (utm or gclid)

A simple demo for the react implementation of this library that you can use to inspect the session data:

Usage

npm install --save web-session

And create a new session:

import WebSession from 'web-session';

const webSession = new WebSession();

// Initialize your session
webSession.init();

// After a location change or analytics event dispatched, call this function to update the session.
webSession.update();

API

type AnyObject<T = any> = Record<string, T>;
type NarrowPlainObject<T> = Exclude<T, any[] | ((...items: any[]) => any)>;

interface Options {
  /*
   * A function called on every update that receive the session data.
   * @default noop
   */
  callback: (session: Session) => void;
  /*
   * The session duration in minutes
   * @default 30
   */
  duration: number;
  /*
   * The max history size
   * @default 50
   */
  historySize: number;
  /*
   * The session name
   * @default 'WebSessionData'
   */
  name: string;
  /*
   * The session timezone used in GA
   * @default 'UTC'
   */
  timezone: string;
}

interface Origin {
  createdAt: string;
  href: string;
  referrer: string;
}

interface Session {
  current: CurrentSession;
  data?: AnyObject;
  history: Origin[];
  origin: Origin;
  visits: number;
}

constructor(options?: Partial<Options>)
Create a new instance.

init(options?: Partial<Options>)
Initialize the session. You can change the session options here.

update<T = AnyObject>(data?: T & NarrowPlainObject, replaceData = false)
Update/Replace the session data.

session
Get the current session.

Session data

({
  origin: {
    createdAt: '2000-01-01T00:15:00.000Z',
    href: '/',
    referrer: ''
  },
  current: {
    campaign: {},
    expiresAt: '2000-01-01T00:15:00.000Z',
    href: '/',
    referrer: ''
  },
  data: { // if using the optional data parameter with update
    something: true
  },
  history: [ // the different campaigns the user has entered in your site
    {
      createdAt: '2000-01-01T00:15:00.000Z',
      href: '/cpc?utm_source=cpc',
      referrer: ''
    }
  ],
  visits: 1
})

References

Counting web sessions with JavaScript by @Swizec
How a web session is defined in Analytics