Realtime Monitoring

Monitor live visitors in Behavior Intelligence Realtime: 5–60 minute windows, auto-refresh KPIs, minute charts, breakdowns, and active session tables.

When to use Realtime

The Realtime page shows activity in a rolling recent window—not historical reporting. Use it when you need immediate confirmation that tracking works, when you are watching a product launch or webinar registration page, or when Ops needs to know whether a traffic surge is happening right now.

Realtime is not a replacement for Traffic or Sessions. It intentionally limits scope to the last few minutes so queries stay fast and the UI can refresh every 15 seconds without overloading your database.

Choosing a time window

Select 5, 15, 30, or 60 minutes from the window control. All KPIs, charts, and tables filter to events whose timestamps fall inside that window. Shorter windows feel more "live" but can look empty on low-traffic sites; longer windows smooth noise but delay visibility of sudden spikes.

The window is based on server-received timestamps (occurred_at_utc), not the visitor's local clock, so clock skew on client devices does not distort counts.

Live KPIs and auto-refresh

Three headline numbers anchor the page:

Active sessions — Sessions with at least one event in the window.
Total events — All ingested events (page views, clicks, scroll milestones, custom events).
Session count — Distinct sessions, which may differ slightly from active sessions depending on idle boundaries.

The page polls the REST endpoint /imaginit/v1/behavior/reports/realtime every 15 seconds. Leave the tab open during monitoring; switching away pauses visual updates until you return.

Interpreting sudden drops

If counts fall to zero during known traffic, check consent banners, ad blockers, or a deployment that removed the collector script. Data Quality shows ingest queue status; Settings shows whether tracking was disabled site-wide.

Live event series chart

The minute-by-minute series plots event volume across the selected window. Spikes align with email sends, social posts, or TV mentions. Flat lines during business hours on a normally busy site may indicate a collector outage—correlate with server logs and the ingest REST error rate.

Breakdown panels

Three compact breakdowns rank what is happening now:

Top pages — URLs receiving the most recent page views.
Event types — Mix of page_enter, click, scroll, and custom events.
Devices — Mobile vs desktop share in the live window.

These mirror Overview breakdowns but scoped to minutes instead of days.

Tip: Keep Realtime open on a secondary monitor during campaigns and compare the live series shape to the same clock time on prior launch days—you will spot delivery issues faster than waiting for daily aggregates.

Active visitors table

The active visitors table lists anonymous sessions currently in the window. Each row typically includes last seen page, device/browser hints, geo country when available, and recency. Sessions are pseudonymous—no PII is shown unless you explicitly track logged-in users and merge identity per Settings.

Click through to Sessions or Journeys for a full timeline when you need to inspect a specific visit after it ends. Realtime rows disappear once a session goes idle beyond the 30-minute session timeout.

Operational scenarios

Launch monitoring: Set a 15-minute window, watch the live series for the first 30 minutes after email send, and compare event types—surges in page_enter without clicks may mean CTA rendering issues.

Incident response: Zero events with normal server traffic implicates collector or consent, not CDN. Check Data Quality queue before rolling back unrelated deploys.

Editorial events: Live blogs during conferences show device skew in Realtime breakdowns; mobile-heavy audiences need mobile-tested CTAs verified in Tracking Plan the day before.

Limitations to remember

Realtime counts anonymous sessions; logged-in merge is optional. Geo may lag if database updates are pending. Ad blockers reduce counts unless bypass mode is enabled—compare Realtime with server logs only after confirming tracking health.

Additional best practices

Behavior Intelligence works best when tracking coverage, funnel definitions, and team review rituals stay aligned. Revisit this guide after major site changes—new theme, consent plugin, or checkout provider—and confirm Realtime, Data Quality, and Tracking Plan still agree.

Share direct help links from the in-app help panel so teammates read the same canonical definitions. Press Ctrl+K in the help center to jump between related guides quickly.

Align date ranges before comparing metrics across pages.
Document segment names when sharing screenshots.
Verify fixes in Realtime before closing Growth Plan items.
Keep UTM conventions consistent for Marketing and Traffic.
Schedule AI analysis after enough post-change data accumulates.

Working with the global toolbar

Every major Behavior Intelligence report page shares a global toolbar controlling date range, comparison mode, saved views, and active segments. Understanding this toolbar prevents the most common reporting mistake: discussing metrics that look contradictory because two pages use different ranges or filters.

Date ranges support presets (last 7, 28, 90 days) and custom intervals. Comparison mirrors the prior period of equal length. When comparison is off, KPI deltas hide—do not assume zero change. Saved views capture all toolbar state; teach teammates to check the view name in the header before screenshotting for leadership.

Connecting insights to action

Analytics value appears when insights change behavior. Behavior Intelligence routes findings through Growth Plan, Anomalies, and AI Intelligence into prioritized work. A metric without an owner becomes wallpaper. Assign DRI (directly responsible individual) per Growth Plan card and set verification dates.

Cross-link investigations: Traffic anomaly → Sessions sample → Journeys path → Tracking Plan coverage → Funnel step fix. This sequence resolves most conversion mysteries without external tools.

Data freshness expectations

Raw events ingest in near real time on Realtime. Daily aggregates power most dashboard KPIs and typically finalize after processor cron completes overnight in site timezone. Intraday numbers on Traffic are directional, not audit-final. Export via Report Builder after period close for finance-adjacent reporting.

Security and access control

Report data stays inside WordPress authenticated admin. REST endpoints require configured capabilities. Do not expose API keys or disable capability checks for convenience. View-only roles should not access Settings, Tracking Plan writes, or AI job triggers unless policy explicitly allows.

Module updates and compatibility

After Imaginit Core or Behavior Intelligence updates, revisit Getting Started verification steps: Realtime test, Data Quality health, one saved report run. Release notes may add event types or metrics—refresh Report Builder definitions if preview validation fails. Theme changes always trigger Tracking Plan re-crawl before trusting click metrics.