About Tasks
Tasks track whether users complete specific workflows in your application. You define the sequence of steps; Userlane records who starts, who finishes, and how long it takes.
Unlike guides or announcements, Tasks run silently. No in-app content is shown to users. Tasks observe the interactions you define and collect data automatically.
Why use it
Adoption data tells you who is logging in. Tasks data tells you whether users are completing the workflows that matter, and whether they are doing so efficiently.
When completion rates are low, Tasks shows at which step users are stopping. When efficiency rates are low, it shows where users are taking significantly longer than typical. Together these measures give you a picture of both whether your workflows are completing and how well users are performing them.
How Tasks work
A Task consists of at least two actions. This minimum allows Userlane to calculate a completion rate and time-based metrics.
Four action types are available:
- Click. Records left clicks on a selected element.
- Input. Records focus on an input field. Field content is not recorded or stored.
- Page. Records arrival at a specified URL. Wildcards are supported for dynamic paths.
- Element. Records when a specified element loads on the page.
You create and manage Tasks in the Userlane Editor. See Managing Tasks for setup guidance.
The Tasks page
The Tasks page shows performance across all active Tasks for the selected date range and audience.
Tasks performance over time
A stacked bar chart shows completed and abandoned task sessions across the selected period. Use this to spot trends before reviewing individual tasks.
The tasks table
The table lists all active Tasks. You can search by task name or download the full data set. Columns include:
- Name. The name given to the task in the Userlane Editor.
- Completion rate. The percentage of task sessions that reached the final action.
- Efficiency rate. The percentage of completions that fell within the expected time range for that task. A lower rate indicates that users are taking significantly longer than typical to get through the workflow.
- Median time. The median completion time across sessions that finished the task.
- Users. The number of distinct users who started the task at least once.
- Last time started. When the task was most recently started by any user.
Click any row to open the detail view for that task. All columns are sortable.
The Tasks detail page
The task detail page shows performance for a single task over the selected date range and audience.
Metrics
Six figures appear at the top of the page: completion rate, efficiency rate, task starts, task completions, median time, and when the task was last started. These give you a summary of activity and performance in a single view.
Task users
This section shows how users are developing proficiency with the task over time:
- Users started. Distinct users who triggered the first action at least once in the period.
- Users completed. Users who reached the final action, shown as a count and as a percentage of those who started.
- Regular users. Users who have completed this task at least three times in the period. These are the users included in the proficiency calculation.
- Proficient users. Regular users whose recent completions consistently fall within the expected time range for this task.
A bar chart shows all four values side by side.
Performance over time
A stacked bar chart shows completed and abandoned sessions across the selected period so you can see whether performance is stable, improving, or declining.
Action chart
The action chart shows performance across the steps you defined for this task, in the order you defined them. For each action, you can see total events, distinct users, and average time before the next step. This tells you how users are performing against the intended workflow at each point in the sequence.
Use the "Actions" dropdown to select which steps to display. Use the "Events" or "Users" dropdown to switch between an events view and a users view. The chart data can be downloaded as a CSV file.
Sankey chart
The Sankey chart shows how users actually move through the task, regardless of the defined order. Users may skip steps, complete them out of sequence, or loop between actions. The chart surfaces this real behaviour: each layer represents an action that occurred, and each path shows how many users moved from one point to the next, including where they stopped or diverged. A total completion figure appears at the end.
Use the "ROWS" input to control how many paths are visible at each layer. Open the chart in full screen for a larger view.
How the data works
Task session. A session begins when a user triggers the first action. The session is complete when the same user triggers the final action. If 30 minutes pass without another recorded interaction, the session is counted as abandoned.
Completion rate. Completions divided by starts, multiplied by 100.
Efficiency rate. The percentage of completions that fall within 1.5 times the median completion time for that task, calculated from the customer's own data. This measures consistency of pace, not speed in absolute terms.
Regular user. A user who has completed a given task at least three times in the scoring period.
Proficient user. A user who meets the efficiency threshold on at least half of their regular tasks.
Data refresh. Analytics data refreshes hourly.
