User activity
User activity in SaaS connects a user to an application and is a prerequisite for calculation of usage metrics.
Definition of activity
User activity connects a user to an application. It is a prerequisite for calculation of usage metrics and subscription optimization. It is also key to discovery of unknown SaaS and to application management.
User activity refers to when the user last had any activity in the application. The time for the latest activity, regardless of source, is presented in the Last active and Status columns in the SaaS tables. For some applications, activity cannot be monitored. If that is the case, this is also shown.
Usage and cost metrics for applications, subscriptions, and users are based on the user activity in respective applications. The table shows the definitions of user activity.
| Activity | Defintion |
|---|---|
| Active | User activity within the last 30 days. |
| Inactive | User activity more than 30 days ago. |
| No activity | No recorded user activity. |
| Not monitored | User activity cannot be measured for the application. |
Activity sources
Activity data can come from multiple sources. User activity in SaaS applications is collected by SaaS connectors and the Browser extension for SaaS or Agent-based browser extensions.
Some enterprise subscriptions, such as those for Microsoft 365 and Adobe Creative Cloud, include applications installed on devices. For more information, see Activity for Microsoft applications on devices and Activity for Adobe Creative Cloud.
To optimize subscriptions that include hybrid applications, user activity in applications installed on devices must be collected to get accurate usage metrics. For more information on this source, see Device application usage.
Runs
Agent-based browser extensions collect the number of times a user has accessed a SaaS application in their browser, as well as a time stamp. This is shown in the Runs column in user tables as the total number of times that the user has accessed the application.