Flows

When to use it

• “What do people do right after they land on pricing?”
• “Which pages lead to sign-up?”
• “Where do people go when checkout fails?”

Flows show what actually happened. Funnels measure a path you have already decided on. Many people use Flows to find the path, then turn it into a funnel.

Build a flow

1. Go to Flows, click New flow, then Choose an anchor event.
2. Pick an event from Your events or Autocaptured. For a pageview anchor, a Path field appears. Type a page, such as /pricing, or leave it as Any page.
3. Choose a direction: Before, After (the default) or Both.
4. Set Steps from 1 to 5. The default is 3.
5. Choose the path window: Same session (the default), Within 1 hour, Within 6 hours, Within 24 hours or Within 7 days.

The filter bar sets people (segment), dates, source and property filters. Flows can’t compare to the previous period yet, so Compare is switched off here.

The Insight, Funnel, Flow and Retention switcher at the top turns the same question into another report type, on that report’s own page. Nothing is saved, and Undo on the toast brings you back.

Display options

The Display menu tidies the picture. A badge counts how many options you changed from the defaults.

• Hide passive events (on): leaves out scrolls and identify calls.
• Hide pageviews (off): shows only clicks and custom events.
• Pageviews by path (on): one step per page. IDs in paths are grouped, so /orders/8412 and /orders/9120 are one step.
• Collapse repeats (on): the same step twice in a row counts once.

Reading a flow

Switch between Flow, a diagram of bands between steps, and Table. On a phone, Table is the default.

• Each step shows its top 6 events or pages. The rest are grouped as Other.
• Paths that end are marked Session ends or Drop-off. Paths with nothing before them are marked Session starts or Nothing earlier. They are drawn dashed.
• The summary line says what you are looking at, for example 2,410 people did Signed up · paths before, 3 steps, same session.
• Click a band to see the people on it: up to the 100 most recent, under the flow’s anchor, window and filters.

Click a step for its menu:

• Split by a property… breaks that one step down by a property, such as Browser or Plan.
• Hide this event takes it out of the flow, so the paths close up around it.
• Add a step after this follows the paths one step further, up to 5.
• See the people and See their events.

Hidden events and a split show as chips under the controls, labelled Hide events and Split. Click a chip’s × to undo it. You can’t split or hide the anchor, Other, or the steps where paths begin or end.

In Table, Top paths lists up to 50 complete paths with how many people took each. By step lists each step’s top values with people and share.

From a path to a funnel

Next to a path in Top paths, or in the people panel for a step, click Open as funnel. A new funnel opens with those steps in order, up to 8. Nothing is saved until you click Save funnel. You can’t build a funnel from Other or a drop-off, because they aren’t events.

It works the other way too. On a funnel, Show paths between these steps opens a flow between two steps, with a way back to the funnel. Each step and band is coloured by whether its people reached the next funnel step, didn’t but kept browsing, or left.

Sampling

When more than 20,000 people did the anchor in the range, Flows follows a sample so the answer comes back quickly. The summary line says sampled and tells you how many people the flow follows.

• The sample is chosen by person ID, so it is the same people every time and results don’t jump around between refreshes.
• People counts come from the sample. Shares describe everyone.
• The people panel says from the sampled flow.

To follow everyone, narrow the date range, a source or a segment until fewer than 20,000 people did the anchor.

Saving

The whole flow lives in the page address, so a link reopens it exactly. To keep it for the team, click Save. The first Save asks which board to put it on: pick one, name a New board…, or choose Save without a board. You don’t have to name the flow. Until you do, its title follows the query, such as What people do after Signed up.

Once saved, Save as new makes a copy and Add to board puts it on another board. The Flows page lists saved flows, with All and Mine, search and sorting. Inside a flow, the Saved flows menu switches between them, and New flow starts fresh. Deleting a saved flow removes it for everyone. Links to it still open the flow they carry, unsaved.

Tips and gotchas

• “Too many distinct steps to draw”? Click Group all pageviews, or turn on Pageviews by path.
• Same session is the strictest window. For journeys that span days, such as sign-up then first project, use Within 24 hours or Within 7 days.
• Before and Both are how you answer “what leads to X?”.

Recipes