How OWOX BI calculates unique users – OWOX Help Center

Note:On September 1, 2023, the changes in logic for calculating billable unique users in Hit-based streaming will become active: unique users will be calculated based on the userId and/or clientId fields within the OWOX BI Streaming ID. Learn more

What is a unique user in OWOX BI

A unique user is a website visitor associated with a unique identifier whose BigQuery data has been processed in OWOX BI within one month. User identifiers can vary — we will outline them later in this article.

OWOX BI processes unique users’ data when you use OWOX BI Streaming to collect user behavior data from your website to Google BigQuery.

The processing of user data is included in OWOX BI subscription plans. If the number of unique users processed within one month exceeds the number provided in your plan, you’ll be charged additionally. For plan limit details, read this article.

How unique users are identified and calculated in OWOX BI

Streaming How unique users are calculated

OWOX BI GA4 Events-based

Unique users are calculated using the owox.user_id field, depending on the privacy_info and request_source fields within the OWOX BI Streaming ID. Consider three cases:

Formula for events with user's consent

count(distinct(owox.user_id)) WHERE privacy_info.analytics_storage = 'Yes'

Formula for events without user's consent

Some events don't have either owox.user_id or any other identifiers. The cause is PII data processing according to Google Consent Mode.

count(distinct(owox.event_id))/10 WHERE privacy_info.analytics_storage = 'No'

Formula for events sent via Measurement Protocol

The owox.user_id and privacy_info.analytics_storage fields are always null for events sent via the measurement protocol.

count(distinct(owox.event_id)) WHERE owox.request_source = 'Measurement Protocol'

OWOX BI GAU Hit-based

Unique users are calculated using the userId and/or clientId fields within the OWOX BI Streaming ID*

Only the userId (&uid) parameter values are used for calculation here. The userId values sent in custom dimensions are not taken into account. clientId (&cid) for non-consent users are also taken into account.

* — If more than one user (identified by different Client IDs) had logged in using the same User ID, they count as one user. The exceptions are 1) users that weren't logged in and 2) User IDs with more than 100 different Client IDs associated with them. In these cases, unique users are identified only by the Client ID.

How unique users are calculated in OWOX BI projects with more than one pipeline

If your OWOX BI project has more than one Streaming, the subscription plan considers the unique users of all your Streaming during the reporting period (month).

Example: Your OWOX BI project has two OWOX BI GA4 events-based web streamings to Google BigQuery and one OWOX BI GAU Hit-based streaming. At the end of the billing period, you get these unique users processing statistics:

Streaming	Unique users
OWOX BI GA4 events-based web streaming to Google BigQuery	500,000 + 390,000 = 890,000
OWOX BI GAU Hit-based streaming	100,000
Total of the unique users	990,000 (890,000 + 100,000)

NOTE:Unique users are calculated each day in the UTC time zone, thus the count of users a day may vary depending on your time zone.

Important: If you have in your project more than one Streaming, the number of unique users you'll be charged for will be summarized.

What happens if a project exceeds the subscription plan limit

If a project exceeds the subscription plan limit the excess cost will be applied. The prices of the excess cost are calculated according to the plan of your project.

How to check the number of unique users processed in your OWOX BI project

To view the statistics on the unique users processed during the current and previous months, go to the Project Settings page and click the Usage tab. Then choose the reporting period, and the month you want to see the statistics for.

Here is an example of a visualization representing the number of unique users processed. This chart has a two-day data actualization period. For instance, if you're interested in unique users for September 1st, you'll find this data accessible on September 3rd. Read more in this article.