Sessions in Azure Application Insights

Question

I have spent several hours reading various articles on Azure Application Insights (AAI). I'm trying to determine how AAI determines what a session is and where I can find a count of unique sessions (first time visitors) vs. returning visitors. Actually, I know where to find a count of unique sessions but I don't see where I can find a count of returning visitors.

Answer 1

Application Insights defines session as a period of time between the first and the last telemetry item with the same session ID. Session IDs are generated by the various flavors of Application Insights instrumentation code running in the applications. For example, in web apps this is done by the JavaScript code running in a browser and automatically tracking page views.

In particular, the JavaScript code generates a new session ID when the browser loads a page for the first time. This session ID is reused for as long as any telemetry items (page views, events, etc.) are tracked by the app within 30 minutes. If no telemetry is tracked in 30 minutes, it assumes user stopped interacting with the app and the session expires. When telemetry tracking resumes after the timeout, a new session ID will be generated indicating beginning of a new user session.

To analyze the number of returning users, you can chart "Users (Unique)" and "New Users (Unique)" metrics as described here.