Understand Active Users per Hour

If you have a universal credits subscription, and you create an Oracle Content and Experience Cloud instance, you’ll be billed based on active users per hour.

An active user per hour is defined as a unique user that interacts with the service during a one-hour session. Active users are tracked through a cookie, user ID, token, device ID, IP, or session ID. Authenticated users and visitors are tracked based on the role given to the user (standard, enterprise, or visitor) in that service instance. Anonymous users are tracked as visitors.

Visitors and anonymous users that access the service from multiple channels (website, mobile app, desktop client, custom app via APls, email, etc.) count as multiple active users sessions. An authenticated user that accesses the service from multiple channels counts as one active user session. For example, if one visitor in a one-hour period accesses the same Oracle Content and Experience Cloud instance from a Firefox desktop web browser, a Chrome desktop web browser, and a mobile web browser, that would count as a total of three active user sessions. Whereas, if one authenticated user performs the same actions, that would count as one active user session.

Depending on whether the user is a standard user, an enterprise user, or a visitor, the user is allowed a certain number of API calls, a certain amount of outbound data transfer, and, for enterprise users, a certain number of new published content assets. Therefore, for billing purposes, the following metrics are also tracked during each one-hour active user session:

• Number of API calls made to the service by custom third-party applications (non-Oracle) — If the number of API calls exceeds the API calls that are entitled per active user in a one-hour period, a new active user is added to the hourly count.

• Outbound data transfer — This includes the data a user downloads from the Oracle Cloud Service and any transfer of data from the Oracle Cloud Service over the internet, including responses to client requests. If the outbound data transfer exceeds the data transfer that is entitled per active user in a one-hour period, a new active user is added to the hourly count.

• Number of newly published assets (enterprise users only) — A published asset is either a file based asset (for example, a document, an image, or a video) or a content item that has been published. A content item is a block of information created using a content type. If the number of newly published assets exceeds the published assets that are entitled per active user in a one-hour period, a new active user is added to the hourly count. This count doesn’t include previously published assets, only assets published during the one hour active user session.

Note:

For information on universal credit pricing and usage limits (for example, the number of API calls, amount of outbound data transfer, and number published assets allowed per user), see Oracle Universal Credit Pricing and Oracle Cloud Services (view “Oracle PaaS and IaaS Universal Credits - Service Descriptions” near the bottom of the list).

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a user visiting a second site count as a second active user session?

Only a visitor or anonymous user accessing a different resource (such as a different site) will be counted as a separate active user session. An authenticated user accessing the service from multiple channels will be counted as one active user session. For example, the same visitor accessing two different sites within the one-hour session window will be counted as two active user sessions. Essentially the count is per visitor or anonymous user, per resource, per channel, per one-hour session window for a given service instance.

Will visits to a site by bots or crawlers count as active user sessions?

Repeated visits from bots or crawlers will not be counted as active user sessions.

Will a user accessing a public download link be counted as active user session?

A user accessing a public download link to download a document will not be counted as an active user session. Even if the user is brought to the Oracle Content and Experience Cloud user interface, showing the Download button, it won’t count as an active user session. However, the outbound data transfer per hour will be tracked.

What if the public download link is accessed via a site created with Oracle Content and Experience Cloud? Will using the link be counted as an active user session?

Visiting the site created with Oracle Content and Experience Cloud triggers a active user session, so it will count as an active user for that hour, but not due to using the public download link. Again, the outbound data transfer will be tracked.

For a browser session, how are active user sessions tracked?

The active user sessions for a browser are tracked by placing a cookie that expires after the one-hour session window ends in the browser session.

What happens if a user clears his cookies in his browser or closes an incognito browser session?

If the user clears the cookie (by clearing in browser or closing an incognito window), the next request will be treated as a new user and count as a new active user session.

Are AppLinks and API calls tracked for billing purposes?

AppLinks and API calls from third-party applications and from other Oracle Cloud applications are charged according to the user identity (Standard or Enterprise) used to establish the API connection. Every 100 API calls in given hour count as an additional active user for that hour.

How are AppLink calls tracked as visitor sessions?

The assignedUser parameter in the AppLink request body is used to track the client-side invocations associated to unique users. See Integrating Folder and File Selection and Applinks Resource in Developing for Oracle Content and Experience Cloud.

How is a user of the Oracle Content and Experience Cloud desktop client tracked?

A desktop client user is tracked an active user (either as a standard or enterprise user as appropriate) if they create, edit, or update files or folders from their desktop. Downward syncing actions from the cloud server caused by other user updates to files or folders are not counted as active user sessions. However, syncing does count toward the outbound data transfer metric. For example, if a user syncs more than 1GB of data per hour, each additional GB synced will count as an additional active user session for that hour (either standard or enterprise as appropriate).