Pendo captures and processes event data from multiple sources in your app, including Feature clicks, Page views, Track Events, guide activity, and metadata updates. This data powers analytics, segments, reports, and guide delivery across your subscription.
Processing refers to how Pendo evaluates incoming events, applies tagging rules, maps metadata, and updates the UI with usable data. Processing behavior varies based on the type of data and how it's received, whether through the install script, mobile SDK, or API.
This article explains when different types of data become visible in Pendo and how timing affects reports, segments, and guides.
To learn more about how events are collected and the different types of event data available in Pendo, see Events overview.
General processing time
Data is updated hourly in the Pendo UI, with bulk calculations performed at the start of each hour. Processing typically completes within 15 minutes after the hour. For example, events collected between 2 PM and 3 PM would appear in the Pendo UI by 3:15 PM that same day.
An exception to this timing occurs with segment calculations for guide targeting (for example, show guide if visitor used a specific Feature), which can take up to 5 minutes to determine if a guide should appear.
For a summary of processing times by use case, see the Summary of processing times at the end of this article.
How real-time data appears in Pendo
Pendo continuously collects events as visitors load Pages, interact with Features in your product, submit poll responses, and generate Track Events. These events are processed in bulk every hour at the top of the hour. It can take as long as 15 minutes for new usage data to appear in Pendo. This delay only affects reports and segments with a date range that includes today.
Offline event handling
Pendo can capture offline activity when a web app temporarily loses connection. If the app reconnects within 90 minutes, the web SDK sends cached events and includes them in analytics after they're processed. After 90 minutes, unsent events are discarded.
Events captured offline are timestamped based on when they occurred, not when the app reconnects.
For mobile apps using the Pendo SDK, offline behavior is different and depends on configurable storage limits. For more information, see Mobile offline support for analytics.
Tag processing for Page and Features
When you tag a new Page or Feature, Pendo starts processing event data in reverse chronological order, beginning with today’s events and moving backward. This allows you to see recent usage while historical data is still processing.
Editing an existing tag removes previously matched events from the UI and reprocesses the tag using the updated rules. If you add new rules to an existing tag, all rules are evaluated together, and the tag is treated as newly created during reprocessing.
While a tag is processing, a status indicator appears in the Pages or Features list, on the tag’s details page, and in the Visual Design Studio.
Tagged data becomes visible and usable in segments after the most recent 90 days have been processed. This typically takes less than an hour for most subscriptions. A banner in the tag’s details page shows the earliest date with visible data and updates continuously as older events finish processing.
Processing the full 90-day history usually completes within an hour, but it can take longer for subscriptions with high event volume. Allow up to 24 hours before contacting our support team if older data still isn’t visible. Reports, widgets, and segments can appear incomplete until the selected date range falls within the processed window.
Guide delivery timing
You can use segments to control guide delivery based on visitor activity. For example, a guide can appear when a visitor views a specific Page or interacts with a particular Feature.
When a guide depends on usage data, Pendo processes the relevant segment within 5 seconds. After a visitor qualifies, they must refresh the page or call pendo.loadGuides() to see the guide.
If you change the rules in a guide segment, updates typically take up to 15 seconds to take effect. If the segment uses a newly tagged Page or Feature, the tag must finish processing before it contributes to guide delivery.
POST to the Pendo API
Subscriptions with access to the Pendo API can send some data directly to Pendo. For example, a POST to the metadata endpoint can add or update metadata for an existing visitor or account at any time. Data sent to Pendo using the API is visible almost immediately, as soon as it's completed the necessary processing to appear in the UI.
Summary of processing times
This table summarizes when different types of data typically become available in the Pendo UI.
| Data type or action | When data becomes visible |
|---|---|
| General usage analytics | Within 15 minutes after the top of the hour |
| Web offline activity (within 90 minutes) | After reconnecting and the next processing cycle |
| Page or Feature re-tagging | After reprocessing completes (typically under 1 hour for 90 days) |
| Guide delivery segment evaluation | Within 5 to 15 seconds |
| API POSTs (for example, metadata updates) | Typically within seconds |