Metadata and data mappings

Metadata is information about your visitors and accounts that you send to Pendo, such as account type, subscription revenue, or user role. Metadata enriches your analytics, segmentation, and personalized in-app experiences.

Metadata in Pendo has two key components:

• Data types define the kind of values a metadata field contains, such as text, number, boolean, date, or list.

• Metadata mappings connect specific metadata fields to standardized concepts that Pendo recognizes, such as email, revenue, or account type. Mappings enable consistent interpretation of data across the platform, such as in account hover cards.

You must be a subscription admin to access Settings > Metadata.

Metadata

On the Metadata page, you can view the field names you're sending to Pendo, including the data types assigned to those fields. These fields appear in the Fields table and are used throughout Pendo for analytics, segmentation, and guide targeting.

For more information, see Configure visitor and account metadata.

Tip: While there's no enforced limit to the number of metadata fields you can send to Pendo, we recommend being selective. Fewer fields improve search performance, loading times, and overall data governance.

Available data types

There are six data types available in Pendo. The data you send through the install script (commonly referred to as "the snippet") must match the format of the data type you assign. This section outlines each data type and provides an example of data that matches that type.

Text

Text is used for fields that should be represented as simple text strings, such as an email address.

visitor:{
 id:62343,
 email:'john@doe.com',

Note: We recommend keeping metadata string values under 1500 characters.

Boolean

Boolean fields are used for true or false values, such as whether a visitor is an admin user.

visitor:{
 id:62343,
 isAdmin: true,

Number (int)

Integer fields are whole numbers without decimal points, such as the number of dashboards a visitor has.

visitor:{
 id:62343,
 dashboardCount: 3,

Number (float)

Floating-point fields are numbers that can include a decimal point, such as percentage of storage used.

visitor:{
 id:62343,
 percentStorageUsed: .776,

Date

Date fields are timestamps used for recording dates, such as subscription start dates.

visitor:{
 id:62343,
 subscriptionStart: "2006-01-02T15:04:05.999-05:00",

Dates must be passed in a supported format. For information about supported date formats, see Configure visitor and account metadata. For a list of supported date formats, see the Engage API documentation.

List

List fields store multiple values for a single metadata field, such as user roles.

 visitor:{
 id:62343,
 roles: ['admin', 'end-user', 'super-user'],

Note: The list data type is only available for agent metadata.

Segmentation rules for data types

Each data type supports specific segmentation rules that you can use to create segments based on metadata field values. For example, a date field can have segmentation rules that relate to dates (before, after) while a number field can have rules that relate to numbers (equal to, not equal to).

It's important to note that "contains" behaves differently depending on the data type:

• For text fields, "contains" searches for a partial match. Example: A contains employee rule would match any metadata value containing "employee", such as "Pendo employee" and "Mind the Product employee".
• For list fields, "contains" requires an exact match. Example: A contains employee would match only the value "employee". Variations like "Pendo employee" and "Mind the Product employee" wouldn't be eligible for the segment.

Metadata mappings

Metadata mappings allow you to connect existing metadata fields to standardized concepts that Pendo recognizes. These mappings help ensure that important account and visitor information is displayed consistently across the platform, like in hover cards that show account context at a glance.

Pendo offers mappings for both visitor-level and account-level metadata:

• Visitor-level mappings
  • Email
• Account-level mappings
  • Display name
  • Revenue
  • Currency
  • Website
  • Account type (Prospect, Customer, Churned)

Note: A metadata field must already exist in the Fields table before you can assign it to a mapping.