A well-organized data layer helps you get accurate, consistent product usage insights in Pendo—and makes that data useful across your team. This article covers how to delegate tagging responsibilities, organize your Pages and Features, configure metadata, identify key features, and set up a shared dashboard.
Delegate responsibilities
Before tagging Pages and Features, decide who owns the tagging process. Assigning clear ownership prevents duplicate tags and keeps your naming conventions consistent over time.
- Designate one or more people to tag new Pages and Features and maintain the naming convention.
- If you want a broader group to be able to tag, appoint someone to periodically audit tags for consistency.
Organize your Pages and Features
Consistent organization makes it easier for everyone on your team to find and interpret usage data.
- Use Product Areas to define sections of your product (for example, Dashboard or Reports). Product Areas let you filter to a specific set of Pages and Features and provide macro-level analytics in the Product Areas list.
- Define a naming convention for tagged Pages and Features so anyone in Pendo can find insights quickly. A tiered naming structure works well—for example, Report Builder | Edit Report | Save button is clearer than Save button alone. See Tagging best practices for guidance.
- Have one person apply tags when possible, or schedule regular reviews if multiple people are tagging.
Set up metadata
Metadata is information you provide to Pendo about your visitors and accounts, like role, plan type, or account tier. Most metadata is included in your installation snippet and updates automatically on each page load. You can also add metadata at any time.
Metadata enables segmentation, so you can analyze how different user groups behave and target specific audiences with guides. Common examples of useful metadata include:
- Visitor-level: role, job function, user type, subscription tier
- Account-level: plan name, contract value, region, industry, customer lifecycle stage
You can pass metadata into Pendo through your install script, the Salesforce integration, or API calls.
Admins can review the state of metadata through Settings > Metadata in the top-right corner of Pendo. Confirm that all expected fields are flowing in and that field names clearly reflect their purpose. For larger metadata sets, consider creating an internal reference document that defines each field and describes how it might be used in Pendo.
Identify key features
Knowing which features drive value helps you build more meaningful segments and target users more effectively.
- If you already know which Features drive engagement, use segmentation to understand who is and isn't using them. You can then compare how different user populations behave, or target disengaged users with a guide to drive adoption.
- If you're not sure which Features matter most, use the Feature Adoption Analysis widget on the dashboard to see what users are interacting with most.
Set up a shared dashboard
Shared dashboards give your team a consistent view of product usage data without requiring everyone to build their own. The dashboard creator maintains edit access; all other users get a read-only view through a shared URL, and the dashboard appears in their dashboards list automatically.
A well-configured shared dashboard is one of the most effective ways to make Pendo data accessible across your organization.