7. Recording Rules & Element Tracking

So far you've been watching what FullSession captures. This chapter is about configuring it — controlling which pages are recorded, naming and watching the elements that matter to your business, and sending the custom events that show up in the player and power funnels. These settings live in two places: Settings → Privacy Rules (what gets recorded) and Settings → Element Tracking (which elements you measure). Custom events are added in your site's code.

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7.1 What You Can Configure (Overview)

Before diving in, here's the lay of the land. FullSession separates three related concerns

Setting	Where	Controls
Page recording rules	Settings → Privacy Rules	Which pages/URLs are recorded (section 7.2)
Element recording rules	Settings → Privacy Rules	Which elements are masked or excluded for privacy (section 7.3)
Named Elements & Watch Rules	Settings → Element Tracking	Which elements you measure in reports, heatmaps, and funnels (section 7.4)
Custom events	Your website code	Business actions sent via FUS.event(...) (section 7.5)

Page rules vs. element rules — page rules decide whether a whole page is recorded at all; element recording rules decide whether specific elements on a recorded page are masked or hidden. They work together.

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7.2 Page Recording Rules

By default, FullSession records your site's pages. Page recording rules let you change that — either to exclude specific pages you don't want recorded, or to record only a chosen set of pages.

These are configured under Settings → Privacy Rules → Page recording rules.

The two modes

A single site-level toggle determines what your rule list means:

Mode	Behavior
Record all except listed pages (default)	Every page is recorded except the ones your rules match — the list acts as an exclusion list.
Exclude all pages (record only listed)	No page is recorded except the ones your rules match — the list acts as an allowlist.

So the same rule list flips purpose depending on the mode. Switch to Exclude all pages when you want a tightly scoped recording (e.g. only your signup funnel); leave it off when you want to record broadly and only carve out a few sensitive pages.

Creating a page rule

1. Click Create Page Rule.

2. In the page field, paste any URL — "Put any url and we'll extract the path!" FullSession extracts just the path (and strips trailing slashes), so you can paste a full address and it figures out the path for you.

3. Choose the matching options:

   • Ignore Query Parameters — match the path regardless of any ?query=... string. Turn this on when the same page has many query-string variants you want treated as one.

   • Include sub-paths — match the path and everything beneath it. With this on, a rule for /account also covers /account/settings, /account/billing, and so on.

4. Save.

How matching works

Page rules match the literal path, refined by the two checkboxes above. Importantly:

There are no wildcards or regular expressions. Matching is the path itself, optionally with query parameters ignored and/or sub-paths included. To cover a whole section of your site, use Include sub-paths rather than a * pattern.

Common recipes

Goal	Mode	Rule(s)
Never record account pages	Record all except	/account with Include sub-paths on
Ignore checkout query-string noise	Record all except	/checkout with Ignore Query Parameters on
Record only the signup funnel	Exclude all pages	/, /pricing, /signup (add Include sub-paths where needed)

Test your rules

After saving, browse the affected pages in an incognito window and confirm in the Sessions list ([Chapter 5 — Sessions]) that the right pages do (and don't) appear. A few minutes of testing prevents weeks of missing — or unwanted — data.

Related privacy controls in the same panel include IP Address Collection (on/off) and a Total Session Length Recording Rule that caps how long a single session is recorded. See [Chapter 21 — Privacy, Security & Compliance].

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7.3 Element Recording Rules (Masking & Exclusion)

Where page rules decide which pages record, element recording rules decide whether specific elements on a recorded page are captured, masked, or hidden — the core of protecting sensitive content. These live under Settings → Privacy Rules → Element recording rules.

What a rule does

Each rule targets elements by CSS selector and applies one of three actions:

Action	Effect
Exclude	Fully block the element from recording — it isn't captured at all.
Mask	Capture the element's presence but hide its content (e.g. show that a field exists without recording what was typed).
Unmask	Explicitly re-enable capture for something inside a masked region — an exception to a broader mask.

Each rule also has a scope — Live Sessions (active, applied to new sessions) or No Sessions (inactive) (the rule exists but isn't applied) — plus optional notes and an exception selector.

Built-in protections

FullSession ships with sensible defaults already in place, so common sensitive fields are protected out of the box — including password fields (input[type=password]), hidden inputs (input[type=hidden]), and credit-card fields ([autocomplete*=cc-]). You can add your own rules for anything else specific to your site.

AI-suggested rules

The Suggest Rules button in the Element recording rules header gives Owners and Admins an AI-powered way to discover which elements may need masking. It is visible only to users with the privacy_rules:element:create permission.

Clicking Suggest Rules opens a panel where you choose a set of already-recorded sessions and start an analysis run. The agent inspects DOM snapshots, identifies elements likely to contain PII — names, email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, payment card numbers, and similar — and proposes CSS selector rules. While a scan is active, the button shows Scan in progress with a spinner; only one scan can run at a time.

When the scan completes, each proposed rule is listed with its suggested selector, recommended action (mask or exclude), detected PII type, confidence level, and redacted evidence. Raw PII is never shown in the UI. Per-row actions:

Action	Effect
Accept	Creates the rule in the main Element recording rules list; applies to new sessions going forward.
Edit then accept	Adjust the selector, action, or scope before promoting it to a real rule.
Dismiss	Removes the suggestion; dismissed items are not re-surfaced in later scans.

Bulk Accept all and Dismiss all are available with a confirmation step. Every accept and dismiss action is written to the Audit Log ([Chapter 16, section 16.6]).

This section is a summary; masking, privacy, and compliance are covered in full in [Chapter 21 — Privacy, Security & Compliance].

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7.4 Element Tracking: Named Elements & Watch Rules

To measure the specific elements that matter — your CTAs, nav links, key buttons — use Element Tracking under Settings → Element Tracking. There are two complementary tools.

Named Elements (Labels)

A Named Element attaches a human-readable name to an element (or group of elements), so it appears clearly in click reports and funnels instead of as a raw selector.

A named element consists of:

• Name — the friendly label (e.g. "Hero CTA – Start trial").

• Description — optional context.

• Selectors — one or more CSS selectors identifying the element(s).

"Assign human-readable names to tracked elements so they appear clearly in click reports and funnels."

Use named elements whenever you want a specific element to be recognizable in your analytics — they turn button.btn-primary.cta-xl into "Start trial."

Watch Rules

A Watch Rule tells FullSession to log and surface interactions on specific elements across all recorded sessions — feeding heatmaps and element-level reporting.

"Define rules to log and surface interactions on specific elements across all recorded sessions."

A watch rule consists of:

• Name and optional description.

• A selector definition that targets the element by any combination of:

  • Element/tag (e.g. button)

  • ID

  • Classes

  • An optional parent relationship — match only when the element sits under a given parent, either as a direct child or any descendant.

This structured targeting lets you be as broad ("all buttons with class cta") or as precise ("the Apply button directly inside the coupon-form") as you need.

How tracked elements feed reports

• Named Elements provide the labels that make click data and funnel steps readable.

• Watch Rules identify which elements' interactions are logged and surfaced — these power element heatmaps and the interaction reporting in [Chapter 8 — Heatmaps].

Selectors are entered as text

There is no visual point-and-click element picker. Named Elements and Watch Rules are defined by entering CSS selectors (or the structured selector definition). To get a reliable selector, inspect the element in your browser's developer tools and copy a stable selector.

Tips for durable selectors:

• Prefer a stable id or a dedicated attribute over auto-generated class names.

• Avoid deep, brittle chains like div > div > div:nth-child(3) > button — they break when your layout shifts.

• Coordinate with engineering to add stable hooks (e.g. a consistent class or attribute) to important elements.

Tip — if a tracked element's click metrics suddenly drop to zero, a markup change likely broke its selector. Update the selector in the Named Element or Watch Rule.

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7.5 Custom Events with FUS.event

A custom event is a named action meaningful to your product — purchase, plan upgraded, search performed. Custom events appear in the session player's events list ([Chapter 6, section 6.3]) and are the building blocks of funnels, segments, and insight cards.

Custom events are code-only. There is no UI for creating "no-code" custom events from a click or page visit — you send them from your website code with FUS.event(...). (To measure clicks on an element without code, use a Watch Rule / Named Element, section 7.4.)

The method

window.FUS.event(eventName, eventData);

• eventName (string, required) — the event name.

• eventData (object, required) — a non-empty object of properties whose values are strings or numbers.

window.FUS.event('purchase', { amount_real: 99.99, product: 'Widget' });

Validation rules

FullSession validates every event and rejects invalid ones (it throws a descriptive error listing what's wrong), so getting the format right matters:

Rule	Detail
Event name is a string	Required.
No hyphens in the event name	'user-action' is rejected — use 'user_action'.
eventData is a non-empty object	An empty object {} or an array [] is rejected.
No hyphens in property keys	{'event-type': ...} is rejected.
Values are strings or numbers only	No booleans, objects, or arrays as values.
Default type is string	A key with no type suffix is treated as a string — passing a number to it is rejected.
_str suffix → string	A key ending in _str is validated as a string.
_real suffix → number	A key ending in _real is validated as a (finite) number.
Numbers must be finite	Infinity and NaN are rejected.

The _str / _real convention

This is the part teams most often miss: because the default value type is string, you must use the _real suffix to send a number.

// ✅ VALID
window.FUS.event('purchase', { amount_real: 99.99, product: 'Widget' });
window.FUS.event('login', { username_str: 'john' });

// ⛔ INVALID
window.FUS.event('user-action', {});            // hyphen in event name (and empty data)
window.FUS.event('action', { 'event-type': 'click' }); // hyphen in a key
window.FUS.event('action', {});                  // empty eventData
window.FUS.event('action', []);                  // eventData is an array
window.FUS.event('purchase', { amount: 99.99 }); // number sent to a string-typed key — use amount_real

In that last example, amount has no suffix, so FullSession expects a string and rejects the number — the error even suggests using amount_real. Switching to amount_real: 99.99 makes it valid.

Naming events well

Your event names appear across the player, funnels, segments, and dashboards, so name them deliberately:

• Use clear, human names — purchase, plan_upgraded, search_performed.

• Use a consistent style (and remember: underscores, never hyphens).

• Don't rename an event after collecting data — it splits your history.

• Keep a shared list of event names so teammates reuse rather than duplicate them.

What custom events unlock

Once events are flowing, you can:

• See them in the session player events list ([Chapter 6]).

• Build funnels from them ([Chapter 12 — Funnels]).

• Define segments around them ([Chapter 11 — Segments]).

• Chart them as insight cards ([Chapter 10 — Insights & Cards]).

The big picture — page recording rules decide which pages record (literal paths, with ignore-params and include-sub-paths, switched between exclude-list and allowlist modes); element recording rules mask or exclude sensitive elements, with an AI-powered Suggest Rules feature to help discover which ones need covering; Named Elements and Watch Rules (CSS selectors, no visual picker) decide which elements you measure in heatmaps and funnels; and custom events — sent only via FUS.event with the _str/_real, no-hyphen, non-empty rules — translate your interactions into business actions.

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Next up: [Chapter 8 — Heatmaps] takes the Named Elements and Watch Rules you configured here and visualizes them in aggregate — showing where visitors click, how far they scroll, and which tracked elements draw the most interaction.