Tracking Public Users or Unlicenced Users

Why This Matters

In Forge apps — especially those used in Jira Service Management (JSM) — it’s common to support public-facing usage. This includes interactions from unlicensed Atlassian users, such as external users submitting requests via portal pages or embedded forms.

These users may have Atlassian accounts — but they aren’t licensed users of your app.

Despite that, their actions can still trigger analytics events — and that introduces a risk:

Each unique user ID = 1 MTU
Thousands of public users = thousands of unnecessary tracked users

This can quickly inflate your analytics costs, pollute your event data with anonymous IDs, and distract from the insights that actually matter — those tied to your paying customers and internal users.

✅ Recommended Pattern: Track Public User Events Under a Shared Instance ID

Public users — including unlicensed Atlassian users accessing your app via JSM portals — may still perform actions that matter: submitting forms, viewing pages, interacting with features. You likely do want to track that activity, because it reflects product usage and demand.

But to avoid exploding your MTU count:

Track all public user events under a shareduserId, typically the instance’s cloudId
Add a trait like{ isPublicUser: true } to distinguish these events when needed

This lets you capture meaningful activity without treating each anonymous user as a unique tracked user.

💡 Why This Works

Benefit	Explanation
✅ Reduces MTUs	Shared `userId` prevents thousands of tracked users
✅ Maintains usage visibility	You still capture important product signals (views, submits)
✅ Easy to segment	Filter by `isPublicUser` to isolate or exclude these events
✅ Privacy-safe	No identify calls, no PII, no cookie consent issues

By centralizing all public activity under a shared ID and tagging it clearly, you get the best of both worlds:

Visibility into how your app is used publicly
Control over what’s included in your user-level analytics
Savings on MTU-based pricing

⚠️ Event Volume Considerations

Even with a shared user ID, most analytics platforms still meter total events.

For example:

Segment's soft rule: 250 events sent by a single user ID = 1 MTU
So 50,000 public form views on a shared ID may still count as ~200 MTUs

Best Practices

Monitor high-traffic events (e.g. form views)
Expect some MTU scaling with volume, even when IDs are shared

Summary

For Forge apps — particularly those with public-facing elements like JSM apps — tracking all anonymous usage under a shared instance ID is the best way to:

Limit MTU blowouts
Keep analytics focused on real users
Maintain privacy and compliance
Still capture meaningful product usage data