Heap Analytics - How do I capture the amount of time users spend on a page?

Question

I am using Heap Analytics to track events (page clicks and page views), but once registering the event I am having difficulty in finding how to measure how long user views a page.

The only place similar to this measurement is in the graphs, under average time between, for pages where I select page view, along with a start and end event.

If this is the method to track event for page view, what is the start, and what is the end event?

Answer 1

UPDATE 25NOV16: After using a similar method for a little while to track user exits (and thus, total session time), I can say that the below method works, but not 100% of the time. It's unclear to me what determines the success (latency, maybe).

after my comment (which i deleted) i did a little testing and i have a solution, but it requires a custom event, so you can't do any retroactive analysis.

First, define a page_view event for whichever page.

Then, in your page, add this snippet:

window.onbeforeunload = function() {
  heap.track('pageExited', {arbitraryProp: "string"})
}

Then, in the graph view of the heap dashboard, you can select average time between, page_view, and pageExited.

Note that onbeforeunload will fire when user refreshes, in addition to when user exits page.