topic Re: CSS selector for user tagging in Real User Monitoring

Configure CSS Selectors for Dynatrace User Tagging

Christopher_Cha — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 08:35:49 GMT

Summary: The post shows how to create CSS selector rules to capture usernames or IDs in Dynatrace RUM. It includes tips for validating selectors and ensuring consistent tag extraction.

Hey guys,

I'm in the midst of deploying Dynatrace Managed for a customer, and I'm not really familiar with the CSS part for user tagging. We have identified the CSS element that contains the user name, but I'm just not too sure if the configuration is correct. Could you help me verify?

Attached is a screenshot, and the highlighted part is the user name we want to capture. Would "#navTabButtonUserInfoText navTabButtonUserInfoWorker@title" work? As I will not be on-site until next week and the customer is new to the product, I'd just thought of getting opinions here first...

Chris

Re: CSS selector for user tagging

gautier_begin — Thu, 08 Mar 2018 07:05:31 GMT

Chris,

First, capture the correct CSS selector by selecting your element from the WebGUI, then click right and select Inspect. You have this option in Chrome and Firefox, not in IE.

Then in the HTML editor, click on "copy as CSS", past in Dynatrace and that's done

In some cases, that may not be sufficient because you are capturing extra characters or strings. Then use a regex that you will put under the "Apply cleanup rule" option in the "User tag" rule of your Dynatrace application.

You can also have a look here:

https://www.dynatrace.com/support/help/user-experience/analytics/how-do-i-tag-individual-users-for-session-analysis/?_ga=2.172537763.1273908373.1520491875-1052846825.1520491875

Regards,

Re: CSS selector for user tagging

dave_mauney — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 22:37:53 GMT

Hi Chris,

Here's a brief step-by-step PowerPoint that may help also, especially if you want to test the CSS selector before you add it to Dynatrace:

https://dynatrace-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/p/dave_mau...

HTH,

dave

Re: CSS selector for user tagging

Christopher_Cha — Mon, 12 Mar 2018 06:14:27 GMT

Thanks guys! The one that worked is #navBarUserInfoTextId > span.navTabButtonUserInfoText.navTabButtonUserInfoWorker.

Re: CSS selector for user tagging

DavidePiras — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 11:34:30 GMT

Great thanks for sharing this Chris, very helpful for user tagging in MS Dynamics!

Re: CSS selector for user tagging

_r_k_ — Wed, 11 Dec 2019 15:15:33 GMT

just to clear details:

to get value of attribute title it should be:

#navBarUserInfoTextId > span.navTabButtonUserInfoText.navTabButtonUserInfoWorker@title

Re: CSS selector for user tagging

Peter_Youssef — Sun, 08 Jan 2023 12:35:11 GMT

Hi @dave_mauney

Can you please share this PPT again as I've tried to access it, I find It's expired.

Thanks.

Re: CSS selector for user tagging

dave_mauney — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 15:03:10 GMT

I shared it again here:

HowToSpecifyUserTagCSSSelector.pptx

Our corporate policy is to set a 90 expiration on links shared on SharePoint, so the clock starts again now...

Re: CSS selector for user tagging

anders_lundin — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 12:45:34 GMT

@dave_mauney Could I ask you to share again please?

Re: CSS selector for user tagging

dave_mauney — Fri, 28 Apr 2023 13:10:06 GMT

HowToSpecifyUserTagCSSSelector.pptx (expires July 27th, 2023)

Re: CSS selector for user tagging

DavidePiras — Thu, 25 May 2023 20:46:05 GMT

This is not working anymore on latest version 9.1.x of MS Dynamics 365 on prem.

Re: CSS selector for user tagging

rohan1shah — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 20:40:12 GMT

Hello, I am trying to extract the name John for user tagging using CSS selector.

<a _ngcontent-sba-c1="" aria-label="My Profile" class="user-label ng-star-inserted" href="ABCD"><span _ngcontent-sba-c1="" class="check-dirty user-name">Hello, John</span><img _ngcontent-sba-c1="" alt="user" class="check-dirty user-profile" src="XYZ.svg"></a>

I followed the same instructions to copy the selector and this is what I input into the app config for user tagging. It still keep the User names in sessions as Anonymous:

#page-main-container > div.bmo-container > div:nth-child(1) > a > span

Am I missing something here which is not letting the user tag parse through?

Re: CSS selector for user tagging

dave_mauney — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 21:12:24 GMT

Did you test the selector in the dev tools console as covered in the PPT above? I am no CSS expert, but you might want to try a selector of ".check-dirty user-name" and see if that works should be less "brittle" than the selector you are trying now.

Re: CSS selector for user tagging

rohan1shah — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 16:11:56 GMT

Yes I did test it, I get NULL as a response for some reason. Couldn't understand why:

Re: CSS selector for user tagging

rohan1shah — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 16:48:06 GMT

Update - This seems to work -

document.querySelector("span.check-dirty.user-name").innerHTML

But when I input that as part of the User Tagging Rules, there still seems to be no change. All sessions show up as anonymous:

Re: CSS selector for user tagging

dave_mauney — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 16:54:15 GMT

And you are sure new logins have occurred after the change?

Re: CSS selector for user tagging

rohan1shah — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 16:59:34 GMT

Yes, I have been doing the logins myself and can see new sessions showing up from other users too in DT.

Re: CSS selector for user tagging

dave_mauney — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 17:15:36 GMT

The User Tag CSS selector "hint" says it will capture "innerText/textContent" so you may want to see what that gives in the console.

Re: CSS selector for user tagging

rohan1shah — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 19:34:44 GMT

Still unable to get any output.

Re: CSS selector for user tagging

dave_mauney — Wed, 07 Jun 2023 11:21:59 GMT

I would try the in-product chat for some help. I am out of ideas.