How to Calculate Digital Experience

Digital experience measures how well a website, SaaS platform and network resources perform for users. It considers various metrics impacting the user's experience and combines them into an overall score. This score evaluates the site or application's quality and identifies improvement areas.

To calculate digital experience, we consider several metrics that can negatively affect end users. These include factors such as WiFi Signal, Latency, and Packet Loss, as well as how easily users can access the network and whether they use the correct SSID to connect. By analysing these metrics, we can better understand how well the digital environment performs for users.

We start with a perfect score of 100 and subtract from this for any negative factors causing issues. For example, we may deduct points from the overall score if a site has a slow page load time. Similarly, if the site experiences frequent downtime, this can result in a lower score. Considering these factors, we can calculate a comprehensive score that reflects the overall digital experience of the portfolio, a site or even individual occupiers and users. Factors are weighted based on their impact on users. For example, the site being offline will have a much higher impact than failed logins.

A good digital experience is essential because it directly impacts the satisfaction and loyalty of end users. A poor digital experience can lead to frustration, decreased engagement, and customer loss. By regularly monitoring and improving the digital experience, you can ensure that users have a positive and seamless experience, leading to increased satisfaction and retention.

Circuit latency is the time it takes for a signal to travel from the edge of your site to our data centre and back again. In simpler terms, it is the delay between sending and receiving a signal.

Circuit Latency can significantly affect your overall internet experience. High latency can result in slow loading times, buffering when streaming videos, and delays in online gaming. This can be frustrating and significantly impact your productivity and enjoyment while using the internet.

Circuit Latency can also affect the performance of specific applications and services. For example, if you are using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) or services such as Teams or Zoom for phone calls, high latency can cause delays and disruptions in the call. This can be especially problematic for businesses that rely on VoIP or Video communication.

We measure Circuit Latency using dedicated hardware on your site and in our data centre. This allows us to measure and quickly isolate issues on the fibre circuit accurately.

To convert to a score, we look at the amount of time that latency goes above thresholds for Poor and Bad.

We also score differently depending on whether the high latency period is inside or outside office hours.

Packet loss is a term used to describe the loss of data packets during transmission over a network. This means that some of the information being sent from the edge of your site to the internet is not reaching its intended destination.

Packet loss means your users' devices must resend information requests, significantly slowing down their experience. This could be better for time-sensitive applications such as video calls.

Packet loss will result in a generally poor internet experience for users, particularly for time-sensitive applications such as MS Teams, Zoom, or Google Meet. It may also affect VOIP Telephony services.

We measure Circuit Packet Loss using dedicated hardware on your site and in our data centre. This allows us to obtain accurate measurements and quickly isolate issues on the fibre circuit.

To convert to a score, we look at how much time Packet-Loss exceeds thresholds for Poor and Bad.

We also score differently depending on whether the high latency period is inside or outside office hours.

Circuit latency is the time it takes for a signal to travel from a device on your network to servers on the Internet and back again. In simpler terms, it is the delay between sending and receiving a signal.

Internet Latency can significantly affect your overall internet experience. High latency can result in slow loading times, buffering when streaming videos, and delays in online gaming. This can be frustrating and significantly impact your productivity and enjoyment while using the internet.

Internet Latency can also affect the performance of specific applications and services. For example, if you are using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) or services such as Teams or Zoom for phone calls, high latency can cause delays and disruptions in the call. This can be especially problematic for businesses that rely on VoIP or Video communication.

We measure Internet Latency by regularly sending packets from one of your switches on-site to servers on the Internet and measuring the time it takes to get a response.

To convert to a score, we look at the amount of time that latency goes above thresholds for Poor and Bad.

We also score differently depending on whether the high latency period is inside or outside office hours.

This measures packet loss to the Internet, as measured from the switch on site to four different anycast DNS servers. We look for 15-minute blocks with a mean loss above the defined thresholds, with an additional penalty for blocks during business hours. Backup circuits are included in the calculation if the site is in failover. It also measures whatever circuit is active at the time.

Packet loss will result in a generally poor internet experience for users, particularly for time-sensitive applications such as MS Teams, Zoom, or Google Meet. It may also affect VOIP Telephony services.

We configure one of the on-site switches to send ping data back and forth to the Internet. This is measured from the switch on site to four different Anycast DNS servers.

To convert to a score, we look at how much time Packet-Loss exceeds thresholds for Poor and Bad.

We also score differently depending on whether the high latency period is inside or outside office hours.

The ratio of WiFi guest user sessions to WiFi secure user sessions.

Users will typically experience higher performance on their dedicated WiFi than on the shared network. A high ratio suggests that too many people are using Guest, and you should encourage them to join WiFi Secure.

We use the WiFi accounting data to track the number of users on guest vs the number of users on secure.

To convert to a score, we look at the amount of time that latency goes above thresholds for Poor and Bad.

Based on the SLA details for the site, we look at the minutes of hard downtime. During this time, there will be

When a site is down, users cannot access the Internet. This can lead to an inferior experience and noise for your support teams.

The essensys NOC monitors all sites remotely so that we can accurately measure if a site goes offline.

We measure the number of minutes the site is down and convert this to a score based on how long the outage is.

User Access Point Flapping occurs when users switch frequently between 2 access points. This usually means they are physically between two access points in the building and are experiencing poor reception from both.

A high level of Access Point Flapping shows that users are experiencing poor WiFi signal quality and, therefore, a poor digital experience. You may need to look at the layout of your Access Point location to improve the overall signal quality.

We look at the WiFi accounting data to spot users frequently switching between 2 access points.

We use a linear scale to convert the amount of Access Point flapping to a score.

Users authenticate to the network using their unique username and password. If the username or password is incorrect, we log this and report the number of failed attempts.

A higher-than-usual failed login may indicate users are having issues logging in. This could be because you have a large number of occupiers onboarding. A very high spike could also indicate a security issue if someone is trying to brute force a password.

We log all failed logins and the reason for the failure.

We base the score on the count of failures.

User session fragments are an indicator of poor signal strength issues. It measures very short sessions on a specific WAP.

A high number of Session Fragments will result in a poor experience for these users. They may have interruptions in a video call or see pages not loading for a short period.

We analyse the WiFi accounting data to look for sessions that start and end quickly.

We use a linear scale to convert the number of session fragments to a score, with any number greater than 0 contributing to the score

Wireless Access Points have a limited capacity, Limited by the wireless frequencies available and the hardware of the Access point. We track how many devices are simultaneously using a single Access Point to determine whether the Access Point is overloaded.

Overloaded access points will significantly degrade the service for the users connected.

We track devices via the WiFi Accounting data and look for the total number connected at any time.

To convert to a score, we look at the amount of time that latency goes above thresholds for Poor and Bad.