Lifecycle State
Intermediate PronunciationEN/ˈlaɪfsaɪkəl steɪt/
A lifecycle state is the label given to each user in a time period that describes how their activity changed relative to the previous period.
The four common states are new, current, resurrected and dormant: a new user is seen for the first time in this period, a current user was also active in the previous one, a resurrected user has come back after a stretch of silence, and a dormant user did not show up at all. The labels are recomputed every period and each user falls into exactly one of them, so the first three add up to that period's active users. The state depends on the period grain: someone counted dormant on a daily view can be current on a monthly view, which makes comparing figures across two different grains meaningless.
FAQ
Because the absence window gets longer. On a daily view one missed day is enough to mark a user dormant, while on a monthly view only someone absent for the whole month qualifies. The right grain is the one that matches the product's natural usage cadence, not the one that produces the smaller number.