At a glance
Top User Path (Flows) is a Mixpanel-distinctive view of the single most-travelled event sequence your shoppers take. Rather than forcing journeys into a fixed funnel, Flows reconstructs the real order of events and surfaces the route the largest number of sessions actually follow. When this dominant path shifts, it means users are finding a new route, or that the old one has broken. As a Hero card it sits front and centre because the most common journey is the one your store lives or dies on. The card presents the leading paths as a table you can read step by step.
| What it counts | The number of sessions that followed each reconstructed event sequence, ranked so the most-travelled path sits at the top. |
| Sample type | Backend API data from Mixpanel Flows, built from ordered event sequences across sessions in the window. |
| Why it matters | The dominant path is how most of your revenue actually flows. A shift signals users are taking a new route, or that a step in the usual route has broken and pushed them elsewhere. |
| Reading the value | The card is a table, one row per path, ordered by session count. Read each row left to right as the sequence of events; the top row is the most common journey. |
| Currency | count |
| Time window | 30D |
| Alert trigger | - |
| Sentiment key | mix_flows_top_path |
| Roles | owner, marketing |
Calculation
Vortex IQ reads the Mixpanel Flows report anchored on your primary starting event and reconstructs, for each session, the ordered sequence of events the user fired. It groups sessions by their event sequence and counts how many followed each one over the rolling 30-day window, then ranks the sequences so the most-travelled path is at the top. Because Flows works from the real order of events rather than a fixed template, the dominant path emerges from actual behaviour, including routes you may not have anticipated. The card shows the ranked sequences as a table rather than a single number.Worked example
A representative reading of Top User Path (Flows) for a typical merchant on Mixpanel. Say that for the 30 days to 14 Jun 26 the leading path is Product Viewed, Add to Cart, Begin Checkout, Purchase, followed by 6,900 sessions. The week before, the leader had been Product Viewed, Add to Cart, Purchase, with checkout skipped via an express button. The express route has now slipped to second place, and the longer path leads. You investigate and find a recent change quietly hid the express checkout button on mobile, forcing users through the full checkout. The Conversion-Path Share card shows a small dip as the longer route loses a few percent of sessions. You restore the express button on mobile, and the shorter path returns to the top within days. For deeper investigation, use Vortex Mind to trace upstream causes; for natural-language exploration, ask Ask Viq.Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why merchants reach for it |
|---|---|
mix_flows_conversion_path_share | Quantifies how many of the travelled paths actually reach purchase. |
mix_flows_top_exit_event | Shows where the dominant path breaks down and users leave. |
mix_funnel_conversion | The fixed-funnel counterpart, useful for checking the path against the intended journey. |
mix_funnel_dropoff | Identifies the worst step a shifting path may be routing around. |
mix_top_pages | Pairs the event-level path with the pages users land on along the way. |
Reconciling against Mixpanel
Where to look in Mixpanel’s own dashboard: Open the Flows report, set the starting event to your primary entry point and the window to the last 30 days, and read the widest continuous band of flow from left to right. That widest band is the most-travelled path and should match the top row of the card. Hovering over each step shows the session count, which you can compare directly with the card’s figures. Why the Vortex IQ value may legitimately differ:| Reason | Direction | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Starting event choice. The dominant path depends entirely on which event anchors Flows. | Reorders the ranking | Confirm both use the same starting event. |
| Path depth setting. Flows shows a limited number of steps; deeper sequences may be grouped. | Paths look shorter in Mixpanel | Increase the step depth in Flows to match. |
| Event grouping. Merging or splitting similar events changes which sequence leads. | Either direction | Use the same event definitions when comparing. |