Allow "OR" when building a segment using the "matches" operator | Community
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daniellereisch
Level 4
February 24, 2015
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Allow "OR" when building a segment using the "matches" operator

  • February 24, 2015
  • 9 replies
  • 8800 views

At least once a week, I'll get a request from a client or colleague asking for metrics on a specific set of product IDs/page IDs/object keys. Or, we'll release a feature on our platform that impacts a subset of products (by ID) and I'll want to make a segment.

 

Currently, my two options are:

  • Drag a container into the segment builder for every.single.object and use "exact" matches (this is a grand waste of time and makes report performance sluggish)
  • Use the "contains any of", list every ID out delimited by a space, and hope that my IDs don't partially match other IDs (like "123" matching "12345")

 

What I would prefer:

Use the "matches" operator and list every criteria out, pipe-delimited: "123|124|150|180"

 

Right now, the "matches" operator allows for wildcards:

https://marketing.adobe.com/resources/help/en_US/analytics/segment/seg_operators.html

Why not show regex a little love and support "or" operators, too? Or go whole hog and allow for regular expressions? This has been a feature of GA since the day they allowed you to filter a report. 

    9 replies

    larry_he5
    larry_he5
    Level 2
    April 19, 2015

    I can't agree witch you more. The regular expressions should be allowd in "match" operator.

    benjamingaines2
    Adobe Employee
    benjamingaines2Adobe Employee
    Adobe Employee
    April 20, 2015

    Thanks for the idea and comments. This isn't something we're currently planning to do in the near term, but we'll keep an eye on this for votes and comments, and reevaluate if necessary.

    Gigazelle
    Adobe Employee
    GigazelleAdobe Employee
    Adobe Employee
    June 2, 2016

    In the current segment builder, dragging two containers next to each other has three operators: 'AND', 'OR', and 'THEN'. The 'OR' operator allows the exact segment above to be created.

    GaMeur1
    GaMeur1
    Level 3
    October 23, 2017

    I wonder what you recommend in case the number of different values is larger... Let's say we want to filter on 100 IDs or 1000 IDs... Would you recommend to make 100 or 1000  "OR" statements? It's not possible to manage it manually each time! So the response to this idea is not properly delivered.

    Gigazelle
    Adobe Employee
    GigazelleAdobe Employee
    Adobe Employee
    October 25, 2017

    Create a classification, and create a segment based on the classification. If the ID's have a pattern, you can use the rule builder; if there is no pattern, you can use the classification uploader.

    Once you have the classification in place to identify the ID's in question, create a segment where the only criteria is to match the classification value, and you're done.

    Hyder_Ziaee
    Adobe Employee
    Hyder_ZiaeeAdobe Employee
    Adobe Employee
    October 25, 2017

    You can also use "contains any of" as the condition.

    This takes space as a delimiter for the different values. So if used, will act as an OR condition between all 100 or 100 IDs inserted.

    GaMeur1
    GaMeur1
    Level 3
    October 25, 2017

    Ok, I see. Classification should do it. BUT allow "OR" inside the matches operator, or have some kind of "equals any of" operator would really be better. That's the point of this submitted idea!

    Because classification is not perfect in this case:

    - if you have a lot of different segments you want to build (based on different IDs), you'll need a LOT of different classifications...

    - if you have new IDs that are created, they won't be in your current classification (in case that you don't have pattern and have to use classification uploader), so it implies that you must update the classification, which is not as easy and quick than copy and paste list of IDs in a segment...

    For me, classification is just a workaround here.

    GaMeur1
    GaMeur1
    Level 3
    October 25, 2017

    No, you can't if an ID is included in another one... For exemple, if you say " ID contains any of  23 45 67" it will match 23, 45 and 67 but also 12345, 678 1067, etc... so it's not what we want.

    Hyder_Ziaee
    Adobe Employee
    Hyder_ZiaeeAdobe Employee
    Adobe Employee
    October 25, 2017

    Yes, you are correct about that GaMeur1​. There are limitations to it.

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