How to convert a time dimension into metric

[SukritiDa]

Hi, 

The data on my adobe analytics platform is capturing the time spent on specific flows (hard coded before) as a dimension. So it shows that how many times xyz flow took 19 secs, 20 secs, 2300 secs and so on. I want to create this into a metric so that I can calculate average, median, mode etc for those specific flows. Any recommendations on how to do this the best way possible? 

Thank you. 

[Jennifer_Dungan]

So you are capturing time spent flows into a custom dimension like a prop or eVar, correct?

I don't believe you can convert this to a metric... you would have to take the data external to Adobe (such as Data Warehouse Export, Report Builder, API, or Raw Data Feeds) and process convert the text to a numeric value for your calculations.

[yuhuisg · Accepted solution]

That is correct. Dimension values are always stored as strings. So even though you and I see "19 sec" and recognise it as 19 seconds, to AA, that is the string "19 sec" (like "one nine space s e c") and has no other knowledge of it aside from being a string of alphabets and numbers and punctuation.

If you need to report on time as a metric, you should change your implementation to track your time durations to a success event in seconds. Then, in Analysis Workspace, though that metric gets reported as an integer, you can create a Calculated Metric from it and format it as "Time" to get a more familiar hh:mm:ss format.

[V_Pavan]

Hey,
Are you calculating the time spent using plugin or a custom code?