Multiple Value eVar

[skatofia]

Hello,

I was wondering what is the best way to break up a multiple value eVar to do analysis on it? Would it be using "|" dividers? For example, if I had an active, expired, and total values I wanted attributed, could I do an example eVar value as "1 | 3 | 4", where 1 is active, 3 is expired, and 4 is total (expired + active)? Would there be a functional feature in segments in adobe workspace that could easily break up those evars into bucketed values?

Thanks.

[MandyGeorge]

If you want to have more than one value in the same evar, the way to break out that data would be to use classifications, not segments. But it is very easy to use classifications to break apart the values, especially if you have a common delimiter you're using. Using the classification rule builder, you can use regex and pull apart the different pieces of data from the evar.

This post was asked recently and is similar to your question. Check out the links in the response for more info about classifications.

https://experienceleaguecommunities.adobe.com/t5/adobe-analytics-questions/extract-part-of-url-in-ad...

[Jennifer_Dungan]

I actually do this on several eVars and props, using pipe (|) as a delimiter and classification rules... there are a few "gotchas" you need to be aware of...

Classification Rules only process every 4-6 hours, so it's best not to look at "live" or "today" data... 

The other thing is.. even with valid regex rules, do no use 0 on it's own in your tagging.... 0 will not be recognized (even though the preview tester will show 0 being parsed... in your real data it won't....

so 1, 2. 3, 10, 20 all fine... just 0 is an issue.....

[leocwlau · Accepted solution]

As @MandyGeorge and @Jennifer_Dungan replied, classification is the answer. I just want to add two points to that.

1. If the data you are going to pack into eVar are all numeric, you can consider using multiple numeric success events instead of putting multiple values into one single eVar. You have way more success events to use than eVar and can do calculation on numeric events.
2. If the data packed into an eVar is complicated and sometimes dynamic, you can pack them in a name-value approach, such as the eVar content will be "name1=value1|name2=value2|name3=value3", then you can again use classification rule builder with regex to extract the value into the corresponding classification

One last option for the super complicated cases is using a list variable, which is similar to option 2 above but you only have 3 list variables per report suite and require very careful planning.