Processing Rule: Remove one parameter/value from a query string, but pass remaining values?

[OptimusJ]

Setting up a processing rule...

Question is, how do you remove a single parameter/value from a query string, but pass the remaining parameters/values?

Let's say I have a URL come over with a piece of data that I don't want stored in Analytics. (i.e. PII)

Example: https://www.myblog.com?frm=krypton&emailaddress=supernerd@example.com&couponcode=lex1

I only want to strip out the "emailaddress=*" portion. How would one configure a processing rule for that?

My initial thought was something like this (see image), but that would remove the entire query string.

How do I keep the whole URL value, minus the emailaddress param and value???

(And yes, I'm going to implement a fix in Launch that takes care of this moving forward. Just need to remove the data that is currently in our Adobe suite.)

[Asheesh_Pandey]

In the example: https://www.myblog.com?frm=krypton&emailaddress=supernerd@example.com&couponcode=lex1

I would do the following to construct url without an email address in it.

If All of the following are true

QueryStringParameter "emailaddress" is set

Then do the following:

Overwrite the value of URL(v31) (eVar31) with Concatenated Value                delimiter   <leave blank>

                                                                                Custom Value                    https://

                                                                                Page Domain

                                                                                Custom Value                    ?frm=

                                                                                QueryString Parameter      frm

                                                                                Custom Value                    &couponcode

                                                                                QueryString Parameter      couponcode

Note: Recommend to test in Dev report suite before pushing it live. Any change in proc rule may have an adverse impact over data collection.

Thanks,

Asheesh

[OptimusJ]

Thanks, Asheesh.

What happens if there is a parameter in the query string that I have not accounted for? (Ex. utm codes)

While your method would in fact work, I need a solution that can account for any and all possible parameters/values, or just target the emailaddress param.

Thoughts?

[Asheesh_Pandey]

If you are not sure about possible query string param values than it would make sense to ask your dev to encrypt email ids in URL to avoid any PII issue. in that case, you don't need to do anything.

I don't think you can do find and replace with the help of proc rules in this case.

[Gigazelle · Accepted solution]

Processing rules don't touch historical data, so once you implement it in Launch, you'll resolve it moving forward. Launch would be the best place to fix this issue anyway.

Historical data is pretty difficult to remove from Adobe Analytics, particularly if we're talking about parts of strings in values. This is probably something you'll want to get in touch with your account manager about.