Reporting API report breakdown does not contain items, though "counts" displays values

[bjoernkoth]

Hey guys, I'm trying to get the Analystics API to generate a report for a given s_prop (prop60) which is then broken down by the pages where this particular prop was fired (in a link tracking call).
The report is generated, however the "breakdown" section is just most of the an empty an array though the "counts" property is >0. 

I have tested it on different report suites and it seems to return different results on each rsid (sometime I can see some breakdowns)

{ "reportDescription":{ "reportSuiteID":"rsid", "metrics" : [ { "id" :"instances" } ], "elements":[ { "id":"prop60" }, { "id":"page" } ] } }

A sample response looks like this. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

{ "report":{ "type":"ranked", "elements":[ { "id":"prop60", "name":"event label (p60)" }, { "id":"page", "name":"Page" } ], "reportSuite":{ "id":"rsid", "name":"My RSID" }, "period":"Wed.  9 Dec. 2015", "metrics":[ { "id":"instances", "name":"Instances", "type":"number", "decimals":0, "latency":4253, "current":false } ], "data":[ { "name":"social_testfacebook", "url":"", "counts":[ "6" ], "breakdown":[ ] }, { "name":"social_myfacebook", "url":"", "counts":[ "5" ], "breakdown":[ ] }, { "name":"social_testfacebook123", "url":"", "counts":[ "5" ], "breakdown":[ ] }, // ... ], "totals":[ "24" ], "version":"1.4.15.11" }, "waitSeconds":"1.289", "runSeconds":"1.110" }

[bjoernkoth]

So the problem here seems to be the following

1. prop60 is filled via link tracking, NOT with standard page view calls and we need to use "instances" and not "pageviews" as metric to get a correct value
2. I checked with some other props that are being filled and sent on page load and using "pageviews" returns the desired page urls and page names where it was fired

So why is it apparently not possible to get the page information in a report using "instances" metrics? I do not quite understand what happens here. The tracking request contains all required information to link the current pageName and URL to the sent props. 

[brian_au · Accepted solution]

Since custom link tracking happens as a non-page view tracking occurrence it doesn't tie back at all to the standard page call (even if you set s.pageName on the custom link call). So instances will only work with custom link calls and page views will work with full page calls. More info on custom link tracking here: http://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/analytics/custom-link-tracking-capturing-user-actions/

[bjoernkoth]

Ok as I suspected. Thanks, Brian