What is the value passed through the serialized Event?

[SupunD]

I have a single select list where I am firing an event and a serialized event. 

Let's say that I have 4 items on this list. The end-user selects the first three options before finalising their choice as the third item in the single select list. On this occasion, what would be the value passed in the serialized event? The information of the first item on the list, second item on the list or the third item on the list? 

Thanks in advance! 

[Jennifer_Dungan]

I don't think event serialization is what you want...  The value you pass on a serialized event is a lifetime value... as in if I pass "event1:a" then no other instance of "event1:a" will ever track again.

Event serialization is used for things that should only be counted once ever... like purchase transactions (passing a unique order id, so that if something happens and that same order id is passed to Adobe, it can be ignored as a new purchase), or something like a user registration (where the user's unique system id is passed, once a user id is registered, no future sends of this id will be counted as a registration). This can be helpful to pass on something like a login event, if your developers can't tell you when someone is new, you can use this unique ability to try and find the difference between a login and a "first time" login (i.e. user is registered).

It should also be noted that event serialization will only take a maximum of 20 characters (something I actually put in an idea to raise the characters it would accept, since a lot of development now is using 36 character guids...  so serialization on a partial of the unique value isn't a great option).

However, in your scenario, I cannot see how or why you would need to record a unique event based on serialization....

Maybe you can provide a little more info as to what this list is doing and what you are trying to report on?

[yuhuisg]

@Jennifer_Dungan is right, you don't want to use event serialization. Reference: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/analytics/implementation/vars/page-vars/events/event-seriali...

Instead, what you want to do is to track that final selection when the user actually makes the call-to-action. For example, assuming that the user experience is like this:

1. User selects an item from the selection list.
2. User clicks a "Next" button to move on to the next step, where the selected list item is used in the next step.

Then, you would want to track the selected item when the user clicks that "Next" button