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jayak13010535
Level 3
November 2, 2017
Solved

Unspecified in Reports

  • November 2, 2017
  • 20 replies
  • 16949 views

Hi AA Team,

We capture user's login status in an eVar on every page load across web apps with the following values:

1. userId - if user is logged in

2. anonymous - if user is not logged in

However, when I see this eVar report with 'Visits' metric, I see a lot of Unspecified coming up in there. Any idea what might be causing this issue?

Many Thanks in advance!

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    Best answer by EricMatisoff

    Oooh - another idea:

    If you aren't capturing URL in an eVar/prop on those pages, you can consider leveraging Data Warehouse which makes the URL dimension available!

    Create a hit-based segment that focuses on your login status eVar = None.

    Create a Data Warehouse request that leverages that segment and pulls in Page URL as a dimension and a Page Views or Visits as metrics. You may also want to pull in additional dimensions like Custom Links, Exit Links, and File Downloads.

    20 replies

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    EricMatisoff
    Adobe Employee
    EricMatisoffAdobe Employee
    Adobe Employee
    April 23, 2018

    Hi amidland​ - I'm not quite following where you're seeing Unspecified. Which report is this in? Custom Links report? And if so, with what metrics?

    amidland
    amidland
    Level 2
    April 23, 2018

    Hi ericmatisoff​, sorry for the confusion, I was replying to the 2nd message above. We have several globally implemented variables (sending with all server calls) that are showing "Unspecified" in addition to the proper variable values. They all appear to be coming from iOS and upon breaking down Unspecified by Custom Links I can see ADBINTERNAL:Lifecycle.

    EricMatisoff
    Adobe Employee
    EricMatisoffAdobe Employee
    Adobe Employee
    April 23, 2018

    No worries about the confusion - times like these I wish we had a threaded view

    That does make sense. Those Lifecycle custom links are sent on app launch, app crash, etc that are automatically built into the SDK to provide metrics on that data. Your global variables will not be included in these automatic calls.

    amidland
    amidland
    Level 2
    April 23, 2018

    Thank you for the response! We are sending the global variables by passing additional data with Lifecycle calls and are able to see the Lifecycle custom link under our correct variable value and under Unspecified. So it appears that some of the data is coming in correctly/as expected and some is showing up under Unspecified.

    To clarify, are you saying that the built in Lifecycle calls are likely the Unspecified values? Do you know if iOS handles Lifecycle calls differently than Android? And if so, is it advisable or possible to filter out the Unspecified items so they don't impact our reporting?

    Thank you!

    EricMatisoff
    Adobe Employee
    EricMatisoffAdobe Employee
    Adobe Employee
    April 23, 2018

    I wouldn't expect a difference between how iOS handles Lifecycle vs Android, but I don't feel confident without digging into the app's server calls and data.

    If those Unspecified values show Lifecycle data when broken down by Custom Links, I'd feel confident that's the root cause.

    The reason some global variables have Lifecycle data and others don't may have something to do with expiration of those eVars vs other eVar expirations vs props. If any of your eVars are set to expire at the Visitor granularity, then the values would persist 'through' the Lifecycle metrics getting fired.

    Are you seeing that the context data variables that you're setting are firing in your debugger (ex: Charles) with the Lifecycle metric server calls?

    amidland
    amidland
    Level 2
    April 23, 2018

    We think we have found the issue - iOS was not sending the variables with Lifecycle calls and Android was. We are currently implementing and testing. Thank you for your help and quick responses!

      marion33678522
      marion33678522
      Level 5
      April 26, 2018

      amidland​

      I had the same problem with the IOS LifeCycle trackAction.

      Instead of implementing this on the Lifecycle, would'nt it be easier to just creat a segment excluding all Lifecycle custom links ?

      Or even excluding all 'Unspecified' Data ?

      I mean, it would be less hard to implement !

      Cheers !

        amidland
        amidland
        Level 2
        April 26, 2018

        marion33678522​ Thank you for getting back to me. Good point and we were wondering if that sort of filtering was appropriate/advisable. 

        Our implementation choice stemmed from attempting to mimic sending on "all server calls" which was how a set of global variables on web were implemented. I took this to mean that the variables should be implemented with all Lifecycle, trackAction, and trackState calls and another consultant confirmed that we should go forward with this implementation if possible.

        Thanks, again!

          J
          jonathanr763882
          September 26, 2018

          I'm having the same issue! Ok so we know the following:

          • Pageviews are working correctly (no unspecified values)
          • Some visitors and visits have unspecified values
          • Some visitors and visits do not have unspecified values

          This leads me to believe that if, during a visit, login_status sends both logged in AND not logged in (because someone logged in during a visit), then the value is unspecified in analytics. Same goes for visitors that have been logged in AND logged out during the date range.

          I can't confirm this but I have a good feeling about it. My task is now to 'classify' the unspecified values as 'logged in' but I have no idea how to do that. Any ideas?

          vijayaveenab130
          vijayaveenab130
          Level 2
          July 29, 2019

          Hi Jonathan,

          With respect to your above explanantion, can you please elaborate on this "during a visit, login_status sends both logged in AND not logged in (because someone logged in during a visit), then the value is unspecified in analytics. "

          Are you saying that if a user is logged in and if he logs out and comes back as an anonymous user in the same visit then we see unspecified?

          Your comments on this will be highly appreciated. Thank you

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