Dimensions are a list of values that can be captured and recorded when an event is triggered. 

Reports for events show the number of times the event fired for a specified time. This is known as the event count. The report also shows the number of times that each value occurred for the specified time.

What you should know about dimensions

• Dimensions are populated by events, hit attributes, or session attribute data that has been captured or specified manually.
• Dimensions can be populated from a whitelist or from observed values.
• Dimension data is stored as text. Data values are not case-sensitive.
• Dimensions can be filtered to capture a user-specified amount of values. The maximum is 10,000.
• Dimensions can have defined set of values. This is called a value list.
• Dimensions are used in reports.
• Dimensions can be organized into dimension groups.

Dimensions are created based on a set of attributes:

• Active: Determines whether the dimension is active. Default is ON.
• Dimension name: The name of the dimension you are creating.
• Tags: Keywords to help you find this dimension in searches.
• Description: Description of the dimension.
• Populated by: Select an event, session attribute, hit attribute or step attribute to populate the dimension.
• Default value: If the value populated by the object is not in the expected format, then Others is displayed. You can also specify a custom value to be displayed.
• Whitelist: You can specify the list of values that are accepted to populate this dimension.
• Observed values: Records values as observed. You can limit the maximum observed values.
• Text mappings: Group of defined values to a single display value. For example, FL is Florida.
• Numeric mappings: Group of defined numeric values to a single display value. For example, cart amounts or duration.

Tealeaf provides dimensions, but you can also create your own.

Note: You must be assigned the role of EventAdmin to create dimensions.

Create dimensions

1. In the Event manager, click New.
2. Select Dimension.
3. Enter the Dimension name.
4. Click + Add tags and enter or select tags.
5. Enter a description.
6. Select the object to populate the dimension. Click + Select and then select the object.
7. Select the default value to be displayed. If you choose custom value, you need to enter a value. Default: others.
8. Select the option to populate the dimension.

   Note: A system setting in the configuration file allows older dimension values to "roll off" when the 10k limit is met. Rolling off the oldest dimension values allows you to maintain the most recent values, even when the 10k limit is met.

   If needed, you can add and delete rows in the white list.

9. Optional: Click Turn on logging to log the occurrences of the dimension values.
10. Click Save.

Purge, edit, and delete dimension information

Purge dimensions

You can purge dimension values from dimensions that you create. You might purge dimension data if you no longer use that dimension. You cannot purge dimension values that have been whitelisted by the system or your event administrator.

1. Select the dimension to purge.
2. Select Purge.
3. Select your purge option.
   • Purge by rule. In the Search field, search for the rule that you want to purge. Alternatively use an asterisk (*) to do a wildcard search and select the data from within that search. 
   • Purge by date. Choose your date range to purge all data for that dimension from within that range. A dimension value is only purged if it appears during that date range. If it appears before or after the date range, the dimension value isn't purged. For example, you have two dimension values of "Firefox" and "Chrome". Both of them occur in that date range. However, "Firefox" appears again after that date range so is not purged, but "Chrome" is purged. 
   • Purge all. All data for that dimension will be purged. 
4. Once your data is chosen, click Purge.
5. A confirmation modal pops up, click Purge to complete the action.

Your data is purged and no long available for use. 

Edit dimensions

You can edit any dimension you create to suit your business needs. 

1. Select the dimension you want to edit. 
2. Click Edit.
3. Edit any part of your dimension and click Save. 

Delete dimensions

You can delete dimensions, but you must have admin permissions. If you delete a dimension, all of the historical dimension data that is associated with previous events are deleted. If you delete a dimension, all of the historical dimension data that is associated with previous events and reports are deleted.

Important: When you delete a dimension, items that use the dimension are also deleted. Before you confirm that you want to delete a dimension, a list of the items that will also be deleted is shown. If there is an item in the hierarchy that you do not want to delete, click Cancel. Then, disassociate the item from the dimension and delete the dimension.

1. Select the dimension to delete.
2. Click Delete.
3. Verify that everything in the hierarchy can be deleted and click Delete.

The dimension and the associated items are deleted.

Goal-based dimensions

Goal-based dimensions is a method of using events within Experience Analytics to measure the effectiveness of business goals in the session.

With goal-based dimensions, events fire as they occur but dimension data is not published until the session ends. This enables reporting to be segmented based on factors that occur after the event occurrence.

Event firing and event publishing

When the conditions that are specified in the event definition are met, the event fires, which stores a marker for the event on the hit.

An event is published when the event and its recorded data are made available to Experience Analytics (Tealeaf) services, such as Search Indexing and the Data Collector.

By default, event data is published to dimensions when the event (with which the dimension is associated) fires for the first time. This immediate responsiveness ensures that event activity and contextual data are captured as a snapshot of the current state of the session.

There can be use cases when you want event data to be published at Session End, rather than when the event fires. For example, you might want to track the number of users who trigger a search on your web application, and who failed to complete a purchase transaction. It isn't possible to evaluate the failure until all hits of the session are processed. You must delay tabulating the other event (users who triggered a search), which tracks search + failed to complete, until the end of the session. At the end of the session, the last known value for each dimension is back-populated to the event occurrences from earlier in the session.

Delaying the publishing of events and dimension data in this manner, ensures that all of the data that is required to properly evaluate the event is tabulated.

Note: Until the end of the session, goal-based dimensions are NULL values.

Configuring event processing for goal-based dimensions

When you create or edit an event, you specify how you want the data to be published.

To process the objectives that are associated with goal-based dimensions, you must configure both the event and the dimension to publish at Session End. Configuring the event to publish at Session End, but not the dimension (or vice versa) results in different event processing behavior. By forcing the event and the dimension to be published at Session End, the correct values for both event and dimension are recorded for indexing.

Use the Published at event attribute to control when event data gets published, either immediately (when the event fires) or at Session End.

If you set Published at to Immediate, the event and associated dimension values are published immediately (when the event fires). Data is extracted from the session when the event is triggered. When an event fires, the values of the associated dimensions are published with the event value. If the event has associated dimensions that are configured to Publish at Session End, the event gets published immediately, and the associated dimensions are left blank (no captured value).

If you set Published at to Session end, the event values detected at the time the event fired are recorded. However, publishing doesn't occur until the session is completed, either by the visitor of if the session times out.

This method for event publishing enables the support of the capturing of the dimension values associated with the event from their last occurrence in the session. As such, any associated dimensions that are configured as Publish at Session end get populated with the absolute last value for that dimension in the session. The value is used for any occurrence of the event, even if the event fires and the dimension was populated before session end.

Example

Figure 1. Example of goal-based dimension event processing

1. On Step 5, the conditions for a defined event are met and the event fires, Dimension X is empty.
2. On Step 7, Dimension X gets populated with Value1.
3. On Step 8, the conditions for the defined event are met, and the event fires again.
4. On step 10, Dimension X is updated with Value2.

When the session ends, the occurrences of the event on Step 5 and Step 8 are back populated with Value2 but are linked to steps 5 and 8. Only the last value of the goal-based dimension is used. Note: An event can fire multiple times in a session. An event that is configured to publish data at Session end occurs only one time at the end of the session. As a result, events that are published at session end contain none of the context of the hit on which the event occurred.