Manage dimensions on custom metadata

This is for:

Business Analyst System Administrator

Members with the required privileges can access the Dimensions (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page to manage dimensions. These are metadata gathered by the search interface and passed along with the performed event to indicate the context of the recorded event on custom metadata.

Dimensions are essential for building usage analytics (UA) reports and for inspecting user visits through the Visit Browser. While standard dimensions are available out of the box in your Coveo organization, you have the option to record additional custom information from your search interfaces. To leverage this information in your Coveo organization, you must create user-defined dimensions.

You can create, modify, or remove user-defined dimensions at any time.

Note

Custom data can only be leveraged when using the UA Protocol. If your Coveo implementation uses the Event Protocol, custom dimensions and metrics shouldn’t be added to a report since they won’t function as expected.
Examples

  • As a support manager, you’ve noticed that a lot of customers are submitting support tickets for issues that are already addressed in your knowledge base.

    You decide to track the usage of your case deflection component. To do so, you create a new dimension that you name Case Deflection Usage to track user interactions with the component.

    After a month, you create a UA report including the new dimension and realize that the component isn’t as interactive as you hoped. You then apply a few changes, such as making the case deflection component more prominent on your support page.

    As a result, your ticket submissions drop as users can now find answers faster.

  • You learn that third-party cookies are being deprecated, and you want to make sure that all your search hubs are compliant.

    To find out whether any of your search hubs are still leveraging third-party cookies, you want to create a custom report, but first, you need to create a custom dimension specifically for this purpose.

    You create a new dimension named Third-party cookies, and then include it in your UA report. After assessing the report, you discover two hubs are indeed still using third-party cookies, and you update them to ensure that they’re leveraging the client ID instead.

    As a result, your search hubs are now compliant with the new regulations.

Add dimensions on custom metadata

  1. On the Dimensions (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, click Add dimension.

  2. In the Add a dimension panel that appears:

    Add a Dimension panel

    1. In the Display name field, enter a display name for the dimension, such as, Results Sort By.

    2. (Optional) To create a semi-structured dimension, select the Semi-structured dimension checkbox.

      Semi-structured Path field

      In the Step field that appears, enter the applicable path step. To add another step, click Add step.

      Note

      The subsequent path steps are case-sensitive.

    3. Click the API name field and do one of the following:

      • Select between the detected API names that have no associated dimensions.

      • Start writing, and then select one of the suggested values as you type.

      • Enter one of the available API names (for example, resultsortby) or create a new one by typing it in, and then clicking the +Create prompt that appears.

        Notes

        • When you create an API name, the name must have no spaces, no uppercase letters, and no special characters. Your API name must also have less than 255 characters.

        • If you selected the Semi-structured dimension checkbox and then entered one or several path steps, those steps will be automatically added to the API name dropdown menu. In this case, we recommend selecting the API name that matches the path steps and not modifying it manually.

    4. Under Type, select the desired value type.

      Note

      Custom dimensions of Date type support epoch timestamp values.

    5. Under Related events, select at least one of the available category checkboxes.

      Note

      When the dimension you create is global (for example, Country), select all three event categories. This way, you won’t have to create a dimension for each type.

    6. Click Add Dimension.

      It can take up to five minutes for the user-defined dimension values to appear in usage analytics reports. The data generation time depends on the number of events and the amount of data you have. The dimension appears in the User defined dimension list and in the list of available dimensions reporting on usage analytics data.

      Tip
      Leading practices

      • For every dimension you create, you can review the number of unique dimension values with the Unique [Dimension Name] metric that’s automatically created (see Usage analytics metrics).

      • For every numeric dimension you create, you can measure the dimension value total and average value as well the minimum and maximum values using the following metrics that are automatically created: Average [Dimension Name], [Dimension Name] Maximum, [Dimension Name] Minimum, and [Dimension Name] Sum (see Usage analytics metrics).

      • After a dimension is created, only the display name can be edited. If you want to further define a custom dimension that you’ve already created (for example, adding the semi-structured dimension option), we recommend creating a new dimension with the desired configuration and then deleting the initial one.

Edit a user-defined dimension name

  1. Access the Edit a Dimension dialog by clicking the user-defined dimension that you want to review, and then clicking Edit in the Action bar.

  2. In the Edit a Dimension dialog:

    1. Click the Display Name box and then change the display name.

    2. Click Save.

Delete a user-defined dimension

  1. Click the user-defined dimension that you want to remove, and then click Delete in the Action bar.

  2. In the confirmation prompt that appears, click Yes.

Review dimension management activities

As part of your duties, you may need to review activities related to dimensions for investigation or troubleshooting purposes. To do so, in the upper-right corner of the Dimensions (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page, click clock.

See Review resource activity for details on activities and alternative ways to access this information.

Required privileges

The following table indicates the required privileges to view and edit elements of the Dimensions (platform-ca | platform-eu | platform-au) page and associated panels (see Manage privileges and Privilege reference).

Action Service - Domain Required access level

View dimensions

Analytics - Analytics data
Analytics - Dimensions
Organization - Organization

View

Edit dimensions

Analytics - Analytics data
Organization - Organization

View

Analytics - Dimensions

Edit

Access the Activity Browser and view all organization activities

Organization - Activity
Organization - Organization

View
Important

A member with the View access level on the Activities domain can access the Activity Browser. This member can therefore see all activities taking place in the organization, including those from Coveo Administration Console pages that they can’t access.

Custom metadata reference

This section provides references for metadata names for different types of events. These metadata are logged but not available in usage analytics reports unless you create a dimension for them. You can use the values in the API name column in the section below for the value of the API name parameter when you create a dimension.

Action cause (click)

documentQuickview

Logs the following:

  • The item title opened in Quick view.

    API name: documenttitle

  • The item URL opened in Quick view.

    API name: documenturl

documentOpen

Logs the following:

  • The clicked item title.

    API name: documenttitle

  • The clicked item URL.

    API name: documenturl

interfaceChange

Logs the search interface (tab) name.

API name: interfacechangeto

contextRemove

Logs the removed search context name.

API name: contextname

resultsSort

Logs the name of the selected sorting function.

API name: resultssortby

Logs the following:

  • The breadcrumb ID removed from the facet history.

    API name: facetid

  • The breadcrumb value removed from the facet history.

    API name: facetvalue

documentField

Logs the following:

  • The clicked field ID from an item field to add a filter.

    API name: facetid

  • The clicked field value from an item field to add a filter.

    API name: facetvalue

pagerNumber

Logs the page number value used to change page.

API name: pagernumber

pagerNext

Logs the resulting page number after using the next button.

API name: pagernumber

pagerPrevious

Logs the resulting page number after using the previous button.

API name: pagernumber

omniboxFacet

Logs the following:app-name:

  • The ID of the selected facet filter from the omnibox.

    API name: facetid

  • The value of the selected facet filter from the omnibox.

    API name: facetvalue

facetClearAll

Logs the facet ID for which all values have been removed.

API name: facetid

facetRangeInputChange

Logs the user input in a range facet.

facetSearch

Logs the ID of the facet within the search was performed.

API name: facetid

facetToggle

Logs the following:

  • The selected operator (AND versus OR) icon before the toggle.

    API name: facetoperatorbefore

  • The selected operator (AND versus OR) icon after the toggle.

    API name: facetoperatorafter

facetRangeSlider

Logs the following:

  • The ID of the changed slider facet.

    API name: facetid

  • The start value of the slider facet.

    API name: facetrangestart

  • The end value of the slider facet.

    API name: facetrangeend

facetRangeGraph

Logs the following:

  • The ID of the changed graph facet.

    API name: facetid

  • The start value of the selected range.

    API name: facetrangestart

  • The end value of the selected range.

    API name: facetrangeend

facetSelect

Logs the following:

  • The selected facet ID used to filter on results.

    API name: facetid

  • The selected facet value used to filter on results.

    API name: facetvalue

facetDeselect

Logs the following:

  • The deselected facet ID to no longer filter on results with one of its values.

    API name: facetid

  • The deselected facet value to no longer filter on results with it.

    API name: facetvalue

facetExclude

Logs the following:

  • The excluded facet ID used to filter out results containing one of its values.

    API name: facetid

  • The excluded facet value used to filter out results containing this value.

    API name: facetvalue

facetUnexclude

Logs the following:

  • The unexcluded facet ID to no longer filter out results containing one of its values.

    API name: facetid

  • The unexcluded facet value to no longer filter out results containing this value.

    API name: facetvalue

facetSortValues

Logs the following:

  • The ID of the facet for which the sorting function has changed.

    API name: facetid

  • The name of the sorting function.

    API name: facetsortby

facetSelectAll

Logs the following:

  • The ID of the facet for which all values have been selected.

    API name: facetid

  • The values of the facet for which all values have been selected.

    API name: facetvalues

createItem

Logs the type of created item.

API name: entityName

Note

A caseAttach event is logged when a user clicks the Link to Case or the Mark as Relevant button, whereas a caseDetach event is only logged when a user click the Unlink from Case button, which cancels the Link to Case action.

searchboxSubmit

Logs the query from a non-standalone search box.

Logs the query from a standalone search box.

Action cause (Salesforce)

casecontextAdd

Logs the added contextual case ID.

API name: caseid

casecontextRemove

Logs the removed contextual case ID.

API name: caseid

preferencesChange

Logs the following:app-name:

  • The search preference setting name.

    API name: preferencesname

  • The search preference setting type.

    API name: preferencestype

caseAttach (Salesforce)

Logs the following:

  • The attached knowledge base article title.

    API name: documenttitle

  • The attached knowledge base article URL.

    API name: resulturihash

  • The attached knowledge base article ID.

    API name: articleid

  • The case ID on which the knowledge base article was attached.

    API name: caseid

caseDetach (Salesforce)

Logs the following:

  • The detached knowledge base article title.

    API name: documenttitle

  • The detached knowledge base article URL.

    API name: resulturihash

  • The detached knowledge base article ID.

    API name: articleid

  • The case ID on which the knowledge base article was detached.

    API name: caseid

customfiltersChange

Logs the following:

  • The custom search filter name.

    API name: customfiltername

  • The custom search filter type.

    API name: customfiltertype

  • The custom search filter expression.

    API name: customfilterexpression