Guide - Set up Custom Dimensions (parameters) in GA4 - News moduels

For the set-up for Modular see here: https://support.visiolink.com/hc/en-us/articles/21345503430034-Guide-Set-up-Custom-Definitions-parameters-in-GA4-Modular-App 

GA4 is Event based, where each Event Names are sent with Event Parameters (sub information). Therefore, you are no longer limited to store all your parameters in the three categories used in GA3.

Visiolink 12 standard events in GA4:

1. vl_event_download
2. vl_event_publication
3. vl_event_page
4. vl_event_article_end
5. vl_event_search
6. vl_event_interstital_impression
7. vl_event_interstital_click
8. vl_event_hotspot_impression
9. vl_event_hotspot_click
10. vl_event_audio_end
11. vl_event_podcast_end
12. vl_event_feed
13.  

Visiolinks standard events will automatically be sent to your GA4 account. However, the events will first be visible when the data connection have been set-up in your app/apps. 

For all of Visiolinks standard events different parameters follows. One important aspect in GA4 is that all custom parameters need to be set-up as Custom dimensions in order to use them in reporting. Therefore, if you want to see all additional information that is send with each of Visiolinks Standard events, it is necessary to set them up as Custom dimensions.
The next section of this guide goes through how you set-up all Event parameters as Custom dimensions.

Set up Custom Dimensions in GA4:

The following set-up of Custom dimensions will include all Visiolinks 12 Standard events. It is however very individual if you have all events present in your app. Though, it will always be a good idea to set up all parameters, then you are insured you don’t miss any tracking if you at a later point implement ex. Podcast.

If you set-up all parameters for all 12 main events this will include 41 custom dimension and 1 custom metric.

Here is the overview of the 41 custom dimensions:

Dimension Name	Description	Scope	Parameter (code)
App_id	App id	User	vl_value_app_id
Analytics_code	UA-id	User	vl_analytics_code
Client	Operating system	User	vl_value_client
Client_id	Unique id	User	vl_value_client_id
Push_token	Device/app ID	User	vl_value_push_token
User_id	Unique id	User	vl_value_user_id
User_id_source	Custom, Server or Client id	User	vl_value_user_id_source
Version	Platform version	User	vl_value_version
Article_author		Event	vl_value_article_author
Article_category		Event	vl_value_article_category
Article_characters	Number of characters	Event	vl_value_article_character_count
Article_id	External article id	Event	vl_value_article_external_id
Article_method	How did a user read the article	Event	vl_value_article_method
Article_page_number		Event	vl_value_article_page_number
Article_source		Event	vl_value_article_source
Article_title		Event	vl_value_article_title
Audio_length	Sec.	Event	vl_value_audio_length
Audio_source		Event	vl_value_audio_source
Audio_type	Narrated/tts_gc or Device tts	Event	vl_value_audio_article_type
Feed_title	Live feed title	Event	vl_value_feed_title
Hotspot_url	Clickable ads	Event	vl_value_hotspot_id
Interstital_name		Event	vl_value_interstitial_id
Login_type		Event	vl_value_download_authentication_type
Login_method	Only for Desktop app	Event	vl_value_login_method
Orientation	Landscape or portrait	Event	vl_value_orientation
Page_number		Event	vl_value_page_number
Podcast_author		Event	vl_value_podcast_author
Podcast_channel	Channel name	Event	vl_value_podcast_channel
Podcast_length	Sec.	Event	vl_value_podcast_length
Podcast_source		Event	vl_value_podcast_source
Podcast_title		Event	vl_value_podcast_title
Publication_customer	Prefix title	Event	vl_value_publication_customer
Publication_date		Event	vl_value_publication_date
Publication_folder_id	From Hub	Event	vl_value_publication_folder_id
Publication_source		Event	vl_value_publication_source
Publication_title		Event	vl_value_publication_title
Publication_id		Event	vl_value_publication_id
Search_word		Event	vl_value_search_query
Search_scope		Event	vl_value_search_scope
Section_name		Event	vl_value_section_name
Section_number		Event	vl_value_section_number

Metric Name	Description	Scope	Parameter (code)
Duration	Sec. spend on	Event	vl_value_duration

If you have bougth the feature Module tracking you will need to set-up one more parameter: 

Dimension Name	Description	Scope	Parameter (code)
Module_name	name from your app	event	vl_value_module_name

The process of setting the custom dimensions up is identical. The only different is the scope of the custom dimension. It is possible to choose ‘Event’ or ‘User’. The different between these two is that event parameter can change value through out a session, where a user custom dimension always will take the same value through a session.

Setting up a Custom dimension:

 

Step 1: Go to your Google Analytics 4 Property and click on the Admin-panel in the bottom left.

 

Step 2: Click on "Custom definitions" located in the "Data display" section.

 

Step 3

Click on "Create custom dimension".

 

Step 4

Fill out the form using the information found in this guide. Below example is using the information for the User Parameter "vl_value_orientation" (See section 1 for this information). The descriptions are not mandatory.

Click ‘Save’. The user scoped custom dimension is now added to you property.

 

Step 5

Save custom dimension.

You have now added one of the parameters needed to capture valuable data. We highly recommend that you repeat step 3 through 5 until all parameters are added.

 

The only custom metric we collect is 'Duration', therefore you only need to add this one metric.

Sum up:

When you have finished the set-up of all the Custom dimensions and metric you can now use the events and parameters to create reports. Further you can also use the parameters to build dashboards in Looker Studio. 
If you have set up all custom dimensions you will now have 41 rows.