Virtual Properties

A Virtual Property is based on an SQL expression that you define, typically depending on the value of another property. For example, the domain of an email property, or a group of property values,. A virtual property is a client side calculation. It allows you to create additional dimensions on the data by applying rules that are used for the retrieval of data.

A Virtual Property can be used throughout Journey Analytics in the same way as a regular property.

There are two kinds of Virtual Properties:

  • Expression: any CQL expression
  • URL Parameter: the value of a parameter in the page URL

New Virtual Property

  1. From the Project menu select Properties
  2. Click on + button in the top right of the window to add a new property

    Add Virtual Property menu open

  3. Select Expression or URL Parameter
  4. Configure the new property
  5. Click Save

Expression

A Expression property enables you to replace the value of a property sent in an event using a CQL function that you define in the Journey Analytics Administrator console (as described below). After the event is stored in Journey Analytics, you can query this property in the same way that you would any other property.

Examples

  1. Multiplying item_price with item_quantity to get the total income for the item. The expression will be:
    item_price * item_quantity

    table of items in three columns: item_price, item_quantity, and item_revenue

  2. Converting EUR values to USD by multiplying by the exchange rate (the rate can be updated at any time any will effect all data retroactively). The expression will be:
    price_USD * 1.18
  3. Extracting domain from an email using regular expression functions:
    substr(REGEXP_extract(email,'(@.*?[.])'),2,length(REGEXP_extract(email,'(@.*?[.])'))-2)
  4. Grouping site_id into the site name:
CASE WHEN site_id = 1 then 'UK' WHEN site_id=2 then 'USA' WHEN site_id = 3 THEN 'CANADA' else 'International' END

URL Parameter

The URL parameter is a component in the URL of a page that can pinpoint the exact version of the page a user is viewing. For example, when viewing an item in an online store, every choice of color or size will result in a different combination of URL parameters.

The URL parameters can be identified by the fact they appear after an & sign.

Journey Analytics's URL parameter function lets you filter your events by their URL parameters in order to get the specific state of a page's parameters when certain events occurred.