Use Custom Dimensions instead of Custom Variables (for Bots/Http-Status tracking and the feature --w3c-field-regex and --track-http-method)

[mattab]

Currently Log Analytics uses the Custom Variables feature in various ways:

• Tracking whether user is Bot or Not-Bot, see --enable-bots
• Tracking the HTTP Status code in a custom variable Http-code
• Parsing any log field or custom field in a custom variable, see
  • --w3c-field-regex
  • and --regex-group-to-visit-cvar
  • and --regex-group-to-page-cvar

As we are planning to deprecate Custom Variables in matomo-org/matomo#11524 it is necessary to change our use of Custom Variables and use Custom Dimensions instead.

Solution

So we need to use Custom Dimensions them to track

• whether a user is a bot or not,
• the http status code of each action,
• and the ability to parse any log field in a new (or existing) custom dimension.

The script will therefore now need to fetch the list of dimensions available for the site, and possibly create a new custom dimension if it does not exist yet.

Maybe we should keep the existing features using Custom Variables for BC?

[kaplun]

Dear @mattab I'd be interested into the support for Custom Dimension especially giving the above matomo-org/matomo#11524 and some issues I am finding in having Custom Variables handled with log analytics: matomo-org/matomo#12960. I could work on contributing generic support for Custom Dimensions if you can point me to the API specifications the bulk API expects (I wasn't able to find them, only for the generic JS tracker).

[mattab]

Hi @kaplun
Sounds great if you can work on this issue. You'll need to use the CustomDimensions API to get/create custom dimensions: https://developer.matomo.org/api-reference/reporting-api#CustomDimensions
Let me know if you need more help or guidance

[tsteur]

fyi @mattab moving this into current sprint as we now need to support custom dimensions in Matomo 4 I suppose (since we no longer have custom variables in core)