Android Google Analytics and Dimensions

Question

So we are using the new version of GA for Android.

We have a login and logout mechanism that we are tracking using custom dimensions on the session...

So as we are going through testing the analytics, we are getting events that are showing up as logged out, when the method that fires to register the event cannot be reached unless the user is logged in.

My question is how does GA dispatch handle items when something about the session has changed before the next dispatch?

I.E.

Start App

do Event A, do Event B, do Event C

Login and change session dimesions

do Event D, do Event E, do Event F

DISPATCH

Will events a-c be shown as logged out and d-f as logged in? or will they all show as logged out since that was the state of the dimension that was applied to the session when the dispatch queue started getting hits?

Answer 1

The session scoped custom dimensions will take the last value they were set to during a session.

Lets abstract this question away from weather or not a user is logged in or logged out. Lets say you have a session and within that session you send thee page views each with a different value for the session scoped custom dimension ga:dimension1. What value would you expect that dimension to take when you query for the events that occurred in that session? You should probably expect it to be the last value you set to.

So what can we learn about the EventA event B and Event C you mention with resepect to the session scoped custom dimension? you can learn that those events occurred during a session which a user was logged in, not weather the user was logged in when those events occurred.

Changing the value of a session scoped custom dimension does not create a new session. If you would like to keep track of the state that a hit occurred in perhaps you need a hit scoped custom dimension.