Cannot create reports for custom dimensions/metrics GA4

Question

I have implemented a feedback star rating on my website at the bottom of each page. They can select one to five stars and optionally send free-form comments. I have implemented gtag.js to send the star rating integer and comments to my GA4 dashboard. Code snippet is below; I have omitted the JavaScript which allows the user to set the variables, but this is working.

<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=MEASUREMENT_ID"></script>
<script>
  window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
  function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
  gtag('js', new Date());

  gtag('config', 'MEASUREMENT_ID', {
    'custom_map': {
      'rating_dimension': 'rating_key',
      'comments_dimension': 'comments_key'
    },

    'rating_key': 'this.value',
    'comments_key': 'commentsValue',
  });
</script>

    gtag('event', 'rating_event', {'rating_key': this.value });

    gtag('event', 'comments_event', {'comments_key': commentValue });

I went under Configure>Custom definitions and added the dimensions under the Event scope.

The data is being sent as an event, because this is something the user can optionally do on a page. I have verified that the data is sent to GA, I have the Google Chrome GA Debugger, and can see that it is arriving in the Realtime report under Events.

I would like to build a report which shows the page title/URL, the number of views, the length of time spent, along with its average star rating and any comments. I would like to have some adjustable controls so that I can configure this to be shown for a specified length of time. For example, if the page is modified, I can see the average rating before and after the change. Unfortunately, I am not able to build even the most rudimentary view of this data in the new GA web interface. I tried to modify various existing reports to include my custom dimensions, but they don't offer this option. I went under Explore and tried to add a Freeform report, but I can't get the data to show up there either, it only counts the number of times the event has occurred, which is not what I care about at all.

I have gone to a lot of effort to send the data to GA and had expected to be able to access the data and build a basic report. I have spent hours struggling with this task that I had expected to be easy. I feel like I may have made a mistake using GA at this point. If anyone has any tips, they would be appreciated!

Answer 1

Is it that you are unable to add custom dimensions and metrics to the free form exploration? Or when you want to add dimensions or metrics, they don't even show up in the custom section?

Normally you have to wait more or less (some say up to) 24 hours before being able to use custom definitions (metrics and dimensions) in any report.

this might not be your case, but I found your post looking for an answer to my problem, which is the custom metrics and dimensions are there, I am just unable to add them to the report, it looks like a bug, I click the + button, check the custom dimensions and nothing happens.