Assign data elements to Analytics variables using Adobe Tags Rules.

Been working on this for half the day.  Finally sorted it out.  If you are using Adobe Tags, formerly Launch, and want to add your Adobe events, eVars and Props using the GUI pulling directly from your adobeClientDatalayer, you use Global Variables in the Adobe Analtyics Extension for page  level variables.  

For other variables, not set every page load, you create rules.  You don't need an event or condition, just an action.  Click the 'Add' button at the bottom to define the action.

Create Rule, setting the Action to capture Adobe Variable

Configure the action for the rule, setting the eVar or Prop to a data element defined previously

From the Adobe documentation:

Set variables in rules

Variables set in rules are ideal in cases where you don’t want variables set on every page. You define the criteria in the rule. See Rules in the Adobe Experience Platform tags documentation.

1. Log in to Adobe Experience Platform Data Collection using your AdobeID credentials.
2. Click the desired tag property.
3. Click the Rules tab, then click on the desired rule (or create one).
4. Click the Add button under Actions.
5. Set the Extension drop-down list to Adobe Analytics, and the Action Type to Set Variables.
6. Click the  icon to the right of the desired Analytics variable. Your organization’s solution design document dictates what Analytics variable to use.
7. Select the desired data element in the modal window. Click Select.
8. The data element name is added to the text field surrounded by % signs. For example, if you named your data element “Page name”, you would see the string %Page name% when assigning a data element to a variable.

 

Note - setting the variable in the rule does not send the beacon sending the data to Adobe.  You still need to create a final rules to trigger the becaon, one for page load (s.t()) and one for event (s.tl()).  That's beyond the scope of this post.