Currently I have a setup where the Google Analytics events for the Android and iOS apps were being tracked on the Firebase console itself (which I believe is called UA). But that data is not visible at all in the Analytics Console. Now I want to move to GA4, such that I can use the latest features. I also want our existing data which has been captured under UA to be visible in the Analytics console in the GA4 property. I have tried creating a GA4 property, but over there, it was asking to add a new Data Stream, which is leading to creation of a new Firebase Project, and thus would require us to move all our other functionalities like Firestore to the new project as well, which is not feasible. Is there a way so that all my existing and new events which are fired from the Apps are registered in the Analytics Console, be it using UA or GA4 (GA4 would be preferred).
PS - I found ample number of articles to use tag id for Websites, but none for Android or iOS Apps.
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There is a single-page application (website) that can perform its functions without updating (including from a local copy). It was connected (via Google Tag Manager) Google Analytics, I get data about the application functions usage (by triggers on buttons clicks). But in GA, "application version" is shown as "(not set)" in all reports.
Is it possible somehow to pass the version of the app from the site, or is this feature only for apps?
UPD:
It's GA4.
Unfortunately I tried do it in GTM via the "fields to set" and get failed. Now I can see appVersion in realtime report as parameter of event "page_view" or my custom events, but in regular reports application version still marked as "(not_set)".
I can't test it now, but I believe this parameter is indeed a standard parameter only expected on mobile applications (Android, iOS).
Therefore, you should not be able to see any values for it in default reports, unless you manage to send it as firebase does it for an app.
From the firebase docs, there is the event app_update (normally collected automatically on apps) that expects a previous_app_version parameter. What you could do is to try to dispatch that event, with the parameter and see if thé version shows up in default reporting, but I would not bet on it.
For some reason PowerBI does not accept GA4 as a connection, so my data is stuck in GA4.
PowerBI does support Universal Analytics (UA), but I cannot find a way to convert my GA property.
Is there a way to do this or should I start over again and create a new property as UA?
PowerBI currently doesn't support GA4 as a destination because the underlying api is not product ready yet. See the response in the microsoft power BI community here: https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Desktop/Power-BI-Google-Analytics/td-p/1679530
For information about the api's and their current state:
This is a link to the api documentation the plugin is using (for universal analytics): https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/reporting/core/v4
This is a link to the api documentation of GA4 (which is still in beta): https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/reporting/data/v1
Regarding a solution for your issue:
In GA4 is it possible to export data to big query, which can be processed there and imported to PowerBI: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/desktop-connect-bigquery
The export only works from the moment you enable it, so it is not possible to access the data this way before the enablement.
Second option is using data studio to connect to your GA4 data to be able to access the data you have measured before.
First off as everyone says you cant change the type of your Google analytics account if it was created as UA then its UA if it was created as GA4 then its GA4. There is also no way to exxport data.
Now lets look at the underlying cause of your problem Google analytics connector in Power BI Desktop rely on the Google Analytics Core Reporting API this API is used to extract data from Google Analytics UA accounts. There is a very big difference between the underlying data structure of a UA account and a GA4 account they are not completable in any way shape or form.
Thats why the Google analytics team is currently developing the Google analytics data api This api has the ability to connect to Google analytics GA4 accounts and extract data. At the time this post was created Power BI Google Analytics The Google analytics data api had just been released and was still in alpha test phase as you can see from the change log this API is still under development. I haven't checked but it looks like it may even be out of beta now. (TBH I am not really sure of the exact date it was released publicly as I have been in the alpha test group for a long time.)
However that being said a lot of the client libraries used by this api are still under development as well Google .Net Client library for Google Analytics Data API for example is still in beta. At the time that post was written i am almost 100% sure the client library had not been released.
This means that any power bi connector is probably not going to be released until both the API and the client library are considered stable. I know the team is working hard on the API and I Haven't seen any breaking changes in a very long time.
So to the user who added a bounty to this looking for an updated answer.
IMO I don't think you have long to wait before everything is stable enough for applications like the Power BI to start appearing that support GA4. That is assuming that someone creates one.
You can't covert GA4 to UA (or UA to GA4).
In your case you can create a new UA Property and start to track in it:
We have a web app that users log into using Firebase Auth. According to our the authentication section of our firebase console, we have 690 user that have created accounts, and we believe that is correct.
According to our Firebase Analytics console, we have 2,100 new users in the past 90 days. I think I understand that Firebase Analytics tracks users with a device ID (?). So, if this were a iOS app, an uninstall and install would trigger a a new user counted in analytics. But, how does this work on a web app? Cookie? Some kind of browser id? A session?
So, I think if we want to track unique users accurately, we would use the set the user id, with this:
https://firebase.google.com/docs/reference/js/firebase.analytics.Analytics#setuserid
Which according to the docs linked above, 'Use gtag 'config' command to set 'user_id'. So it does this: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gtagjs/cookies-user-id#set_user_id
Which allows the users to be tracked across sessions. Therefore, users should not double count.
Notice that the setUserId section in the firebase analytics docs does not have a web section (although the setUserID function does exist in the javascript sdk as shown tow links above) https://firebase.google.com/docs/analytics/userid
So... would it then work to get the user id (uid) when they log in (https://firebase.google.com/docs/reference/js/firebase.User). And then use the setUserId method to set the id?
It's unclear because the documentation does not seem to be in one source. I am just trying to put it all together
You are correct that you can use the setUserId API (across iOS, web and Android) in order to identify the same user across platforms. Note that you'll need to:
Set the default reporting identity to "By User-ID then Device" in the Reporting settings for Google Analytics in the Firebase console (see attached screenshot and docs for more info).
Make sure you are following the Privacy Policy when using the User ID.
I have create a Google analytics 4 property and been running and gathering data for while now.
I need some external tools to integrate with it and I saw developers reporting that GA4 does not have an API yet, so it does not support any integrations.
I saw that you can create a dual UA and GA4 property but I was unable to find how to add UA to existing GA4 property.
In short: How do I add universal analytics view without loosing any data or integrate with external tools i.e. slack bot posting regular updates? (work around with big Query?)
GA4 does have an API. You can use the Google Analytics Data API v1 to fetch analytics data. The developer's site for this API has more information: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/reporting/data/v1. The API is currently available at an Alpha (preview) stability. The API will be entering Beta shortly.
When you read about creating dual Property it means tracking with both GA4 and Universal Analytics separately. They are 2 different scripts that track data in different platforms with different model.
Therefore you can create a new Universal Analytics Property in your Google Analytics Account and insert that code in the pages of your site, however it will start tracking from that moment on, you cannot have the history, both because you cannot transport data from a Property to the another (even if they were 2 Properties of the same type), and because GA4 has a completely different data collection model.
In any case, from the moment you start tracking with Universal Analytics then you can query the data with the relative API (i.e. Analytics Reporting API).
I'm somewhat confused about the flow of data in this integration, do I need a GA account to make use of GTM's functionality, or can I just keep the tags inside GTM/send them back to firebase?
I'm an iOS developer and need to tag my already existing firebase events in GTM, but not sure if I'm understanding the big picture here.
Thanks in advance!
You don't need to send data to Google Analytics. In fact, Firebase tags in GTM don't have any field where you can insert the Property ID of Google Analytics. Using them you send the events to the Firebase project that you have configured in its console.