Google Analytics User-ID report Dimensions and Metrics - google-analytics

Question

I need to populate my database with the User-ID report data for each user (The report I am referring to can be found in Google Analytics > Reports > User Explorer (> click on the user id)).
I am looking at the documentation, but cannot seem to find any dimensions or metrics that I can use to accomplish this: https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/dimensions-metrics-explorer/?authuser=1
I wish I had some code examples, however the alternative method would be to run this script (with all the other functions that I will not include in here for simplicity):
def get_user_Activity(analytics, VIEW_ID, user_id, start_date, end_date):
# Use the Analytics Service Object to query the Analytics Reporting API V4.
return analytics.userActivity().search(
body={
"viewId": VIEW_ID,
"user": {
"type": "USER_ID",
"userId": user_id
},
"dateRange": {
"startDate": start_date,
"endDate": end_date
},
"activityTypes": [
"PAGEVIEW", "EVENT"
]
}
).execute()
Which will yield this dictionary for each user-id:
{'sessions': [{'sessionId': '1579xxxx',
'deviceCategory': 'desktop',
'platform': 'Windows',
'dataSource': 'web',
'activiti es': [{'activityTime': '2020-01-22T12:48:20.971410Z',
source': '(direct)',
'medium': '(none)',
'channelGrouping': 'Direct',
'campaign': '(not set)',
'keyword': '(not set)',
'hostname': 'example.com',
'landingPagePath': '/somelandingpage',
'activityType': 'PAGEVIEW',
'customDimension': [{'index': 1}],
'pageview': {'pagePath': '/some/page', 'pageTitle': 'SOME Title'}},
{'activityTime': '2020-01-22T12:48:20.970754Z',
'source': '(direct)',
'medium': '(none)',
'channelGrouping': 'Direct',
'campaign': '(not set)',
'keyword': '(not set)',
'hostname': 'example.com',
'landingPagePath': '/somelandingpage',
'activityType': 'PAGEVIEW',
'customDimension': [{'index': 1}],
'pageview': {'pagePath': '/some/other/path', 'pageTitle': 'SomeTitle'}},...
..................
etc ..............
The trouble of this method is that I would have to go calculate most of the metrics that I am interested in, instead, I would prefer to merely collect the metrics and populate the DB.
If the needed "ga:dimension(s)" and "ga:metric(s)" could please be provided, it would be highly appreciated.

Answer 1

There's no built-in support for userId-level reporting in Google Core Reporting API, so you'll have to calculate all the necessary metrics on your side based on what's available in the Activity API responses.
The only alternative is having a user-level custom dimension with the same value as user ID. However, this only works if you have this tracking implemented in advance.