Summary:
Since the launch of the Analytics "Apps and web (beta)" properties, it is no longer possible to create new Tracking IDs for tracking Application Data (screen hits, exceptions and so on) using the Measurement Protocol (v1).
Is there any way to create an Application Tracking ID? I'm not interested in tracking a Web App.
ds=app&t=screenview
-or-
ds=app&t=exception
When trying to create a property to measure an "App", the property is created as "Apps and web (beta)"
Steps to Reproduce:
Select an account.
Select "Admin"
In Properties column, "+ Create Property"
Under "What do you want to measure?" select "Apps" and fill remaining data
The new property is listed as "App + Web".
In the property settings, in "Property details", no Tracking ID is provided. Only a Property ID
Related
Essentially I've noticed that when a user's primary email is updated on their google account, their calendar ID will also change (e.g. ID will change from john#company.com to john_new#company.com).
This is a problem because I work on an application that relies on the calendar ID being a stable identifier for users. For example, lets say user A at a company schedules an event to their calendar through my application. We'll save metadata related to that event in our own database along with user A's calendar ID to denote that the event was scheduled to that calendar. This is important because we use this information to ensure that only users with write access to this calendar ID can edit this event from our application (important for security purposes).
Lets say user A gets their primary email updated, which causes their calendar ID to also change. Now, when I query the CalendarList endpoint to get a list of user A's calendars, I get back the new calendar ID, which makes my application think that user A should not have access to edit the event they just scheduled since that event was scheduled to a calendar ID that user A no longer has access to.
Is there a way around a problem like this? I can't find an endpoint that will return user A's "archived" calendar ID in addition to their new one. More deeply, I don't understand why their calendar ID changes as it feels like IDs should be stable identifiers...
In this case, by testing and working with the calendar API and Google Workspace it's a fact that the Calendar ID will always be the email address of the user account it’s associated with. I wish there was actual documentation but this is only from testing that I have verified this. There are other threads that explain the same, in this case with your situation you should modify your app in a way that the CalendarID is not based in a stable ID, as this depends on your email address.
I have set up google tag manager with my GA4 property
(NOT legacy Universal Analytics)
according to the official guide:
https://support.google.com/tagmanager/answer/6103696?hl=en&ref_topic=3441530#zippy=%2Cweb-pages
and I have figured out how to send custom/recommended events to GA4 using
dataLayer.push({}) objects, using their "event" field in triggers and tags,
based on a Universal Analytics guide
(https://www.analyticsmania.com/post/track-logins-with-google-tag-manager/),
because this appears to be a black hole in the official guide:
https://support.google.com/tagmanager/answer/9442095
only describes, briefly, the GTM-side of the story.
Same goes for sending User ID: the docs only tell
when creating a Google Analytics 4 Configuration tag:
To set a user ID, add a row to Fields to Set.
Set the Field Name to user_id, and the Value to
a Tag Manager Variable that returns the user ID.
and I only take the knowledge from the external UA guides
to use a Data Layer Variable that reads the user_id field from the dataLayer,
and also create a corresponding user_id User Property on Google Analytics,
which in Universal Analytics used to
have related settings that don't exist anymore
(https://www.analyticsmania.com/post/google-analytics-user-id-with-google-tag-manager/).
So I have deployed my GA4 Events with the user_id data layer variable
referenced in their Configuration (and it is visible on the datalayer in Debug View),
created the corresponding User Property in GA, and enabled User-ID reporting.
Yet, in my real-time view, the user_id fields always get some weird "gtm.js" value
(as if my data layer variable value was replaced by the event name
from the default dataLayer.push({event:"gtm.js",user_id:"ignored value")).
What in the world is missing for my user_id field to be recognised?
Thanks!
Thanks #bpstrngr! Was going around in circles for a while before finding your answer.
To clarify the step by step in case anyone else bumps into this;
When sending userId in dataLayer add an event name:
window.dataLayer.push({
'userId' : '{{ myUserId }}',
'event': 'userIdSet',
})
In GTM, create a Custom Event trigger that listens to that event (set event name equal to whatever event you wrote in step 1):
Add this event as a firing trigger into your tag:
So at long last it turned out,
that since the configuration tag was fired by the Page View event,
that happened before I pushed the user_id to the dataLayer,
so it filled the non-existing value with the event name instead.
I gave the user_id event a name to create a custom event trigger,
that re-triggers the configuration tag.
This way the user_id-s are finally visible.
I have been tasked with using Google Analytics to report of use of a desktop app so we can see which parts of the program are being used and how heavily, and potentially also see which companies are using which parts of the program (each company has a unique companyID). Ideally I'd like to be able to look at correlations (e.g., How many users who use report A also use process B?)
I currently have my program set to fire off a call to analytics. I've set it up to use the event tracking, but I'm open to app/screen tracking or something else if something would work better. I'm passing values like
v=1
&t=event // Event hit type
&tid=UA-XXXXX-Y // our ID; real code has valid value here
&cid=12345 // CustomerID
&ec=JobFinancialReport // Event Category
&ea=Run // Event Action
&el=Manager // Event label
&ev=7 // Event value
What I can't figure out is how in Google Analytics to set up reports that would show me something like:
CustomerID Category Label Total Hits Unique Users
12345 JobFinancialReport Manager 27 2
12345 MarketingReport1 Manager 6 4
I'm totally new to analytics so pardon my ignorance if I have some key misconception here. I've searched Googles sites and other questions here, but I may be wording my question incorrectly so I'm not finding something that's there. This is only one example; in some cases we might want to see how broadly each customer is using the program; in other cases we'd want to take the customerID out and just see how much a particular report is being used overall. Appreciate any guidance. Thanks.
The "cid" parameter is the client id, the value that is used to stitch single interactions into sessions and users.
The first problem that comes to mind with your setup is that the client id is not exposed in the user interface (with the single exception of the user explorer report) or the API.
You would need to implement this via a custom dimension (probably user scope, since it probably will never change for a given user) where you pass in the client id (you still need the cid parameter).
Then you could create a custom report (or create a report in Google Data Studio) with the custom value as primary dimension and your selected metric.
If you want to report "Unique Users" you would probably need to create a cid per logged-in user (if all users of the app have the same cid then you will always have but a single user reported). You should then probably create a second custom dimension for the company id, so you can segment your reports by company.
you can use custom reports in google analytics to get your desired output. here is how to create custom reports https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1151300?hl=en
Can I use client ID as a dimension in my reports? Client ID does not appear as a dimension in the Dimensions and Metrics Explorer, but I believe I can create a custom dimension that will store the Client ID. My end goal is to have a row per customer/date+time containing the incidents associated with the particular customer at the particular time, e.g. page visits, particular events etc
Once you've created the custom dimension in GA, you can start tracking it via analytics.js with the following code:
ga(function(tracker) {
// Assumes dimension is at index 1.
tracker.set('dimension1', tracker.get('clientId'));
});
I found that the google analytics will NOT save your custom dimension if it matches the value of "client id" (even if that id isn't actually PII). However, if you alter the "client id" to become a different value, it will save properly.
Here are the guidelines about what you are allowed to send
I am new to GA & GTM. I want to track users session/visit activity like page views,document download etc. whatever activity user performs during the session/visit. In Omniture I do activity using evar variable. How can I do the same with GA & GTM.
Going through the document on internet I tried to do this using 1st party cookie variable in GTM. but it is not working. when i see the value for cookie variable it showing undefined and also for return type.
A
You don't need to set a 1st party cookie as GA will do this itself when you put the tag on the website. Its a lot less setup and has more metrics out of the box than Adobe Analytics. In an aggregated fashion the activites you mention can be tracked via event tracking.
If you are looking to also track this on an individual level, then also set a user custom dimension or the userId parameter unique for each user. This will then be associated with the out of the box metrics as above, that you can access via a custom report.
Logical for your question is:
When users authenticate, the user ID should be stored in dataLayer
When subsequent Universal Analytics tags are fired, the &uid key
should first check if the User ID is in dataLayer
If it is, then a cookie is written in the user’s browser with this
User ID, and finally the value is returned to the tag
If the User ID is not in dataLayer, GTM checks if it’s stored in a
cookie, and if it is, the cookie value is returned
If there is no such cookie, nothing is returned and the User ID
parameter will not get sent
Check this post