Google Analytics - Universal vs G4

[denisfi]

Hi @ScottF ,

Just a update here… I tried the version 5 of Knime and it works! When the version will upgrade to final version? the version 5 will substitute the 4.7 at all or they will exists in parallel?

Thanks again,

Denis

[ScottF]

Hi @denisfi -

The next version of KNIME Analytics Platform, version 5.1, will be released in a few weeks. (Sorry, I can’t be more specific than that but rest assured, the release is coming soon!)

Version 5.1 is an upgrade to 4.7, so they won’t exist in parallel. I think for your purposes with the Google Analytics nodes, you will need to use the later version. Having said that, you can always download and use older versions of the AP if you want to.

[denisfi]

Hi @ScottF,

Thanks for your return for this subject. OK, I tried the version 5 and until the release, I’ll stay with the 4,7 version to work.

Visually I saw some differences between the versions and some doubts too, but I’ll wait the final release.

I made progress with the GA4 from 4.7 version using Oauth node from Nodepit, but not so friendly as Knime propous.

I add you to linkedin, so see you latter!

Tks,

Denis

[ScottF]

Update today to let everyone know: GA4 support is available with today’s release of KNIME AP version 4.7.5.

Of course it will also be available in the 5.1 branch as well, coming very soon now!

[denisfi]

Amazing Scott! Thanks for share this information! I’ll see the update here…

May I’ve a point to add here… IF is it possible to add more scopes to google authentication node and add a node to work with json and request, making easier to create some automations process…

I could pick up the json made here and insert into the project/node.

Discover the Google Analytics platform

I can set it as new task of course, but just write here for your know…

Tks, Denis

[denisfi]

@ScottF , some problems with this update.

I set 2 data ranges, don’t set a name (option), but the result bring wrong data. It’s supposed to return 4 lines as the example below, and return just 2. AS you can see, I set a data range from this year to compare the same context with last year.

So, it’s great to know that some progress happens, but i believe that have some problems for now.

Can you check it?

Tks, Denis

[hotzm]

Hi @denisfi,

thank you for giving the new nodes a try so quickly!

I believe the range in 2022 is completely empty in Google Analytics 4. Hence, the node does not receive any data at all for that range and output no row(s) for it.

If I select a range (or just one single day) for which GA does not have data, I do not get a row returned for it. If the range overlaps some days that have data, I get a row.

I tested this with two days. The first does not have data, while the second has data associated. In addition, I selected a range containing both days. The result is that I get no row for the first day, one row for the second day, and one row for the two-day-range (with exactly the same data as for the second day).

I would highly appreciate it, if you could go to analytics.google.com into your Google Analytics 4 property and check whether it has any data for the 2022 range or not.

[denisfi]

Perfect @hotzm , I’ll check it and bring some results. GA is setting to save 14 month of information and this account was migrated from universal one. So, for the period, it have to bring it normally, BUT, I’ll check as a good fellow…

Tks,

Denis

[denisfi]

Hi guys,

I made a simples test compare 2 months.

I set names for the ranges (junho/june, and maio/may) as you can see, the result returns strange… If i set 1 full month to make the search, the result, in my understand, will be only 1 month for each data range, correct? I used this year to be a real and near result as expected.

It’s like the search was made twice for each data range, not 1 by 1.

And I set to return since begin to return some values that don’t appears

• property quota
• response metadata

Am i right?

Tks, Denis

[hotzm]

Hi @denisfi,

the result also surprised me at first, but it makes sense.

The dimensions together with the date range column define a grouping, like in a group-by node where you specify the group columns manually. For example, you can think of it like grouping your Analytics data by year, month, dateRange, so you get the cross product of these values as possible groups.

When you now look at the group (2023, 05, junho), notice that the data for that group is filtered such that it falls into the date range [2023-06-01, 2023-06-30]. This results in an empty group and thus Google returns zero values for each metric in this group.

If you look at the group (2023, 06, junho), the range is [2023-06-01, 2023-06-30] so there is actually data in the group and you see non-zero values.

So the output is correct according to the query we sent to Google, it’s just not obvious what is going on on first glance

In addition, as far as I can tell we are sending the parameter to not “Keep empty rows” correctly, but Google is sending them nonetheless.

If the output as shown is problematic for your workflow, you could try to not include time related dimensions in the query and later process the date range column(s) to extract a year and month column or you could filter rows where all numeric (i.e. metric) columns are 0 with a Row Filter.

[hotzm]

I just tried it out in the GA4 Query Explorer you linked above, and it shows the same behavior for the query.

{
	"dimensions": [
		{
			"name": "month"
		},
		{
			"name": "year"
		}
	],
	"metrics": [
		{
			"name": "newUsers"
		},
		{
			"name": "totalRevenue"
		},
		{
			"name": "totalUsers"
		},
		{
			"name": "transactions"
		}
	],
	"dateRanges": [
		{
			"startDate": "2023-06-01",
			"endDate": "2023-06-30"
		},
		{
			"startDate": "2023-05-01",
			"endDate": "2023-05-31"
		}
	]
}

[Gavin_Attard]

HI All

the Connector only provides a list of IDs to choose from, which is a bit humpf…
In addition, as i am connected to so many accounts, not all the ids show up.

Is it possible to make the field editable so i can punch in the id, rather than just select.
I also don’t seem to be able to add a variable to do this.

[hotzm]

Hi @Gavin_Attard,

thanks for the feedback!

1. Improvements to the display of available Properties is on our radar for improving the node, but unfortunately a limitation of the new dialog framework (which we plan to improve).

2. That the list does not contain all available Properties is surprising to me. The dialog just fetches the list of available Google Analytics 4 properties from the Google API and displays the property IDs – so everything your connected account has access to. If the dialog itself is truncating the list it would really surprise me. Are you maybe expecting Universal Analytics properties to show up as well? (sorry to ask, but I really want to understand what the cause could be). The non-legacy nodes only work with GA4 properties, whereas the nodes marked “legacy” only support Universal Analytics (as before).

3. I’ll note “editable dropdown list” down as a suggestion.

4. The missing flow variable support for the property is clearly a bug, for which I have just now created an internal ticket (internal reference UIEXT-1317).

Again, I really appreciate the time you take for giving feedback.

Kind regards,
Manuel

[Gavin_Attard]

Smashing stuff Manuel!

Thanks. Defo GA4 IDs i’m expecting.

Looking at the API documentation, i suspect this is one of (or both) issues below

1. it is only retuning the first 50 properties (this is a default setting, can be set to max 200
2. the properties are returned pagination and the node is only reading page 1

Ideally, we woudl have an account selector, to then list properties for an account.

Thanks for raising the bug ticket , looking forward to the next iteration.

kr
Gavin

[hotzm]

Ugh, really sorry for that oversight… I created a ticket to fetch and display all available properties at least and better, add an account selection like you suggested (internal reference AP-21043).

In any case, we should paginate and collect the results, since there might be single accounts with more properties.

[natashas]

Thank you very much everyone to share your thoughts in this thread. Now I decided where to switch and How can I switch. Thanks a lot