End of Support for Google Analytics

Intuiface's Google Analytics connector works with Google's Universal Analytics solution. On 1-July-2023, Google will shut down Universal Analytics and replace it with Google Analytics 4.

Intuiface will not support Google Analytics 4.

As a result, beginning 30-November-2022, new Google Analytics connectors cannot be created. Existing connectors will cease to work on 1-July-2023.

If you are using Google Analytics, we encourage you to adopt an alternative option before July-2023.

The article below is retained for those with existing Google Analytics connectors.

 

---

Overview

Data points transferred from Composer and Player to the Intuiface Analytics Data Hub can be forwarded directly to one or more Google Analytics properties.

Google Analytics, originally created by Google to monitor website performance, was enhanced in 2016 to accept and analyze data generated by mobile applications. It is thanks to this enhancement that Intuiface can upload data points generated by any number of Composers and Players to one or more Google Analytics properties for analysis.

NOTE:

• Google Analytics is premised on the notion of real-time monitoring. As a result, it will not accept data points more than four hours old. If it is necessary for you to collect data points offline and upload them to the Intuiface Data Tracking Hub more than four hours after their collection, you cannot use Google Analytics.
• Intuiface has no formal relationship with Google and does not provide support for its offering.

Setup for working with Google Analytics

Creating a Google Analytics property

When creating a Google Analytics property for the purposes of capturing and analyzing Intuiface-generated data, on the "New Property" screen:

1. Specify "Website" for the question "What would you like to track?"
2. Enter your experience name in the Website Name field. You could put any text you want here but, to simplify organization of your Intuiface properties, it's best to use your Intuiface experience's name.
3. Enter any URL in the Website URL field. Doesn't matter what URL you put here; it has no effect on the Tracking ID.
4. Optionally specify the "Industry Category".
5. Specify your local time zone.
6. Click the Get Tracking ID button.

Take note of the Tracking ID for this property as it is the identifier used by Intuiface when uploading data points.

Finding the Tracking ID for a Google Analytics property

To forward data to a Google Analytics property, Intuiface needs to know that property's tracking ID.

To get the tracking ID for a specific property, follow the directions maintained here by Google.

The tracking ID is a string like UA-000000-01.

Configuring Intuiface to forward data points to a Google Analytics property

1. Open the Analytics Data console.
2. Expand the Google Analytics Connector option
   
   
3. Click the button "Add Connector for Google Analytics Property".
   
   
4. Enter any name you wish in the Name field (any value will do but we recommend the use of your Google Analytics property name) and, in the Tracking ID field, paste the tracking ID for your Google Analytics property (see the previous section).
   
   • Clicking the "How to find a Tracking ID" link will take you to a Google page explaining where to find the tracking ID for a property.
     
5. Click the Save button.
6. Repeat Steps 3 thru 5 for each additional Google Analytics property.

Toggling data processing for a Google Analytics property

Once a connector exists for a Google Analytics property, the connector can be toggled on and off using the slider labeled "Send data points to this connector".

• OFF: From the moment this slider is toggled to OFF, no new data points arriving at the Data Hub will be forwarded to this particular Google Analytics property.
• ON: From the moment this slider is toggled to ON, new data points arriving at the Data Hub will be forwarded to this particular Google Analytics property.

Structure of data forwarded to Google Analytics

Google Analytics does not permit the creation of custom fields so all information collected by Intuiface must be mapped to existing fields. The mapping is explained below.

• DeviceName: The name of the device running Composer/Player
• Application: The name of the Intuiface software running on the device. Values can be any one of
  • Composer
  • PlayerForWindows (used for Player on Windows devices)
  • PlayerForTablets (used for Player on iPad or Android devices)
  • PlayerForKiosks (used for Player on BrightSign, Chrome, Tizen, or webOS devices)
• ApplicationVersion: The version of the Intuiface application identified in the previous field.
• Client ID: The license key for the Intuiface product on each device. Client IDs enable the grouping of all sessions on a given device.
• OS Version: Contains the name of the operating system and the version of the operating system on each device running Composer/Player.
• App Name: The name of the Intuiface experience that generated this data point.
• Screen View: The name of the scene in which the data point was generated.
• Event Category: The name of the event either automatically created by Intuiface or specified by the Log Event action.

The following fields only appear if the logged event contains one or more parameters:

• Event Action: All parameter names for the specified Event Category, separated by the pipe (|) character.
• Event Label: All parameter values for the specified Event Action, separated by the pipe (|) character.

For example, for the following event logged by Intuiface: 

• Event Category:
  
• Event Action:
  
• Event Label (i.e. sample value for each parameter)
  

Session capture for Google Analytics

Google automatically assumes the first data point it sees is the start of a new session. It will also assume the current session has ended if no data points are detected over a span of 30 minutes. (This length of time is configurable. See this section to change it.) After Google automatically ends a session, it will start a new one upon receipt of the next data point.

The Intuiface Start new session action can be used to indicate when a session has started based on your personal criteria. By calling this Intuiface action, you end the session automatically started by Google.

The Intuiface Stop current session action will stop the current session whether that session was started by Google or by the Intuiface "Start new session" action.

NOTE: If using the Intuiface "Start new session" action, the associated session ID needs to be anonymous or it will be rejected by Google and subsequent actions will be merged with the preceding session. If specifying your own session ID, use a name that can not be construed by Google as indicating a specific user (e.g. don't use an email address). If you leave the "Session ID" field blank for the "Start new session" action, Intuiface will randomly generate a string for the session ID that will satisfy Google.

Filtering by session ID

To filter data in Google Analytics by session ID, you must create and use the "User ID" view within Google Analytics. This is the only view in Google Analytics where sessions can be filtered and/or sorted by their ID.

All other views in Google Analytics do not indicate session IDs. They order sessions by time and by Client ID (i.e. by device).

Changing session timeout length for a property

As mentioned above, Google assumes the current session has ended if no data points are detected over a span of 30 minutes. Perhaps you would like to change this value to either 1) avoid having to use Intuiface to differentiate sessions, or 2) to eliminate the likelihood that Google creates sessions among those you create using Intuiface.

To change the session timeout length:

• Open the Admin panel for your Google Analytics account.
• Open "Property Settings" - in the Property column - and select the item Tracking Info -> Session Settings"
  
• Increase the "Session timeout" to a value that will never be reached for a session in your deployed experiences.
  

Suggested Google Analytics views

For all views, filtering by one or more "segments" gives you the ability to filter by any of the fields associated with a data point.

Views of interest:

• Real-Time view: Use this view to, for example, see how many active sessions there are at that moment in time. Click the following image to enlarge.
  
  
• Audience view: Use the "User Explorer" subview to look at individual devices via the Client ID field (recall that the "Client ID" is the Intuiface license key on each device). Information about each device will be ordered by session. Click the following image to enlarge.
  
• Behavior view: Use the "Behavior flow" subview to view the scene order visited during each session. Click the following image to enlarge.
  

Additional Notes

• It can take up to five minutes for data transmitted from the Intuiface Data Tracking Hub to appear in the Real-Time view and up to 60 minutes for data to appear in all other views. This delay is imposed by Google and thus cannot be controlled or accelerated by Intuiface.
• If a Parameter value - the value of a parameter associated with the Log Event action - contains only numbers and one or more commas, the commas are deleted by Composer/Player before data point transfer. If the comma is meant to indicate decimal notation, use a binding converter to change the comma into a period.