How to connect Tableau to Google Analytics

0:00Hey, Tim here and in today's video I'm

0:01going to be taking you through how to

0:03connect to Google

0:04Analytics in Tableau Desktop. The Google

0:07Analytics Connector has actually been

0:08available for some

0:09time but it's one of those data sets where

0:11sometimes marketeers aren't actually aware

0:13that they can build their own custom

0:15analytics in Tableau and share those to the

0:17organization so

0:18others can also start using this data in a

0:20more flexible way. Now throughout this

0:22video I'm going

0:23to be switching between Tableau Desktop and

0:25Google Analytics itself so if you're

0:26following along

0:27it's useful to actually have a Google

0:29Analytics account so you can log in and see

0:31what it looks

0:32like on your own system and then when we

0:34build a view at the very end of this video

0:36you'll actually

0:36be able to contrast and compare and make

0:38sure everything is working correctly. The

0:40last thing

0:40we'll do is also publish the data source

0:42that we've created up to Tableau Server or

0:44in this

0:45case Tableau Online so that other people in

0:47the business can essentially share this

0:49data source.

0:50Okay let's jump into Tableau Desktop.

0:54The Google Analytics Connector is actually

0:56here on the left hand side for me because I

0:58used it

0:58more recently but if you can't see it here

1:00in the list of server connections just

1:02click more and

1:03you'll see a much larger list. I'm on a Mac

1:05so I don't see as many as Windows users but

1:07you can see

1:08here Google Analytics is in and amongst all

1:10the other Google Connectors. When you click

1:13on that

1:13you actually get this interface that asks

1:15you to log into a Google account that's

1:17essentially

1:17because the Google Analytics account is

1:19typically linked to a Google email so you

1:21need to make sure

1:22you connect to the correct email that will

1:24give you access to that Google Analytics

1:26account.

1:27In this case I have my own email for my

1:29blog so I'll just click on that and once I

1:33give it

1:34permission it authenticates you and you're

1:37now able to close this tab and head over to

1:39Tableau

1:40Desktop. Now we're in Tableau Desktop and

1:42you can see something immediately different

1:45. This doesn't

1:46look the same like a typical Connector in

1:47Tableau because it's not working like a

1:49database.

1:50Essentially this is connecting to the

1:52Google Analytics API and querying the data

1:54for you. So

1:55what you have here is a form-like

1:56experience to choose what part of your

1:58Google data you want to

2:00bring in. Now these particular filters are

2:02actually exactly the same as you'd see in

2:05Google. For

2:06example the account, the property in view

2:08can be viewed over here in Google Analytics

2:11. When I go to

2:12the top you can see that I have my account

2:14which in this case is just this single

2:16account Tableau

2:17data. I have two properties. One of those

2:20is my YouTube channel. I can actually track

2:22how people

2:23browse my YouTube channel and then the

2:24second is my blog where I actually track

2:27who follows my blog

2:28and who's visiting my blog. And then in

2:30each property or app I then have views.

2:33Views are

2:34essentially like tables in a database. So

2:36in this particular case I have just one

2:39view with all

2:39website data but you can actually see here

2:42that I built a separate view that singled

2:44out traffic

2:45from my own specific IP address. But that's

2:47now deleted so you can see that it's

2:49crossed out.

2:50So I shouldn't see this in Tableau when I

2:52connect. Let's head over back to Tableau.

2:54You'll see here

2:55in Tableau you've got the exact same list.

2:57The account, the property and the view. And

3:00you notice

3:00here that I can see both accounts available

3:02to me here. And essentially you need to

3:04make sure you

3:04choose the right one otherwise the numbers

3:06aren't going to match. I'm interested in

3:08looking at my

3:09blog and not my YouTube channel. So let's

3:11select that. And then the last thing is to

3:13choose a date

3:14range. Now this is an interesting field

3:16because you can download all your data but

3:18if the data

3:19set is too large for the API limits then

3:21you will only return a sample of your data.

3:24I don't actually

3:25have enough website traffic on my blog to

3:28actually trigger the sampling. But

3:31essentially if you head

3:32over to the Tableau documentation there's

3:34actually a really good article here that

3:36sort of shows you

3:37how to troubleshoot that specific scenario.

3:40You should essentially see this sort of

3:42warning here

3:43that says what the query returns. But at

3:45the same time as you build this view this

3:47might change

3:48depending on what you're asking Google to

3:50bring in. So you might not see this right

3:53at the beginning

3:54and you might see it right at the end

3:55before you switch over to a sheet and build

3:57a view.

3:57So we're going to make sure we watch out

3:59for this as we go along and we're going to

4:00sort of

4:00interrogate it in more detail. But I'll put

4:03a link to this knowledge base article so

4:04you can come here

4:05and troubleshoot any issues you might be

4:07having with bringing all the data that you

4:09need into

4:09Google Analytics. Okay let's switch over

4:12back to Tableau desktop and now we're back

4:15let's continue

4:16building our view. I'm just going to take

4:18the last 30 days and you'll see here that I

4:21get the ability

4:22to select certain dimensions. Now a useful

4:24dimension would be the page that a user is

4:27visiting.

4:27So let's just type in page and you'll see

4:29that this list dynamically searches through

4:32all the

4:32different dimensions possible inside of the

4:34Google Analytics tracking database and you

4:36can essentially

4:37just pick the ones that you need. So I'm

4:39going to bring through the page and the

4:41page title.

4:41And now that I've got those two you can

4:48actually see what's happening here. You're

4:51essentially

4:51almost selecting the dimensions and

4:53measures that you need. Now you don't have

4:55to know the measures

4:56that you need off the top of your head. I

4:59know a couple that I use quite a lot but

5:01there are

5:01actually these measure groups. Essentially

5:03if you choose one of these domain areas it

5:05will

5:05automatically bring in certain measures on

5:08your behalf. So let's look at page usage.

5:11When I select

5:12that it goes ahead and actually pulls

5:14through the typical metrics used to analyze

5:17page usage.

5:18Now the thing to bear in mind here is that

5:21you're limited to seven dimensions and 10

5:24measures.

5:25So think very wisely about what you're

5:26trying to analyze. I kind of like this

5:28because it forces you

5:29to focus your analysis. But if this

5:31restriction isn't ideal for you then there

5:34are a couple of

5:35ways you can kind of work around this but

5:37you really have to put a lot of thought

5:39into which

5:40subsets of your data that you're getting

5:42and making sure that if you get multiple

5:44subsets

5:45that they're at the same level of detail. I

5:48'm going to go ahead and add country to this

5:50dimension list.

5:51And now I think I'm ready to hop into Table

5:56au and start analyzing this data. In order

6:01to do that

6:01you just need to go over to Sheet1. You'll

6:04notice that all API data sources typically

6:07require you

6:08to have an extract. So I can't connect to

6:10this data live. I can however set this data

6:13source

6:13to refresh if I publish it up to the Table

6:15au server. So the best thing to do here is

6:17to go

6:18ahead with the extract, select Sheet1 and

6:21it will query the data from the API and you

6:24'll see that

6:25we're now in Tableau ready to go. Okay we

6:27're now in Tableau so this is the familiar

6:30view that we're

6:31used to. We can just go ahead and check

6:33that everything is working okay. I'm going

6:35to go ahead

6:36and grab the page title. This is actually

6:38quite useful because these are the titles

6:40that the page

6:40themselves have and you can actually see

6:42all the different pages that have actually

6:44been visited

6:45on my blog. If I go ahead and bring the

6:48page views you can quickly get a sense of

6:51whether this data

6:51set is actually making sense or not and you

6:53can start to see here that you know this

6:55this looks

6:56about right. The more meaningful item to

6:59bring here might just be the page because I

7:01think this

7:02is just the page as it is on the URL and I

7:04sometimes find it weird but this is

7:06actually

7:07easy for me to understand because it means

7:09that I can actually go to this page

7:11directly and see that

7:12more clearly and so I know that this

7:14forward slash is essentially always my home

7:16page because you can

7:17essentially add TableauTim.com forward

7:19slash and then when there's nothing after

7:21that that's just

7:22a home page. So I can see here that my home

7:25page got 200 page views. Now the critical

7:28thing is

7:29making sure that this actually lines up

7:30with what we're seeing in Google Analytics

7:33itself. So let's

7:33go ahead and just validate that. I'm

7:36switching over to Google Analytics here and

7:39in order to go

7:40see the same view you need to make sure

7:42that you're setting the filters to the same

7:44sort of

7:45metrics. I'm going to go over to behavior

7:47then I'm going to select site content and

7:50then I'm going to

7:50go to all pages. This is where Google shows

7:53you how it's tracking all website pages and

7:56you can

7:56actually see here that the forward slash

7:59also has 200 page views. The next biggest

8:02page has 139.

8:04It's my blog post on sketchnoting so let's

8:06go back to Tableau Desktop and validate

8:08that that's the same.

8:09I also get sketchnoting as the second most

8:12popular view and again I have 139. So in

8:16this particular

8:17context everything is lined up and

8:19everything is validating and working

8:20correctly. Now there are

8:23sometimes quirks when you won't see the

8:25correct number compared to what's in Google

8:28Analytics and

8:29this can can sort of be a challenge because

8:31what you need to make sure you understand

8:34is the level of detail that Google

8:36Analytics is showing you in the view that

8:38you're looking at and

8:40that essentially comes with experience and

8:42understanding of Google Analytics and also

8:44Tableau because you need to be working with

8:46the dimensions and measures that you've

8:48brought in.

8:48Now I can go ahead and break these down by

8:53a particular country so I'm just going to

8:54keep

8:54the home page and I just want to understand

8:57which country visits my home page the most.

9:00So it's United States right at the top on

9:0351 followed by India. Big shout out to all

9:06the

9:06Indian fans who follow my blog and then the

9:09United Kingdom close after that at 28. Then

9:12you've got a

9:12long list of other countries sort of below

9:15but it's awesome to see this data here and

9:18you can

9:18start to see how this is really exciting

9:20and a great use case for Tableau. Now the

9:22next thing

9:23we're going to do is publish this data

9:24source up to Tableau server so that other

9:26users can use this

9:27to build their own view. In order to do

9:30that we're just going to right click the

9:31data source and

9:32select publish to server. When we do that I

9:35'm already logged into my Tableau server so

9:38you'll

9:39actually get this interface straight away

9:40but if it's not in the right place or you

9:42want to move

9:43the server that it's publishing to sign out

9:45of the server and sign back into the

9:46correct one

9:47and then go ahead and choose your project.

9:50I'm going to leave everything as is because

9:52I'm just

9:52going to publish this straight up but the

9:54first thing I'm going to do before I do

9:56that is just to

9:57check the authentication. I'm going to

9:59click edit. I'm actually going to enable

10:01refreshers on this

10:02particular data source so I'm going to

10:04select this option here and when I do that

10:06when I go to

10:07publish it will actually ask me to authent

10:09icate again because this time around I'm

10:11actually

10:12authenticating on behalf of the Tableau

10:14server so that it can go and get data on my

10:16behalf

10:17based on a refresh schedule that I set. I'm

10:20going to hit publish

10:21and when this finishes it will publish

10:25right up to Tableau online. Now you didn't

10:30see it ask me for

10:31validation because I was actually already

10:33logged in so just be aware that you might

10:35see that login

10:36page again to authenticate your Google

10:38account. I'm going to select schedule. We

10:41're going to

10:41schedule this straight away and I'm

10:43actually going to set it to refresh every

10:45six hours. That's about

10:47as frequent as I'd actually want to look at

10:49Google analytics data. If I want more

10:51frequent data then

10:52I'd probably just go to the Google

10:54analytics page itself so the dashboard

10:55should really only reflect

10:57sort of midday and daily changes. So let's

10:59schedule that refresh and now you'll see

11:03that

11:03my data source is now published to Tableau

11:05server. I can of course edit the

11:07permissions on this data

11:09set and add people and allow others to

11:11connect to it just like I can with any

11:13other data set

11:14but I'm now democratizing this data across

11:16my organization and other people who want

11:18to use

11:19it in their dashboards can. Now the next

11:21thing you might want to see is this

11:24particular data

11:25source refreshing. I'm going to go ahead

11:27here to the extract refreshes tab and you

11:30can see here

11:30that I actually have one set up. I set this

11:33up when I published it but I can trigger

11:34this right

11:35now by just clicking these three dots and

11:38selecting run now. When I hit run now this

11:42creates a task

11:43that is then scheduled to run. If I go over

11:46to tasks you'll see that I have my refresh

11:50here.

11:50This is the every six hour refresh but the

11:53task I just set off now is actually in the

11:56jobs list.

11:57So you can see here that it's pending. It's

11:59this top job over here. Now I actually ran

12:01one earlier

12:02on but you're not actually able to see the

12:03details of the job because that only hangs

12:05around for a

12:06few minutes after the job is complete. So

12:08we're going to wait here and just look at

12:10the information

12:11of the run. It looks a little something

12:13like this and essentially this queue time

12:15shows you how long

12:16it's going to be waiting in the queue. So

12:18it might be 11 minutes before this data is

12:20refreshed. So

12:21I'm just going to pause this video. I'm

12:23going to let this complete and then we'll

12:24come back and

12:25check the data is up to date. Okay that

12:29actually finished much much faster. This

12:32time it only queued

12:33for 0.7 minutes. Basically you know seven

12:37tenths of a minute whatever that is. I can

12:39't do the maths

12:40in my head. But you can see here that the

12:43task is complete. This was successfully run

12:46and this is

12:47and has successfully updated. And so our

12:50data source is now up to date and users can

12:52actually

12:53start using this particular data source and

12:57engaging with it and even using it in

12:59places

13:00like ask data to build their own views and

13:02ask very very simple questions. So that's

13:05how you

13:06connect to Google Analytics and publish

13:08that data source up to your Tableau server

13:10so other people

13:11can use it. In future videos I'll show you

13:13how to build more advanced views with

13:15Google Analytics

13:16and for those of you who are wondering how

13:18you can get Google Analytics data into data

13:20prep tools,

13:21once published to Tableau server you can

13:23actually connect to it using Tableau prep

13:26because all

13:26published data sources can actually be

13:28connected to using Tableau prep. So you can

13:31actually even

13:32start to blend this data alongside other

13:34data like social media data that might be

13:36coming in

13:36from another data set into one central

13:39source. Okay you can see here that ask data

13:43isn't available

13:44but thanks for watching. Tune in for the

13:46next video and I hope to see you soon. If

13:49you've liked

13:49this video hit the like button, if not drop

13:51a comment below let me know what you'd like

13:53to see,

13:53what you'd like to see improved, maybe

13:55something I didn't cover something, let me

13:57know what that is

13:58and we'll try and address it in another

14:00video. All right I'll catch you in the next

14:02one.

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