New Users to Google Analytics
Last Updated:
This document explains what new users need to know about Google Analytics
How to get access to Google Analytics
To request access to Google Analytics, submit the Analytics Access - Google Analytics/Domo - Request Template. For privacy reasons, please send a Slack message to #vfs-platform-support with the email addresses of the VFS team member(s) needing access.
We do not provide access to personal accounts like Gmail. GA access is given to business and government emails. VFS team members with VA.gov emails will need to attach it to a Google account. Instructions on how to do so can be found here.
How to get support from the Platform Analytics & Insights team
To receive support from the Platform Analytics & Insights teams, please use the /support request feature on the #vfs-platform-support Slack channel.
Opting Out from Google Analytics tracking
To best separate our product team's activity from veterans, their families, and other users of VA.gov, we ask all product teams and other internal VA staff to opt-out of tracking on their devices.
Please take a minute to visit this link on all of the devices that you might use to test on the production site:
Read more information about the Google Analytics Opt Out.
Properties and views
The GA4 account is split into properties. The VA.gov properties that VFS teams should use are:
There are a few other properties on our account, including internal Platform sites, the CMS, the mobile app, and several archived legacy properties.
Dimensions and metrics
Dimensions are attributes of your data. For example, the dimension City indicates the city, for example, "Paris" or "New York", from which a session originates. The dimension Page indicates the URL of a page that is viewed.
Metrics are quantitative measurements. The metric Sessions is the total number of sessions. The metric Pages/Session is the average number of pages viewed per session.
-https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033861
Dimensions are the actual data we record. They describe - or are “scoped” - to a hit, session, or a user. For instance, a page URL is scoped to a hit. Landing page - on the other hand - is scoped to a session since you can only have one per session. A common user-scoped custom dimension we track is LOA Level.
Metrics are a count of dimensions. They are also “scoped” to a hit (like a pageview or event), a session, or a user. When GA refers to a metric as being “unique”, it means it is only counted once per session.
There are exceptions, but in general you cannot combine dimensions and metrics of different scopes.
Read more details about common VA tracked Google Analytics Metrics and Dimensions. For a complete and searchable list, visit Google’s Dimensions & Metrics Explorer.
BigQuery and Domo
Data from All VA.gov Website Data [Production] is also exported to a data warehouse system called BigQuery. This data is the primary source of data for Domo - our BI and visualization tool. This export has several benefits including:
It is un-sampled. We have a lot of data and it’s common for our GA reports to be sampled (view our FAQ page for more info on sampling).
This access to the raw data lets us calculate insights - like time between events - that are not possible in the GA interface and create complicated user and session segments.
We use Domo to create KPI Dashboards. Please see our KPI Dashboard documentation for more information on what products are supported.
Help and feedback
Get help from the Platform Support Team in Slack.
Submit a feature idea to the Platform.