Harvard has created an analytics dashboard for their Spotlight exhibits using Google Data Studio. Feel free to test out Harvard's dashboard using the instructions below, which also includes instructions and a template for creating your own dashboard. Please also feel free to update this page with additional instructions as you test and create your own and/or let us know if you have found other helpful analytics dashboard tools and tips!

You can also view a recording of this dashboard being demoed during the Spotlight community call on 2/8/2019.

Harvard's Analytics Dashboard

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• The report can be embedded on a website page by going to File > Embed report
  

• Search terms do not populate automatically and have to first be set up in Google Analytics to track the data. To set this up, see Set up Site Search.

• Direct is a bucket Google Analytics uses for unknown sources as well users bookmarking and coming to a site directly. If you are not seeing a known source coming through in your analytics, such as your library website, try adding a UTM parameter (or tag) to the source links. The Campaign URL Builder is a very helpful tool for this.

• Ideally, it would have been better to create one dashboard page and enable end-users to select and apply the filter for a particular exhibit in the same way they can with the date range picker. We were unable to find a way to make this work and would love to hear if someone in the community finds a way. Our current solution is quick and easy to set up a new page, but it will be time consuming if we want to make a change to all pages in the future, especially as our exhibit number grows.

Resources

Demo of Harvard's dashboard during 2/8/2019 Spotlight community call - https://youtu.be/s9tL39UrLxw

Data Studio Help - https://support.google.com/datastudio

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