DSpace Google Analytics Statistics

Google Analytics Support

It is possible to record User Interface traffic by enabling the recording of Google Analytics data within DSpace.  DSpace supports either Universal Analytics or Google Analytics 4. Also, under GA4 it currently supports the Google Tag (gtag.js), but not Google Tag Manager (GTM).

Enabling Google Analytics

By default, Google Analytics is disabled in DSpace.  To enable it, simply set the value of google.analytics.key in either your local.cfg or dspace.cfg:

# For Universal Analytics (older style Google Analytics)
google.analytics.key = UA-XXXXXX-X

# Or, for Google Analytics 4
google.analytics.key = G-XXXXX

Configuring Google Analytics

Additional configuration are provided to allow for enhanced Google Analytics support.

Google Analytics Reports in DSpace UI

As of DSpace version 5.0 it has also become possible to expose that recorded Google Analytics data within DSpace. The data is retrieved from Google using the Google Analytics Reporting API v3. This feature is disabled by default, to enable it please follow the instructions below.

Please read the documentation found at  https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/reporting/core/v3/  and https://developers.google.com/accounts/docs/OAuth2ServiceAccount. It is the definitive documentation, however, it is over detailed for our purposes so the critical steps are summarised below. The theory is that as a developer you would create a Google project, write your application and store the code in the Google code repository, then create a Google Service Account which your application could use to retrieve data from the Google Analytics API. In our case we already have our application, DSpace, but we still have to go through the motions of creating a project in order to be able to be able to generate the Service Account which we need to allow DSpace to talk to the Google Analytics API.

1. Logon to the Google Developers Console https://console.developers.google.com/project with whatever email address you use to access/manage your existing Google Analytics account(s).
2. Create a new Google Project. The assumption is that you are developing some new software and will make use of the Google code repository. This is not the case but you need to create the skeleton project before you can proceed to the next step.
3. Enable the Analytics API for the project. In the sidebar on the left, expand APIs & auth. Next, click APIs. In the list of APIs, make sure the status is ON for the Analytics API.
4. In the sidebar on the left, select Credentials.
5. Select OAuth / Create new Client ID, then in the subsequent popup screen select Service account. This will automatically generate the required Service Account email address and certificate.
6. Go to your Google Analytics dashboard http://www.google.com/analytics/. Create an account for the newly generated Service Account email address and give it permission to 'Read and Analyze' at account level. See *Note below.
7. The generated certificate needs to be placed somewhere that your DSpace application can access and be referenced as described below in the configuration section..

*Note:- The Google documentation specifies that the Service Account email address should only require 'Read and Analyze' permission. However, it would appear this may not be the case and it may be necessary to grant greater permissions, at least initially.

Configuration settings for Google Analytics Statistics

In the [dspace.dir]/config/modules/google-analytics.cfg file review the following fields. These should be either edited directly or overridden in your local.cfg config file (see Configuration Reference).