This guide contains 2 sections.
In the first section, it will be shown how to link your Google Analytics 4 Property with a BigQuery Project.
In the second section, it will show how to access the BigQuery Project and share access with Vitec Visiolink.
Benefits of exporting data to BigQuery
When Google changed from Google Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4, they also changed how long data is kept. In Google Universal Analytics, data was kept until Google announced that they would delete historical data by June 30th.
In Google Analytics 4, Google has taken a different approach to the storage of data, where they will only store data for 2 months by default. Therefore, we strongly recommend everyone to export their data to keep historical Google Analytics 4 data. This can be done with the BigQuery link, which Section 1 of this guide explains how to set up.
Section 1 - Google Analytics 4 to BigQuery setup
General information: This section can apply to all who wish to extract their data to BigQuery. BigQuery is useful to save and store data for historical use, as Google Analytics 4 doesn't store data indefinitely.
1. Go to your Google Analytics 4 Property, that your ePaper Apps and Desktop Web App 2 is connected to. Click on Admin in the bottom-left.
2. Click on "Product links"
3. Click on "BigQuery links"
4. Click on "Link"
5. Follow the setup-guide by choosing a BigQuery Project
6. Continue the setup and click on "Daily Export". The data will be exported once per day, so choosing this option means you will have to wait for the next day's data export.
You can also choose "Streaming Export", but this option requires that you have Billing set up for your Google Cloud Project.
7. Click on Submit. You should now be able to see that the Google Analytics 4 Property is linked to the chosen BigQuery Project.
Section 2 - Sharing Access to the BigQuery Project
General information: This section can be skipped if you don't want to share access to the BigQuery Project with Vitec Visiolink. However, we recommend that you share access with us, so the data is available for troubleshooting.
1. Go to Google Cloud Console https://console.cloud.google.com/
2. Go to BigQuery using the Search Console in the top
3. There should now be a dataset called "analytics_{propertyID}". In this dataset, there is a table called "events", which contains the exported events from your Google Analytics 4 Property. If you can't see the dataset yet, you have to wait for Google to process your data.
4. Go to the table "events" in "analytics_{propertyID}". Click on Share table
5. Add visiolink.analytics.test@gmail.com as Princible and choose the Role "BigQuery Data Viewer". This will allow us to view the data in the BigQuery table.
6. Let your Vitec Visiolink representative know that you have shared data with us or contact bi@visiolink.vitecsoftware.com
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