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Last updated: 27 Mar 2024

content-data-api: Set up Google Analytics credentials in development

To import data from Google Analytics, you must set some environment variables.

Create the file config/local_env.yml if it does not already exist. This file will contain the environment variables for Google Analytics.

N.B. This file has been added to .gitignore, so you don't need to worry about accidentally checking it in.

UA analytics

Add an entry to config/local_env.yml for each of the following:

  • GOOGLE_PRIVATE_KEY
  • GOOGLE_CLIENT_EMAIL
  • GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_GOVUK_VIEW_ID

You can copy the credentials from the google developers console or from the AWS Secrets Manager under content-data-api/google-analytics.

e.g.

GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_GOVUK_VIEW_ID: "1234567"

This will make "1234567" available as ENV["GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_GOVUK_VIEW_ID"]

GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_GOVUK_VIEW_ID is the view id on Google Analytics for www.gov.uk

See "Option Three" in Rails Environment Variables for more information.

GA4 analytics

Add an entry to config/local_env.yml for each of the following:

  • BIGQUERY_PROJECT
  • BIGQUERY_CLIENT_EMAIL
  • BIGQUERY_PRIVATE_KEY

You can copy the credentials from the AWS Secrets Manager under content-data-api/ga4.

e.g.

BIGQUERY_PROJECT: "bigquery-project-name"

This will make "bigquery-project-name" available as ENV["BIGQUERY_PROJECT"]. These variables are used to authenticate and create the BigQuery client.

BIGQUERY_PROJECT is the project ID in the Google Cloud console.

See "Option Three" in Rails Environment Variables for more information

Update facts table with GA metrics

To populate GA metrics for a given day, open a Rails console and run:

> GA.process(Date.today)

It is recommended you disable logging to speed up the process:

Google::Apis.logger.level = Logger::ERROR
ActiveRecord::Base.logger = nil