Analyze Google Analytics Data in Infragistics Reveal

Reveal is a data visualization solution provided by Infragistics and can be paired with the CData API Server to build dynamic dashboards from live Google Analytics data. The CData API Server generates an OData API for Google Analytics, which is natively consumable in Reveal. In this article, we walk through connecting to Google Analytics in API Server and connecting to the API Server from Infragistics Reveal to create a simple dashboard.

Connect to Google Analytics from API Server

CData API Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Open API Server and click Settings -> Connection -> Add Connection 👁 Adding a connection
   
2. Select "Google Analytics" 👁 Selecting a Connector (Salesforce is shown).
   
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Google Analytics.

   Google uses the OAuth authentication standard. To access Google APIs on behalf on individual users, you can use the embedded credentials or you can register your own OAuth app.

   OAuth also enables you to use a service account to connect on behalf of users in a Google Apps domain. To authenticate with a service account, register an application to obtain the OAuth JWT values.

   In addition to the OAuth values, set Profile to the profile you want to connect to. This can be set to either the Id or website URL for the Profile. If not specified, the first Profile returned will be used. 👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown).
   

Add Google Analytics Resource Definitions in API Server

After connecting to Google Analytics, create Resources, which represent API endpoints for Google Analytics data.

1. Click Settings -> Resources -> Add Resource 👁 Adding a new resource
   
2. Select the Google Analytics connection 👁 Selecting a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
3. Select the table you wish to retrieve and click Next 👁 Selecting a Table (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. (Optional) Edit the resource to select specific fields and more
5. Save the settings

Add an API Server User

Create a User to connect to Google Analytics from Reveal through API Server.

1. Click Settings -> Users
2. Click Add
3. Configure a User with access to the Google Analytics Connection and Resource(s) 👁 Creating a new user
   

(Optional) Configure Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)

When accessing and connecting to multiple different domains from an application such as Ajax, there is a possibility of violating the limitations of cross-site scripting. In that case, configure the CORS settings in Settings -> Server.

• Enable cross-origin resource sharing (CORS): ON
• Allow all domains without '*': ON
• Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, PUT, POST, OPTIONS
• Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Authorization

Save the changes to the settings.

Create a Dashboard in Reveal

With the API Server configured, we can visualize Google Analytics data in Reveal.

1. Log into Reveal and click Dashboards -> New 👁 Adding a new dashboard
   
2. Click Data Source -> OData Feed 👁 Adding a new OData data source
   
3. Specify the API Server API endpoint URL, for example: https://serverurl/api.rsc 👁 Configuring the OData URL
   
4. Select Generic Credentials and specify the API Server username and authentication token 👁 Configuring the credentials
   
5. Select the entity you wish to visualize 👁 Selecting an entity to visualize (Salesforce is shown.)
   
6. Select fields and choose a chart type 👁 Visualizing data in Reveal (Salesforce is shown.)
   

More Information & Free Trial

At this point, you have created a simple dashboard from live Google Analytics data. For more information on creating OData feeds from Google Analytics (and more than 150 other sources), visit the API Server page. Download a free, 30-day trial and start working live Google Analytics data in tools that consume OData APIs.