Forum Discussion
Google Analytics connector missing startdate/enddate parameters
Just to add some details. The issue is that Google Analytics does sampling. The more precise the query, the less accurate it becomes. See this page. Our use of the date dimension for filtering date ranges exacerbates the issue. So while we will likely fix this by using parameters in the future, keep in mind that the problem will always be there to a degree.
Yes, that is true. But sampling isn't an issue when querying one or two months, as my reports will do, but for longer timeframes (the start-date, end-date parameters you'll be adding to the cube) the sampling increases. My reported issue is, I assume you now agree, that you were doing client-side aggregation.
If you really want to get clever with your connector, then you have to have the query folding logic send multiple queries back to GA to reduce sampling. Google documents that approach in their blog, etc.
For example, if I query ga:yearMonth with start-date = jan-2014 and end-date = dec-2015, then for a busy non-premium GA site I'll likely get numbers that are slightly or way off. But if I split this into 24 separate queries with start-dates and end-dates bracketing single months, then I'll avoid sampling errors - at the price of making more queries.
Hi Thomas,
Microsoft did indicate in this tread that they were considering/planning to ad the start/end date parameters. Perhaps someone from Microsoft can chime in. I ended up proxying my requests through a middle-tier service to get what I wanted.
- Chris
Hi,
It's a long shot but has anyone found a solution to this without using a third party service as an middle man?
I agree with the many other posts without being able to pass a date filter it is forcing sampling and redering the connector mostly useless. A number of posts across the Power BI forums confuse the issue and suggest post filtering.So far my many attempts to work round the issue have failed. :(
ThanksThomas
Hi intrasight
Thanks for the post, somehow I started to have the same issue just a few days ago. Do you have any news about the fix or the workaround?
I have the same issue just with dates and E-Commerce data. Only that if I want the correct data as my Analytics UI I have to filter by weeks. :(
I don't know why the folding is so bad for the data for some properties and not for others.
Let me know if there is an Idea or a Bug issue to vote for.
Best,
J.I've not heard any updates on this. I assume it just not a high-priority item :(
Hey, Chris!
I have also encountered the data sampling in Power BI.
It even occurred within small projects because Power BI required data for the whole period.
I have found the solution in creating our own connector that would divide queries by days and import them in the SQL Server Database. This way, we managed to solve the problem.
Eventually, our solution escalated into a separate product. It is more convenient to work with one database which contains not only Google Analytics data, but other data as well. Such as data from Google AdWords and CRM systems.
You can try to set up integration on our website.
I am always there and happy to help if you have any questions.
