Data imported to Power BI is not the same as in Google Analytic

[tyasagustina199]

Hi everyone,

I have a few domains of GA and would like to connect all of the GA data into Power BI. Some domains working perfectly (i.e, total values of data imported into Power BI is the same as in GA) but one of them did not work. I noticed that the domain that did not work is the domain with the most session data. Is it possible that my data got "sampled"? This GA domains have only around 50k session/day so I'm not sure sampling is the case. Also, I noticed that Power BI seems to have less data than GA for this domain when I tried to include new dimension to the session data.

Any insights would be very appreciated. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

@tyasagustina199,

About the Google Analytics API, we got response from the product team.

This is expected behavior. The API we're using for Google Analytics is the one available to free users, and that API is known to return less accurate values for high volume sites due to the way it samples data. Unfortunately, the API for Google Analytics Premium customers is significantly different than that for the free users, so we'd need to implement a new connector specifically for Premium in order to get the more accurate values. This is not currently on our roadmap. Customers who would like to see this feature should request it or upvote it (if already there) at ideas.powerbi.com.

Regards,
Lydia

[tyasagustina199]

Thanks for the prompt response!

However I still don't get it. If my data got "sampled", it should have been reflected in my GA as well right? It seems like my data is not getting sampled in my GA, because I can still see the actuals there, but whenever I tried to connect to Power BI, the data seems to be "sampled" (less than it actuals).

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

@tyasagustina199,

In Power BI Desktop, the Google Analytics connector relies on Google Analytics Core Reporting API, which is the one available to free users, and the API is known to return less accurate values for high volume sites due to the way it samples data.

Regards,

[S_M]

@Anonymous,please correct me if im wrong,but here we are also saying that Premium users will also see incorrect data as the API being used by PowerBI is specific for the standard / free account ? Isnt the Core Reporting API the same across Premium and Standard accounts ? Also, essentially we are saying that no matter the account (Standard or Premium) we are bound to fetch inaccurate data using the GA connector.

I ask because we have 2 properties - one is a Standard one, other being a Premium account. On the premium account, when using the GA connector, we have had quite alot of issues as the data seems to be getting 'bucketed'. However, in addition to this, as of today, we get an 'OLE DB or OBDC internal error' when trying to fetch data from the Standard account. Would you happen to know why this happens ?

Thanks!