Google Analytics 4 in ArcGIS Hub

[Emily_Nilson]

In July 2023, Google will be replacing Universal Analytics with Google Analytics 4. That means Universal Analytics properties will no longer process traffic to your website. After this switch, you will be able to access your previously processed data in the Universal Analytics property for at least six months. Google Analytics advises that you export historical reports during this time. For more information on Google’s deprecation, see Universal Analytics will be going away on Google Support. 

What does this mean for ArcGIS Hub? 

ArcGIS Hub will be enabling support for the new Measurement ID format well before July 2023. When we add support for Google Analytics 4, it will appear within a Site’s “Settings,” under “Tracking & Consent.” We’ll communicate changes on Esri Community and on the ArcGIS Hub Changelog. 

[John_Spence]

Hi @Emily_Nilson, do you have a timeline yet?

[Emily_Nilson]

Hi @John_Spence ! We do not have a timeline, but we'll post an update here as soon as we do. If there is any urgency on your end to make the change, please do let me know!

[John_Spence]

@Emily_Nilson , yeah...let's make this a priority as I know I am not the only organization who currently has this issue. GA does not currently even provide the old UA designation for new GA properties (as they call it) so if someone new is starting with Hub or someone starts up a new Hub site, without having had a previous UA designation that they can reuse/recycle, they cannot use that functionality within Hub.

Likely a pretty small lift for your side of things, but pretty essential for most orgs today in showing the value of Hub, etc.

[John_Spence]

@Emily_Nilson 

As by example....

[Emily_Nilson]

@John_Spence Thank you for this information - really helpful to understand the issue. I'll loop back with the team and get a sense of the work that will be required. Updates to come!

[John_Spence]

@Emily_Nilson sounds great. Really appreciate the support and if there is anything further that can be done to assist please feel free to reach out. Happy to assist in any capacity that helps expedite this functionality.

[Emily_Nilson]

@John_Spence thanks so much, John! I will be in touch with any questions. 

In the meantime, a colleague shared this article from Google Support that may be helpful: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10269537?hl=en&ref_topic=9303319 

[KatieZiebarth]

Hi @Emily_Nilson, my organization is looking forward to this as well! It is very helpful for us to understand what datasets and pages are the most popular in order to better serve the public. The sooner we can use Google Analytics 4 the better. Thank you! 

[DavidCoombe]

Hi @Emily_Nilson 

I just ran into this issue today on our Hub site. Support for Google Analytics 4, would be appreciated.

[RyanSwift]

Morning all-

One other item to consider for the urgency is that it is my understanding that if a Google Analytics tracking is set up for a Hub site using the old UA key, that it cannot be "converted" to a G4 key. Any tracking or usage info will be "lost" and cannot be combined with the new data, the format doesn't line up. So I have 2 new Hub sites that I will have to put a UA key on for tracking and any data captured between now and the implementation of the G4 key will be a completely separate set of data.

If anyone knows that this is incorrect, please let me know, but I see this as a risk for site usage tracking and would love to have this feature moved up if it's easy enough to implement.

Thanks.

[Trippetoe]

Hello @Emily_Nilson 

Ideally Hub support for GA4 would be implemented as soon as possible, while also keeping Hub UA support alive till July 1, 2023.  UA and GA4 are collecting different metrics in different ways.  It'd be great to have a long-ish overlap between data collected with UA and GA4 so we can get some insights/correlations between what GA4 measures and UA measures.  This will help provide some value/context to the UA data we have been collecting from our Hub sites for the past couple of years. Otherwise, i think we lose the value of the UA data especially when looking at longer term trends.

thank you.

[Emily_Nilson]

Absolutely agreed, and we're actively working on it! Updates to come soon. 

[John_Spence]

Outstanding news!

[Emily_Nilson]

Hi all, just letting you know we're still actively developing GA4 capabilities - we'll post an update here when we have news. Thanks!

[John_Spence]

@Emily_Nilson great news! Thank you for keeping us in the loop.

[PaulMero]

Hi there, 

My Google Analytics for our organization's geohub has a G4 tracking ID, but when I go to update that on the geohub it says that the tracking ID has to start from UA and the current G4 one is not valid. Please let me know how I can add the G4 tracking ID on my ArcGIS Geohub

[Kevin_Peel]

@PaulMero - Esri is still developing the update.  Only GA3 is currently supported, so you will need to wait until they deploy the update.

[Emily_Nilson]

Hi all! We have just released GA4 in Hub. See this blog post for details: https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-hub-blog/support-for-google-analytics-4-now-available-in/ba-p/1... 

[Trippetoe]

Hi @Emily_Nilson 

Thanks for noting the GA4 functionality release. that is exciting news. Can clarify the last bullet point --- do not enable "Enhanced Measurement" - in the blog post?  My understanding of GA4 is a bit like having a handful of sand (it's always slipping away from me), but if i understand correctly, without 'Enhanced Measurements' the only stats we will get in GA4 are the 'Automatically tracked events'

• first_session
• session_start
• user_engagement

Is my understanding correct?  If so, will the Hub team keep working on GA4 functionality so we can use Enhanced Measurements?

Thank you.

Tom