Understanding Download Telemetry

[BrianRollison]

Getting Started

For many years all ArcGIS Hub Sites have supported customers inputting a Google Analytics Tracking ID to view, query, and report on traffic and basic interactions. You can learn more about configuring this for your site in our documentation.

While not widely publicized, some of you might have noticed specific interactions in your sites being logged in the "Behavior" > "Events" section of Google Analytics. These events are often updated as the product evolves to ensure information is easier to query and visualize.

The May 2021 release of "Content Views" for ArcGIS Hub was more than just the largest interface update in many years, it was also the largest analytics event update which may have impacted some of your reports.

We understand this may have been a little abrupt and will do better in the future to state when event taxonomy is changing on certain features in the future.

How to View Download Telemetry

We wanted to make the ability segment download data easier and have integrated quite a few changes, including new custom dimensions we know you'll find helpful. All download events will be logged under:

Category: Interaction
Action: Download
Label: <file format>

File format will specify what type of file was selected for download, such as Shapefile, CSV, KML, GeoJson, etc. Use custom dimensions (may need to be configured for your Google Analytics) to further segment by item type, specific item ID, and more.

Updates to custom dimensions are meant to facilitate a better understanding of item types, item IDs, or routes:

details - this will list whether the download was of a recently cached option or a newly generated download
id - this will list the itemId of the downloaded item for tracking
type - this will list the ArcGIS item type which registered the download event (ex. "Feature Service")
access - this will list the sharing level of the item which was downloaded (ex. "Public")
page - this will list the route the user was on when they performed the download operation (ex. "/datasets/:id/explore")
content_org_id - this will list the orgId of the item which was downloaded, helpful in case of an Open Data implementation

We hope this is helpful and look forward to bringing most of these analytics into your content dashboards in the future.

If you'd like to learn more about Google Analytics events or how to use event reports please leverage their documentation.

Updates (2022-11-30): Article was updated to reflect changes to the label structure which now lists the file format of the download over "Complete".

[Kevin_Peel]

Hi Brian,

Whereabouts in GA can the custom dimensions be found?  Filtering down as stated works to get a high level count; however, there aren't any custom dimensions available that drill down the data further like you mentioned.  Would you be able to provide further instructions please?

Thanks

[BrianRollison]

@Kevin_Peel you'll see see the primary dimensions at the top of the "Top Events" table, below you'll see a dropdown called "Secondary Dimension". Open this dropdown to search and apply custom dimensions.

If you are not paying for a premium plan of Google Analytics, then your query will be sampled which may impact the accuracy of reporting depending on the sample size. You'll see this noted in the shield icon next to the dashboard header.

[StefanieWenker]

I got this to work with some help from our IT team. I only had the id and details custom dimensions added, but I am not getting the expected result from the id dimension.

Instead of the itemid for the item that was downloaded, which is what I am interested in, all I got was "anonymous" so it sounds more like it is the id of the person downloading it. Should I try the page dimension instead?

Also would be really helpful if we could get the name of the item that was downloaded instead of the itemid so that I don't have to cross-reference them (although I do realize the itemid shouldn't change over time whereas the name might....)

[AJ_devaccount]

Hi @BrianRollison, do the custom dimensions show up on its own, or do we have to set them up in GA? For example events/goals/views/tag manager etc. Sorry, first time using GA, but want to find out download number for each dataset.

       

[JDScharf]

Hi @BrianRollison and @AJ_devaccount,
I was able to add Custom Dimensions in Google Analytics, using this Google Analytics Help page.  Not sure if this is the right way to do this, or if I did it right.

When I try to go from Behavior -> Event -> Top Events ->  Engagement -> Download -> 

And under the Custom Dimensions dropdown, select Secondary dimension: id, no results are shown.

I'm so confused and appreciate any help!