PageView about csharpanalytics

[damieng]

CSharpAnalytics will automatically generate the URL for you and send it when you call

AutoMeasurement.Client.TrackAppView("Page name")

[testsamples]

Okay , we need to extend the interface to provide implementation for PageView as I see it from source code.

[damieng]

You're right in that CSharpAnalytics only works with properties set up as applications in Google Analytics, not ones set up as a web site. You'd need to change the code to provide the dh (host name) instead of the an (application name) etc. to track to those.

[testsamples]

Thank you.

[damieng]

Web sites used to be tracked with a different protocol known as Urchin which was too different to continue to support in this project.

Now that Measurement Protocol can be used for web sites too (providing the site is upgraded to Universal analytics) it would not be much effort I think to add support for that although it wouldn't make sense to support it in AutoMeasurement classes as those are for app analytics.

[testsamples]

Dameing ,

One more question -

My application is deployed across iOS and desktop. Can we create one account to capture stats for both or do I have to label one account under 'All Mobile Data' and other in 'All website data'. Because the parameters / dashboard widgets differ for both ..

Is there a way to apply filter views under mobile data to capture desktop data ?

Thank you.

[damieng]

You can combine them, I'd recommend that only if:

a. You need to aggregate between the two
b. They have similar events and identical custom dimensions and custom metrics
c. You have a clear way of being able to filter/distinguish between them

You are right in that the filter views are where you can split them out but bear in mind that you'll need to be able to distinguish the different type of hits easily. You don't want to be constantly updating a filter with version numbers etc. App Name would probably be the best option there.

[testsamples]

Hi Damien ,
Question on cid and user id . To count active users vs. returning users on
my desktop app , Do i have to use the user id field ?
whereas cid is a just a new guid for each session ?

thank you

On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 8:23 AM, Damien Guard [email protected]:

Closed #14 #14.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/14
.

[damieng]

You can just use CID for that.

The User ID field is a brand-new field Google released this month to allow tracking a user flow between applications and sites by tying them together with the same user id. (It can be your own internal ID number for the user but must not be their email, phone, SSN or other information a third-party or google could use to reveal their identity)

[damieng]

Also, to clarify, CID is a new guid but it is not per session but is generated when the app is first run for a user. GA can figure out the new vs returning based on whether it is the users first session or not.

[testsamples]

Please clarify my understanding --

hmm not sure I get it . Here is the scenario -
Note - Mine is only a desktop app ( Test app)

On Monday - User A logs to Test app and logs out . GA should measure this
as new user.
On Tuesday - User A logs to Test app and logs out, GA should measure this
as returning user.

Usage with CID - On login, cacluate Md5 of username and map it to CID ( No
need to use User id ?? )

Session usage - Lets say I set the duration of session to expire every 4
hours on universal analytics admin settings page. But essentially my
application does not timeout unless the user exits the application, thus I
started custom session start and end in my app.

Scenario 1 - For a user if the application is idle and session expiration
timeout set on the universal analytics trigggers , Does it record as end of
session ? ( which i think it should ) .
Scneario 2 - After waking up from idle state , does a new session gets
recorded for user and when the user exits the app, session is marked as end
?

For sessions to record successfully only when the user starts and exits the
application , would I have to send some light weight events to keep the
session alive throughout its lifetime so that universal analytics settings
on the admin do not expire the session ? This may help me to get avg
session length etc accurately ?

On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 1:39 PM, Damien Guard [email protected]:

You can just use CID for that.

The User ID field is a brand-new field Google released this month to allow
tracking a user flow between applications and sites by tying them together
with the same user id. (It can be your own internal ID number for the user
but must not be their email, phone, SSN or other information a third-party
or google could use to reveal their identity)

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/14#issuecomment-41729061
.

[damieng]

So users can log into your app directly?

Typically GA treats the concept of a returning user as a returning browser/app rather than an actual physical user as it is mostly used on anonymous systems or ones that already have a user login system before the web browser/app (e.g. Windows/Mac OS X)

The CID can't just be a MD5 value it needs to be a GUID/UUID:

"This anonymously identifies a particular user, device, or browser instance. For the web, this is generally stored as a first-party cookie with a two-year expiration. For mobile apps, this is randomly generated for each particular instance of an application install. The value of this field should be a random UUID (version 4) as described in http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4122.txt"

If they are logging into your app directly one option would be to store a list of CIDs on the machine and each time they log-in try and find their and restore that and if they don't have one generate a new one.

[testsamples]

Right , users can directly login to the app. That's exactly what i was
thinking i.e to devise mechanism to map unique id for each user . But
session expiration can still occur since UA setting may timeout ( if set to
4 hrs expiration ) unless I keep polling every few minutes to keep the
session alive for the user until the app exits although I have sesison
start and end customization on my application.

On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 2:08 PM, Damien Guard [email protected]:

So users can log into your app directly?

Typically GA treats the concept of a returning user as a returning
browser/app rather than an actual physical user as it is mostly used on
anonymous systems or ones that already have a user login system before the
web browser/app (e.g. Windows/Mac OS X)

The CID can't just be a MD5 value it needs to be a GUID/UUID:

"This anonymously identifies a particular user, device, or browser
instance. For the web, this is generally stored as a first-party cookie
with a two-year expiration. For mobile apps, this is randomly generated for
each particular instance of an application install. The value of this field
should be a random UUID (version 4) as described in
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4122.txt"

If they are logging into your app directly one option would be to store a
list of CIDs on the machine and each time they log-in try and find their
and restore that and if they don't have one generate a new one.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/14#issuecomment-41732378
.

[testsamples]

Hi Damien,

Need your input. . This request does not appear in User ID View for user id
enabled property. It appears under default view though .

request using measurement protocol ..
https://www.google-analytics.com/collect?&ul=en-US&v=1&tid=UA-xxx-2&uid={7dd03390-d137-11e3-9c1a-0800200c9a66}&cid={8dd03390-d137-11e3-9c1a-0800200c9a65}&t=pageview&dt=Share%20tab&dp=Share%20tab

Am I missing something ? Why does it not appear as a page view hit under
Real time in my User ID enabled view.

Thank you. I appreciate your response.

On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 2:16 PM, Sharmila Manpathak <[email protected]

wrote:

Right , users can directly login to the app. That's exactly what i was
thinking i.e to devise mechanism to map unique id for each user . But
session expiration can still occur since UA setting may timeout ( if set to
4 hrs expiration ) unless I keep polling every few minutes to keep the
session alive for the user until the app exits although I have sesison
start and end customization on my application.

On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 2:08 PM, Damien Guard [email protected]:

So users can log into your app directly?

Typically GA treats the concept of a returning user as a returning
browser/app rather than an actual physical user as it is mostly used on
anonymous systems or ones that already have a user login system before the
web browser/app (e.g. Windows/Mac OS X)

The CID can't just be a MD5 value it needs to be a GUID/UUID:

"This anonymously identifies a particular user, device, or browser
instance. For the web, this is generally stored as a first-party cookie
with a two-year expiration. For mobile apps, this is randomly generated for
each particular instance of an application install. The value of this field
should be a random UUID (version 4) as described in
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4122.txt"

If they are logging into your app directly one option would be to store a
list of CIDs on the machine and each time they log-in try and find their
and restore that and if they don't have one generate a new one.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//issues/14#issuecomment-41732378
.

[damieng]

It seems clear from that URL that you are not actually using CSharpAnalytics but are creating Measurement Protocol URLs yourself as indicated by the unnecessary and probably breaking { } braces around your GUIDs.

I would recommend getting assistance via Google's forums for any more issues you have.