NOTE:As of October 2022, Dashboard Analytics is no longer maintained, and thus no longer available for purchase. Google’s discontinuation of the Out-Of-Band authorization flow for account authorization, and the overhaul of the Google Analytics API to accommodate GA4 both entail too much work to keep Dashboard Analytics alive.
Dashboard Analytics replaces the default ExpressionEngine® dashboard with a beautiful display of your website’s Google Analytics traffic. Once authorized to connect to your Google Analytics account, the dashboard displays real-time traffic (which live-updates every 60 seconds) followed by a comprehensive overview of traffic from today, yesterday, and the past 30 days.
The real-time traffic display includes: the number of active users; a breakdown of device usage for the current active users (desktop, tablet, and mobile); the top five pages currently being viewed; the top five current traffic sources; and the top five current countries.
The overviews for today’s traffic, yesterday’s traffic, and last month’s traffic all include: total sessions, total pageviews; the average number of pages viewed per session; the average visit length; and the average bounce rate.
The last 30 days’ overview also includes: a line chart which follows daily sessions and pageviews for the period; a pie chart showing new versus returning visitors; a pie chart showing the breakdown of devices (desktop, tablet, and mobile); the top five pages for the period; the top five traffic sources for the period; and the top five countries for the period.
Dashboard Analytics connects using version 3 of the Google Analytics Data API, which is not compatible with Google Analytics 4 properties. A GA4-compatible API has yet to be released, so there are currently no plans to support GA4 in the near-future.
Upload the included /system/user/addons/dashboard_analytics folder to your /system/user/addons/ directory, and the /themes/user/dashboard_analytics folder to your /themes/user directory, then install Dashboard Analytics from the Add-On Manager screen.
Visit the Dashboard Analytics settings screen by clicking its link on the Add-On Manager screen. Here you will need to follow the instructions to authorize Dashboard Analytics to connect to your Google Analytics account.
(Note that a single Google account can only generate 25 concurrent access tokens for Dashboard Analytics before the oldest of those token will be revoked – this may be relevant if you’re a developer or agency which manages their clients’ Google Analyics accounts under a single umbrella account.)
Once authorized, you’ll be presented with a list of Google Anlytics account profiles to choose from. Select a profile and save your settings.
One this screen there are a few additional settings:
If you have multiple sites via MSM, each site will store its own distinct settings for Dashboard Analytics.
Data for the previous 30-day period is fetched and cached once per day, while the data for the “today” overview is fetched and cached hourly. Real-time data is never cached, and is refreshed dynamically every 60 seconds while the dashboard is being displayed.
You can clear all caches for the current site at any time by clicking the “Clear Cache” link in the module’s settings area.