Google analytics is often associated with the recording and reporting of web page interactions, but it can easily be adapted to record user actions in a non-web desktop application too. This post helps you to get started, and assumes that you already have a Google account which you have used to create your own Analytics account.
Step 1: Create a new account
Log into Google Analytics and select ADMIN > ACCOUNT > Create new account.
Set to a ‘Mobile’ application rather than ‘Website’.
Fill in the account details:
And then select ‘Get Tracking ID’ to get your unique Tracking ID:
A new ‘EventTracker’ property is created with its own unique tracking ID is created as shown:
Step 2: Create a C# application to implement tracking APIs
For this I use that has already been created for us by ‘0liver’ over at GitHub.
https://gist.github.com/0liver/11229128
Create a new Console application:
Be sure to add the ‘System.Web’ reference:
Step 3: Create a new ‘GoogleAnalyticsApi.cs’ class:
I use this class pretty much as-is in order to implement the tracking commands. I use the https protocol over http and I also implement it as a static class. And of course I use the Tracking ID that was created in the request portion of the POST command:
// the request body we want to send var postData = new Dictionary<string, string> { { "v", "1" }, { "tid", "UA-93627600-1" }, { "cid", "555" }, { "t", type.ToString() }, { "ec", category }, { "ea", action },
So that the full code listing looks like this:
using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.IO; using System.Linq; using System.Net; using System.Text; using System.Web; namespace EventTracker { public static class GoogleAnalyticsApi { public static void TrackEvent(string category, string action, string label, int? value = null) { Track(HitType.@event, category, action, label, value); } public static void TrackPageview(string category, string action, string label, int? value = null) { Track(HitType.@pageview, category, action, label, value); } private static void Track(HitType type, string category, string action, string label, int? value = null) { if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(category)) throw new ArgumentNullException("category"); if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(action)) throw new ArgumentNullException("action"); var request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create("https://www.google-analytics.com/collect"); request.Method = "POST"; // the request body we want to send var postData = new Dictionary<string, string> { { "v", "1" }, { "tid", "UA-93627600-1" }, { "cid", "555" }, { "t", type.ToString() }, { "ec", category }, { "ea", action }, }; if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(label)) { postData.Add("el", label); } if (value.HasValue) { postData.Add("ev", value.ToString()); } var postDataString = postData .Aggregate("", (data, next) => string.Format("{0}&{1}={2}", data, next.Key, HttpUtility.UrlEncode(next.Value))) .TrimEnd('&'); // set the Content-Length header to the correct value request.ContentLength = Encoding.UTF8.GetByteCount(postDataString); // write the request body to the request using (var writer = new StreamWriter(request.GetRequestStream())) { writer.Write(postDataString); } try { var webResponse = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse(); if (webResponse.StatusCode != HttpStatusCode.OK) { throw new HttpException((int)webResponse.StatusCode, "Google Analytics tracking did not return OK 200"); } } catch (Exception ex) { // do what you like here, we log to Elmah // ElmahLog.LogError(ex, "Google Analytics tracking failed"); } } private enum HitType { // ReSharper disable InconsistentNaming @event, @pageview, // ReSharper restore InconsistentNaming } } }
Step 4: Observe the event tracking in Analytics
In the debugger make sure the TrackEvent API gets executed.
In your Analytics account, navigate to REAL TIME > Events.
Note the updated event summary displayed in this page, as well as the category/action combination that we wished to record: