Running Google Analytics Locally

This section describes how to set up and test Google Web Analytics features locally.

Getting a Google Analytics Account

Open a web browser and navigate to Google Analytics.

Click Access Google Analytics. If you have not used Google Analytics before, you will be prompted to sign up. Follow the process and confirm your account.

Click Admin on the nav bar.

Click the Property drop down and select Create New Property.

Fill out Website Name and Website URL – they don’t need to point to real URLs. In this example the former will be osf analytics testing and the latter will be test.osf.io

Once completed, click Get Tracking ID and you will be redirected to a page containing the tracking info you will need.

Take note of copy the Tracking ID. It should look similar to UA-43352009-1.

Update Your Local local.py

Ensure that you have set up your website/settings/local.py file as outlined in Setting up the OSF .

Add GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_ID = <your_tracking_id> to your website/settings/local.py file.

Note

Now any events that trigger Google Analytics, currently or new things you implement, will be sent to the property we set up in the previous section.

Viewing Live Events Within Google Analytics

Click Home on the nav bar.

Note

You will see one, or more if you have previously created properties, folders. The descriptions match the Website Name of the associated property.

Click on the property you created, osf analytics testing in your example.

Click All Website Data and you will be redirected to an overview page for this property.

On the left hand navigation bar, click Real-Time -> Overview.

(Optional) Follow the ANALYTICS EDUCATION if you are unfamiliar with Google Analytics.

Click Events flag underneath the Real-Time section of the left hand navigation bar.

Note

From here you can view live events (events received within the last 30 minutes) triggered by either you or your test code from your local environment.