Google Analytics - Understanding Account structure, Views and Permissions

Hello Learners,

Welcome back to my blog. In my previous blogs, i shared ways to link your website to Google analytics. As we know, that most forward looking companies of our times rely on effective data to make sound business decisions. Decisions that are backed with numbers have proven to be far better and beneficial to a business, that decisions that were taken due to a hunch, or just a judgement call. Thats where Google Analytics & Digital Analytics chip in. In order to make an accurate decision for your online business, its important to set-up your tracking infrastructure in the right way. Lets rally through the account structure Google Analytics allows businesses on its platform to track data effectively.

Google Analytics Account structure

The above chart indicates the structure Google Analytics implies. To simply understand, all Google Analytics accounts can be grouped under "Organization"(Optional), this allows you to manage multiple analytics "Account" under one grouping. When you create an account, you also automatically create a "Property". A property is your website / mobile site / app. Within each property, a "View" is created for that account. A view is a set of data that you want to see pertaining to the said property. Each "Account" can have multiple "Properties", and each Property can have multiple "Views"

Weather you are an agency with multiple client accounts or a small business with a single website, this structure works with you to suit your business needs. Each analytics property is able to independently collect data with the help of a unique Analytics "Property ID"

Understanding "Views" in Google Analytics

To determine what data you want Google Analytics to collect within a specified view, you can use a feature called "Filters" within the "View settings" of your dashboard configuration.

In case of the above example, if Buyfromdharavi.com, which sells products across multiple geographical areas and multiple categories. They could create

• One view with All website data covering all regions
• Separate views for each different region (Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, etc)
• View to ignore traffic coming from internal company IP address (using IP filter)

Its a good idea to keep a default view which collects "All website data" and create custom views which allows you to create segmented data based on your business needs. Be careful while setting up views for your property because you cant change data once its captured and processed by Google Analytics.

A few things to remember

1. Views will not include past data. It will show data from the day the view was created.
2. Only admins can recover views that were deleted. (Generally within 35 days) 

Setting up "Views" in Google Analytics

Step 1 - Log in to your Analytics dashboard
Step 2 - Click on the Admin wheel and define the property from the drop-down
Step 3 - Under Views, select "Create New View"

Step 4 - Add View name & details & click "Create View"
Step 5 - Change country & Currency setting & click "Save"
Step 6 - Add Filters & Goals to Customise Views

Understanding "Permissions" in Google Analytics

You can assign permissions to other users at...

• Account level
• Property level
• View level

Each level inherits permissions from the level above it. Which means, if you have access to View level, you wont have access to modify the property or account associated with that view.

There are 4 types of user permissions

1. Manage - that allows you to add/remove users
2. Edit - That allows users to Edit configuration settings in Google Analytics
3. Collaborate - That allows you to add users to view / share data with
4. Read & Analyse - A version on "Read Only" data

To assign permissions...

Step 1 - Log in to your GA dashboard. Click on the Admin wheel on the left of your screen
Step 2 - Under Property, pick the property under consideration
Step 3 - Click on User management



Step 4 - Click on "+" sign
Step 5 - Add email ID
Step 6 - Select permission level
Step 7 - Add

Hope the above steps were easy to implement. Do feel free to write back in the comments section to address any doubts you might have.

Hope to hear from you soon. Have a great festive season.

Cheers,

Mitul