Harvard has created an analytics dashboard for their Spotlight exhibits using Google Data Studio. Feel free to test out Harvard's dashboard using the instructions below, which also includes instructions and a template for making your own. Please also feel free to update this page with additional instructions as you test and create your own dashboard and/or let us know if you have found other helpful analytics dashboard tools!

Harvard's Analytics Dashboard

Using the dashboard

1. To enlarge the dashboard, use the full screen icon or click the Google Data Studio button in the bottom right corner to open the dashboard in a new tab
2. Select the desired Spotlight exhibit in the bottom left dropdown
3. Select the desired date range in the top right (the default is last month). The data will automatically refresh when a new date range is selected

Interacting with Data

The data elements on the dashboard pages are interactive, hovering your mouse over them will provide more details. For example, hovering over the 'desktop' slice of the pie chart for 'User Devices' will show both the percentage and number of desktop users. Similarly, hovering over a country in the map will display the country name and number of sessions. You can also scroll and page through the lists of 'Most Visited Pages' and 'Top Search Terms'.

Exporting Data

Depending on the website and date range selected, the following data elements often only show a portion of the data in the dashboard: 

• How are users finding us?
• Most Visited Pages
• Top Search Terms
• The map

Because these data elements contain a lot of information, it is easiest to see the full data by exporting it. To export the data:

1. Hover over anywhere on the data element you wish to export and notice an ellipsis (3 vertical dots) will appear on the top right side of the data element
2. Click on the ellipsis and select the desired output option 

Downloading a Report

The entire report can be exported by to a PDF clicking the 'download report' arrow icon in the top right menu, you'll have the option to select which pages you'd like to download. The PDF is not interactive and will only display what is shown in the dashboard.

Creating Your Own Dashboard

If you'd like to create an analytics dashboard like the one above, to help get you started: 

1. Make a copy of this dashboard template
2. Select your data source
3. Modify the data charts as desired

Setting up Filters

In order to create a dashboard page for each exhibit (like the Exhibit Example page in the template), you'll need to create a filter for each exhibit. To create and apply a filter:

1. Go to Resource > Manage filters
2. Edit the Artemas Ward filter with your exhibit name and URL slug, then close the filter window
3. Each data chart should automatically update with the new filter data

To create a new exhibit page with a new filter:

1. Go to Page > Duplicate page. 
2. Duplicate and edit your filter created above, then close the filter window
3. To apply the new filter: 
   1. Select a data chart
   2. In the Data section of the chart, remove the previous filter and add the new one
   3. Repeat for all charts on the page

Tips & Outstanding Questions

• The report can be embedded on a website page by going to File > Embed report
  

• Search terms do not populate automatically and have to first be set up in Google Analytics to track the data. To set this up, see Set up Site Search.

• Direct is a bucket Google Analytics uses for unknown sources as well users bookmarking and coming to a site directly. If you are not seeing a known source coming through in your analytics, such as your library website, try adding a UTM parameter (or tag) to the source links. The Campaign URL Builder is a very helpful tool for this.

• Ideally, it would have been better to create one dashboard page and enable end-users to select and apply the filter for a particular exhibit in the same way they can with the date range picker. We were unable to find a way to make this work and would love to hear if someone in the community finds a way. Our current solution is quick and easy to set up a new page, but it will be time consuming if we want to make a change to all pages in the future, especially as our exhibit number grows.

Resources

Data Studio Help - https://support.google.com/datastudio

Set up Site Search - https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1012264?hl=en

Campaign URL Builder - https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/campaign-url-builder/