Interact-Intranet: Using Google Analytics to Capture More Data

Widget tracking isn't accounted for in the v5 Interact-Intranet Analytics module. If you don't have that module you can implement your own custom code file logging or if you have the module and want to track custom widget (or free text widget iframes) you might want to consider going the Google Analytics route.  In addition to tracking your custom widgets you can also use Google Analytics to track your site as a whole and see just how many people are using features and functions that you otherwise wouldn't be able to track.

This is a guide of my efforts to track our entire site and our custom widgets.

Update: Recently found there are a lot of additional 3rd party analytics tools!
Checkout this great list http://www.onextrapixel.com/2013/07/16/ten-best-alternatives-to-google-analytics

Step 1: Login to Google Analytics

http://www.google.com/analytics/

Step 2: Create an Account

From the home window start by clicking the "New Account" button. You can have multiple accounts and I would recommend creating one for your entire intranet. The only important piece of information when doing this step is correctly entering your Web Site URL. Intranets can be tracked assuming they meet the following requirements:

• your corporate network must be able to reach the ga.js JavaScript file at http://www.google-analytics.com/ga.js or https://www.google-analytics.com/ga.js
• your intranet must be accessible through a fully qualified domain name such as http://intranet.example.com. The ga.js JavaScript will not work if your intranet can only be accessed using a domain name that is not fully qualified, such as http://intranet.

Step 3: Create a Profile

The profile for an Analytics Account is the gateway to the website reports: it determines which data from your site appears in the reports. more info on accounts, users properties, and profiles

Step 4: Add Tracking Info

Copy the tracking code snippet to your clipboard.  Next go to your intranet's analytics: Administration: Third Party Analytics area and paste the code  into the text-box.  Click the save button and your tracking will begin immediately.

Step 5: Verify Your Tracking

Click the Reporting tab at the top of the page, then on the side navigation select the Real-Time Standard Report: Overview.  You should immediately begin seeing your site's usage metrics come through.  Only the Real-Time reports are live, all other reports will populate around midnight PST with the previous day's data.

Step 6: Track Custom Widgets

In the previous steps we implemented tracking on your entire site.  To track non-intranet or widget views you'll need to additionally add the same tracking code to those specific files.  While JavaScript isn't allowed in free text widgets, if you embed an iframe within that widget you can add the JavaScript to a custom page that is called within the iframe.

Notes

We haven't noticed any performance issues as a result of using Google Analytics.