Hello Analytics API: PHP quickstart for service accounts

This tutorial walks through the steps required to access a Google Analytics account, query the Analytics APIs, handle the API responses, and output the results. The Core Reporting API v3.0, Management API v3.0, and OAuth2.0 are used in this tutorial.

Step 1: Enable the Analytics API

To get started using Google Analytics API, you need to first use the setup tool, which guides you through creating a project in the Google API Console, enabling the API, and creating credentials.

Create a client ID

  1. Open the Service accounts page. If prompted, select a project.
  2. Click Create Service Account, enter a name and description for the service account. You can use the default service account ID, or choose a different, unique one. When done click Create.
  3. The Service account permissions (optional) section that follows is not required. Click Continue.
  4. On the Grant users access to this service account screen, scroll down to the Create key section. Click Create key.
  5. In the side panel that appears, select the format for your key: JSON is recommended.
  6. Click Create. Your new public/private key pair is generated and downloaded to your machine; it serves as the only copy of this key. For information on how to store it securely, see Managing service account keys.
  7. Click Close on the Private key saved to your computer dialog, then click Done to return to the table of your service accounts.

Add service account to Google Analytics account

The newly created service account will have an email address, <projectId>-<uniqueId>@developer.gserviceaccount.com; Use this email address to add a user to the Google analytics account you want to access via the API. For this tutorial only Read & Analyze permissions are needed.

Step 2: Install the Google Client Library

You can obtain the Google APIs Client Library for PHP downloading the release or using Composer:

composer require google/apiclient:^2.0

Step 3: Setup the sample

You'll need to create a single file named HelloAnalytics.php, which will contain the sample code below.

  1. Copy or download the following source code to HelloAnalytics.php.
  2. Move the previously downloaded service-account-credentials.json within the same directory as the sample code.

HelloAnalytics.php

<?php

// Load the Google API PHP Client Library.
require_once __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';

$analytics = initializeAnalytics();
$profile = getFirstProfileId($analytics);
$results = getResults($analytics, $profile);
printResults($results);

function initializeAnalytics()
{
  // Creates and returns the Analytics Reporting service object.

  // Use the developers console and download your service account
  // credentials in JSON format. Place them in this directory or
  // change the key file location if necessary.
  $KEY_FILE_LOCATION = __DIR__ . '/service-account-credentials.json';

  // Create and configure a new client object.
  $client = new Google_Client();
  $client->setApplicationName("Hello Analytics Reporting");
  $client->setAuthConfig($KEY_FILE_LOCATION);
  $client->setScopes(['https://www.googleapis.com/auth/analytics.readonly']);
  $analytics = new Google_Service_Analytics($client);

  return $analytics;
}

function getFirstProfileId($analytics) {
  // Get the user's first view (profile) ID.

  // Get the list of accounts for the authorized user.
  $accounts = $analytics->management_accounts->listManagementAccounts();

  if (count($accounts->getItems()) > 0) {
    $items = $accounts->getItems();
    $firstAccountId = $items[0]->getId();

    // Get the list of properties for the authorized user.
    $properties = $analytics->management_webproperties
        ->listManagementWebproperties($firstAccountId);

    if (count($properties->getItems()) > 0) {
      $items = $properties->getItems();
      $firstPropertyId = $items[0]->getId();

      // Get the list of views (profiles) for the authorized user.
      $profiles = $analytics->management_profiles
          ->listManagementProfiles($firstAccountId, $firstPropertyId);

      if (count($profiles->getItems()) > 0) {
        $items = $profiles->getItems();

        // Return the first view (profile) ID.
        return $items[0]->getId();

      } else {
        throw new Exception('No views (profiles) found for this user.');
      }
    } else {
      throw new Exception('No properties found for this user.');
    }
  } else {
    throw new Exception('No accounts found for this user.');
  }
}

function getResults($analytics, $profileId) {
  // Calls the Core Reporting API and queries for the number of sessions
  // for the last seven days.
   return $analytics->data_ga->get(
       'ga:' . $profileId,
       '7daysAgo',
       'today',
       'ga:sessions');
}

function printResults($results) {
  // Parses the response from the Core Reporting API and prints
  // the profile name and total sessions.
  if (count($results->getRows()) > 0) {

    // Get the profile name.
    $profileName = $results->getProfileInfo()->getProfileName();

    // Get the entry for the first entry in the first row.
    $rows = $results->getRows();
    $sessions = $rows[0][0];

    // Print the results.
    print "First view (profile) found: $profileName\n";
    print "Total sessions: $sessions\n";
  } else {
    print "No results found.\n";
  }
}


Step 4: Run the sample

After you have enabled the Analytics API, installed the Google APIs client library for PHP, and set up the sample source code the sample is ready to run.

Run the sample using:

php HelloAnalytics.php

When you finish these steps, the sample outputs the name of the authorized user's first Google Analytics view (profile) and the number of sessions for the last seven days.

With the authorized Analytics service object you can now run any of code samples found in the Management API reference docs. For example you could try changing the code to use the accountSummaries.list method.