Use the CData ODBC Driver for Google Analytics in SAS JMP

You can use the CData ODBC Driver for Google Analytics to integrate live data into your statistical analysis with SAS JMP. The driver proxies your queries directly to the Google Analytics API, ensuring that your analysis reflects any changes to the data. The CData ODBC Driver supports the standard SQL used by JMP in the background as you design reports.

This article shows how to access Google Analytics data into a report and create data visualization. It also shows how to use SQL to query Google Analytics data from the JMP Query Builder.

Access Google Analytics Data as an ODBC Data Source

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

Google uses the OAuth authentication standard. To access Google APIs on behalf on individual users, you can use the embedded credentials or you can register your own OAuth app.

OAuth also enables you to use a service account to connect on behalf of users in a Google Apps domain. To authenticate with a service account, you will need to register an application to obtain the OAuth JWT values.

In addition to the OAuth values, set Profile to the profile you want to connect to. This can be set to either the Id or website URL for the Profile. If not specified, the first Profile returned will be used.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

Import Google Analytics Data with the Query Builder

After you have created the Google Analytics DSN, you can use SQL to invoke the capabilities of the Google Analytics API. Follow the steps below to execute some supported queries in the Query Builder:

1. In SAS JMP, click File -> Database -> Query Builder. The Select Database Connection dialog is displayed.
2. Click New Connection.
3. On the Machine Data Source tab, select the DSN. In the next step, the Select Tables for Query dialog is displayed.
4. In the Available Tables section, select a table and click Primary.
5. As you drag Available Columns to the Included Columns tab, the underlying SQL query is updated.
6. Click Run Query to display the data.
7. To refresh the results with the current data, right-click Update from Database and click Run Script.

Visualize Google Analytics Data

After importing, you can use the Graph Builder to create graphs visually. To open the Graph Builder, click the Graph Builder button in the toolbar.

1. Drag a dimension column onto the x axis. For example, Browser.
2. Drag a measure column onto the y axis. For example, Sessions.
3. Select a chart type. For example, a bar chart.