How do I use a Service Account to Access the Google Analytics API V3 with .NET C#?

Question

I realized this question has been previously asked but with little in the way of example code, so I am asking again but with at least a little bit of direction.

Afte

Answer 1

Regarding Richard Collette answer, be careful that using his method if you want to use Analytics API in READONLY mode, the correct way to use it is:

string Scope = "analytics.readonly"

and not

string Scope = AnalyticsService.Scopes.AnalyticsReadOnly.ToString().ToLower()

as he seems to tell that there is a bug. In fact, the bug is that the .toString() method returns analyticsreadonly and NOT analytics.readonly which is the way that Google likes. That's it.

Answer 2

The following code, corrected from my original question, is based on the example provided by Ian Fraser at:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/google-search-api-for-shopping/4uUGirzH4Rw/__c0e4hj0ekJ

His code addressed three issues:

1. It appears as though AnalyticsService.Scopes.AnalyticsReadonly does not work, at least not for me or the way I am doing it.
2. For some reason, the ServiceAccountUser must be assigned to the ServiceAccountId property of the AssertionFlowClient instance.
3. OAuth2Authenticator provides the IAuthenticator that I was looking for.

In your project, include references to:

• Lib\DotNetOpenAuth.dll
• Lib\Google.Apis.dll
• Lib\Google.Apis.Authentication.OAuth2.dll
• Services\AnalyticsService\Google.Apis.Analytics.v3.dll

-

namespace GoogleAnalyticsAPITest.Console
{
    using System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates;
    using Google.Apis.Analytics.v3;
    using Google.Apis.Analytics.v3.Data;
    using Google.Apis.Authentication.OAuth2;
    using Google.Apis.Authentication.OAuth2.DotNetOpenAuth;
    using Google.Apis.Util;

    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator.Configure();            
            const string ServiceAccountId = "nnnnnnnnnnn.apps.googleusercontent.com";
            const string ServiceAccountUser = "nnnnnnnnnnn@developer.gserviceaccount.com";
            AssertionFlowClient client = new AssertionFlowClient(
                GoogleAuthenticationServer.Description, new X509Certificate2(@"value-privatekey.p12", "notasecret", X509KeyStorageFlags.Exportable))
            {
                Scope = AnalyticsService.Scopes.AnalyticsReadonly.GetStringValue(),
                ServiceAccountId = ServiceAccountUser //Bug, why does ServiceAccountUser have to be assigned to ServiceAccountId
                //,ServiceAccountUser = ServiceAccountUser
            };
            OAuth2Authenticator<AssertionFlowClient> authenticator = new OAuth2Authenticator<AssertionFlowClient>(client, AssertionFlowClient.GetState);            
            AnalyticsService service = new AnalyticsService(authenticator);            
            string profileId = "ga:64968920";
            string startDate = "2010-10-01";
            string endDate = "2010-10-31";
            string metrics = "ga:visits";
            DataResource.GaResource.GetRequest request = service.Data.Ga.Get(profileId, startDate, endDate, metrics);
            request.Dimensions = "ga:date";
            GaData data = request.Fetch();            
        }

    }
}

Answer 3

I was checking out the analytics API yesterday and noticed how undocumented it is and no samples etc.

Any ways, I have created a library that you could use to access analytics easily with couple of lines and make direct databinding to DataTables for data returned it's open source on the github so feel free to contribute :)

https://github.com/rmostafa/DotNetAnalyticsAPI

Usage

Analytics.AnalyticsManager manager = new Analytics.AnalyticsManager(Server.MapPath("~/bin/privatekey.p12"), "YOUR_EMAIL");
            manager.LoadAnalyticsProfiles();


List<Analytics.Data.DataItem> metrics = new List<Analytics.Data.DataItem>();
metrics.Add(Analytics.Data.Visitor.Metrics.visitors);
metrics.Add(Analytics.Data.Session.Metrics.visits);
List<Analytics.Data.DataItem> dimensions = new List<Analytics.Data.DataItem>();
dimensions.Add(Analytics.Data.GeoNetwork.Dimensions.country);
dimensions.Add(Analytics.Data.GeoNetwork.Dimensions.city);


System.Data.DataTable table = manager.GetGaDataTable(DateTime.Today.AddDays(-3), DateTime.Today, metrics, dimensions, null, metrics);

There is direct code mapping for All Google API Reporting commands categorized same way like the API so you could it even without reading the API Documentation at all since all features there are documented in the attributes, I have wrote code that parsed the complete api documentation and resourced the Metrics, Dimensions, Calculated Features in an XML that i generated from physical classes that you could use directly like the example above it's fun to play with :) enjoy

https://github.com/rmostafa/DotNetAnalyticsAPI

Answer 4

Here is my working example posted here [1]: Automated use of google-api-dotnet-client with OAuth 2.0 I put a lot the research into finding and piecing the code together hope this saves you some time.

Answer 5

string scope = Google.Apis.Util.Utilities.GetStringValue(AnalyticsService.Scopes.AnalyticsReadonly);