Google Analytics - Users metric does not match what GA shows

[calloni]

Hello all

I am using the Alteryx Google Analytics connector and I run it to get the data for one day (January 27 2020). In the S anchor I get this:

After I calculated all metrics that I needed in Tableau I was able to match all values that GA shows in its native UI, except Users. 

In Google Analytics I see this:

As you can see in the S anchor my total of ga:users was 49136 which is more than double to what GA shows.

GA shows this when I open the help on how it calculates Users:

I wonder... is anyone aware how we can calculate in Alteryx the number of Users that match GA's UI? I guess that Google is not counting Users, but which users? How to identify them?

Thanks

Rodrigo

[calloni · Accepted solution]

I think I got the root of the problem here.

When you add dimensions to Google Analytics call, Google API delivers the data at the granularity of those dimensions. Then we lose the site level pageviews (no dimensions) which is what it shows in the GA UI when there is no filter applied.

My solution was to build 2 calls to GA. One for All metrics (including Users, which I call Page level Users) and one for only Users with only Date as dimension.

Then I joined the two files and now I have for each day the Site Users in a column, and the Page Users in another column.

I will have to build some business logistic in Tableau so it uses the different metrics depending on filter selection, but I think it is doable.

Here is my workflow

Rodrigo