Tracking

Helper library for interacting with Google Events to track page/screen views and events.

Supports both Universal Analytics (gtag.js) as well as Google Analytics 4

Usage

Initialize Tracking

Initialize tracking in the module's entry point.

If the user has opted in to telemetry, this will enable tracking by loading the Google Analytics gtag.js script.

By default this will result in a page view being tracked, unless turned off using the second boolean argument.

initializeTracking('Awesome App', false);

Enable/Disable Tracking

Use the disableTracking and enableTracking functions to initialize tracking after the initial page view.

Useful when the user changes his telemetry preferences at a later point.

The isTrackingEnabled() function provides the current opt-in/out status.

Tracking Screen Views

Screen views are like page views, but for web apps. To send screen_view events when users navigate to different screens within an app, use the trackScreenView() function.

trackScreenView('Settings');

Tracking Clicks

Use the trackClick function in your onClick handler.

If links are to open in the same tab, they will only do so after the tracking event has already been sent. This ensures no tracking calls are missed.

trackClick(event, 'contact_support');

Tracking Errors (Exceptions)

You can use trackError to send exception events to measure the number and type of crashes or errors that occur on a web page.

The first parameter is the prefix, the second one the error description, and the third one indicates whether the error was fatal or not.

trackError('demo', 'Division by zero', false);

Tracking Events

At the core of this package is the trackEvent function.

All you need to provide is the event name (aka event action in Universal Analyticcs), and as many optional event parameters as you want:

trackEvent('insert_template', {
template_name: 'Awesome Template',
});

User Timings

gtag.js supports sending user timing information to Google Analytics. You can do so using the following helper function which will start a timer and return a callback to stop it:

const trackTiming = getTimeTracker('video_transcoding');
// Perform some long task...
trackTiming();

Custom Dimensions

While Google Analytics 4 supports any arbitrary custom event parameters, the Universal Analytics (gtag.js) configuration currently only supports the following custom dimensions:

• order
• orderby
• file_size
• file_type
• status
• name
• duration
• duration
• title_length
• unread_count
• template_id