Access Google analytics without consent page using JavaScript

Question

I am creating a dashboard using Atlasboard.

I need to access the Google analytics data such as page views etc. where I will run some queries shown here.

Is there a way to access my Google analytics data without this consent page appearing?

I am using the google-api-nodejs-client api.

I found this post where someone mentions using a service account. But I can't find anyway to get this working in JavaScript.

Any help would be great!

Answer 1

I have finally managed to find a solution to this problem!!! Here is the solution :)

This is assuming you already have a Google analytics account which has site data such as views and have the request and googleapis modules installed.

First you need to create a Google console account at console.developers.google.com.

At Google console:

• Create a project with a suitable name e.g. dashboard1.
• Open up API's & Auth from the left menu -> open up API's tab -> turn on the analytics API.
• Open up the credentials tab -> create new client id -> select service account
• A key should automatically download -> click on the key and follow the instructions -> the default password is "notasecret" -> it will then output a .pem file
• The service account will have an email address e.g. [email protected]

Now go to your Google analytics account at www.google.com/analytics:

• Follow the steps at https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1009702?hl=en
• Then add the email address from your service account.

In the dashboard job (server side using nodejs):

Use this code:

    var fs = require('fs'),
        crypto = require('crypto'),
        request = require('request'); // This is an external module (https://github.com/mikeal/request)

    var authHeader = {
            'alg': 'RS256',
            'typ': 'JWT'
        },
        authClaimSet = {
            'iss': '#######SERVICE ACCOUNT EMAIL GOES HERE#######', // Service account email
            'scope': 'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/analytics.readonly', // We MUST tell them we just want to read data
            'aud': 'https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token'
        },
        SIGNATURE_ALGORITHM = 'RSA-SHA256',
        SIGNATURE_ENCODE_METHOD = 'base64',
        GA_KEY_PATH = '#######DIRECTORY TO YOUR .PEM KEY#######', //finds current directory then appends private key to the directory
        gaKey;

    function urlEscape(source) {
        return source.replace(/\+/g, '-').replace(/\//g, '_').replace(/\=+$/, '');
    }

    function base64Encode(obj) {
        var encoded = new Buffer(JSON.stringify(obj), 'utf8').toString('base64');
        return urlEscape(encoded);
    }

    function readPrivateKey() {
        if (!gaKey) {
            gaKey = fs.readFileSync(GA_KEY_PATH, 'utf8');
        }
        return gaKey;
    }

    var authorize = function(callback) {

        var self = this,
            now = parseInt(Date.now() / 1000, 10), // Google wants us to use seconds
            cipher,
            signatureInput,
            signatureKey = readPrivateKey(),
            signature,
            jwt;

        // Setup time values
        authClaimSet.iat = now;
        authClaimSet.exp = now + 60; // Token valid for one minute

        // Setup JWT source
        signatureInput = base64Encode(authHeader) + '.' + base64Encode(authClaimSet);

        // Generate JWT
        cipher = crypto.createSign('RSA-SHA256');
        cipher.update(signatureInput);
        signature = cipher.sign(signatureKey, 'base64');
        jwt = signatureInput + '.' + urlEscape(signature);

        // Send request to authorize this application
        request({
            method: 'POST',
            headers: {
                'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
            },
            uri: 'https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/token',
            body: 'grant_type=' + escape('urn:ietf:params:oauth:grant-type:jwt-bearer') +
                '&assertion=' + jwt
        }, function(error, response, body) {
            if (error) {
                console.log(error);
                callback(new Error(error));
            } else {
                var gaResult = JSON.parse(body);
                if (gaResult.error) {
                    callback(new Error(gaResult.error));
                } else {
                    callback(null, gaResult.access_token);
                    console.log(gaResult);
                    console.log("Authorized");
                    ###########IF IT REACHES THIS STAGE THE ACCOUNT HAS BEEN AUTHORIZED##############
                }
            }
        });

    };



    var request = require('request'),
        qs = require('querystring');

    authorize(function(err, token) {
        if (!err) {
            // Query the number of total visits for a month
            ############requestConfig################
            var requestConfig = {
                'ids': 'ga:#######PROJECT ID GOES HERE#######',
                'dimensions': 'ga:country',
                'metrics': 'ga:users',
                'sort': '-ga:users',
                'start-date': '2014-04-08',
                'end-date': '2014-04-22',
                'max-results': '10'
            };

            request({
                method: 'GET',
                headers: {
                    'Authorization': 'Bearer ' + token // Here is where we use the auth token
                },
                uri: 'https://www.googleapis.com/analytics/v3/data/ga?' + qs.stringify(requestConfig)
            }, function(error, resp, body) {
                console.log(body);
                var data = JSON.parse(body);
                console.log(data);
            });
        }
    });

REMEMBER TO INPUT YOU'RE OWN SERVICE EMAIL ACCOUNT, GA_KEY_PATH AND IDS

You can Google analytics data by changing the requestConfig. I used this Google Analytics Query tool to help me: http://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/explorer/

The data should then be outputted in the console.

Hope this helps :)