How to know if Google Analytics is working (Android app)?

Question

How can I know if Google Analytics is working for my application? I tried to implement it yesterday, but could never see any results on "Real Time"-reporting.. But today the "App overview" in the dashboard is showing two screen views from yesterday.. The problem is that I tried a number of different things, I do not know what was correct..

Is the real time report, actually real time?

I use set <string name="ga_logLevel">verbose</string>, so I should probably be looking for something..?

Answer 1

I have 3 apps using Google analytics and when your see screenviews in the dashboard everything should just work fine. The logLevel set to verbose is also fine as long as you have added it to your global configuration.

Google Analytics will when not properly set up notify you using log messages, so as long as there are know errors or warnings showing up on your logcat console you should be fine.

Realtime reports are actually pretty realtime. At least after Google Analytics has been set up properly, the fist test day never gave me good realtime reporting. But after the first screenviews started to appear the realtime reporting worked just fine. (Opening the app will usually add a realtime user (screenview) within 15 seconds)

You could also set the ga_dryRun property. When this is set to true your logcat will be filled with useful information about what Google Analytics is actually receiving (Read logging). I set this property to true after I have set up Google Analytics so that all of my development testing isn't tracked. But I recommend to use it only after you are sure you Google Analytics code is working and you have some screen views showing up in the online dashboard.

This is answer is mostly based on personal experience. But I think you find it useful.

Update:

Today I implemented Google Analytics into a new app. I could directly (After about 4 minutes) see some screen views in the screens dashboard. This works only if you set the display date of the dashboard to today! The real-time metrics do nothing so far at the moment of writing.