Google Analytics have for some time been communicating the forthcoming sunsetting of Universal Analytics and its replacement with GA4. This will occur on 1st July 2023. Many of you having been using Universal Analytics for years as a key part of your reporting. You can read much more about this from Google's perspective in their documentation. This document serves to explain how this change affects your Pugpig app or site.

Do I need to do anything?

Probably not, but there are some things you should check. For several years Pugpig Bolt has required integrating Firebase, which includes the technical underpinnings of GA4. This means it's very unlikely you'll need to release your app to being tracking to a GA4 property.

Additionally, the vast majority of our customers have already set up GA4 properties, usually, but not always, in addition to your Universal Analytics properties. You can easily check this in the Google Analytics dashboard, Universal Analytics property IDs are always in the format "UA-[string of numbers]" whereas GA4 property IDs are simply a string of numbers.

If you don't see a GA4 property where you'd expect to see one, the admin panel of Google Analytics will offer you the "GA4 Setup Assistant" option under the property settings. Follow that to set your property up. 

Will I lose access to historical data?

Google's docs state that you will have viewer access to Universal Analytics historical reports and data until the property turndown on 1 July 2024. 

How do I find the reports I used to use?

GA4 is not a like-for-like replacement of Universal Analytics. You'll note that the menu options and UI are quite different. We've published a guide to common GA4 reports which will help guide you.

Custom Dimensions

All of the same custom dimensions that we track to UA are also tracked to GA4, though GA4 does dispense with numbering them. They do need to be configured again as part of setting up GA4. For those of you migrated by us, our support team will have done this for you. If you've completed the migration yourself you'll want to ensure these are tracking. Simply follow Google's instructions and check that any KG-prefixed dimensions (i.e KGPageName) available in the Event Parameter list are configured (there should be no KG-prefixed dimensions in the list once done).

As with anything, feel free to reach out to us at support@pugpig.com with any questions or problems.