Usage

Google Analytics Extension

This wiki is about the basic usage for the Google Analytics extension in Yii.

Usage

Accessing Google Analytics in Yii

Since the Google Analytics extension is setup as a component, you can simply use the following call to access the extension:

Yii::app()->googleAnalytics

Calling a Google Analytics Method

In Google Analytics, you call various methods to change the settings and values that are passed to Google's severs. For the Yii extension, you use a similar setup. All you need to do is call the name of the method, and pass in the parameters (not as an array!)

A simple example

A normal call to set a custom variable in JavaScript:

_gaq.push(['_setCustomVar', 1, 'Section', 'Life & Style', 3]);

Within a controller or view, you can do the same as above via the extension:

Yii::app()->googleAnalytics->_setCustomVar(1, 'Section', 'Life & Style', 3);

A more complex example

Sometimes you need to push quite a bit of data into Google Analytics. With this extension, that is fairly easy.

For an example, let's push in a transaction when the user completes a checkout via the checkout action within the cart controller. You can see within this example that Yii's relational records can be used (see: $order->Store->Name)

protected/controllers/cart.php:

<?php

// ...

protected function beforeRender($view)
{
    $return = parent::beforeRender($view);
    Yii::app()->googleAnalytics->render();
    return $return;
}

public function actionCheckout( )
{
    // Do some processing here (let's say $order has information about the order)
    if($order->isComplete)
    {
        // Start the transaction using $order's information
        Yii::app()->googleAnalytics->_addTrans(
                                        $order->OrderID, 
                                        $order->Store->Name, 
                                        $order->Total, 
                                        $order->Tax, 
                                        $order->ShippingAmount, 
                                        $order->City, 
                                        $order->State, 
                                        $order->Country
                                    );
        
        // Loop through each item that the order had
        foreach($order->Items as $item)
        {
            // And add in the item to pass to Google Analytics
            Yii::app()->googleAnalytics->_addItem(
                                            $order->OrderID,
                                            $item->SKU,
                                            $item->Name,
                                            $item->Category->Name,
                                            $item->Price,
                                            $item->Quantity
                                        );
        }
        
        // Finally, call _trackTrans to finalize the order.
        Yii::app()->googleAnalytics->_trackTrans();
    }
}

Disallowed methods

Nearly all of the methods are accessible via the extension. The exceptions are as follows:

• Any deprecated method
• Any method starting with _get
• _link (see: issue #2)
• _linkByPost (see: issue #3)

About the methods

It should be noted that methods are output in a FIFO (First In, First Out) method. This is important because some methods such as _setCustomVar need a _trackPageview, _trackEvent, or _trackTrans after it in order for the data to be sent in.

Rendering the Google Analytics Output

Rendering within the extension depends on the way you configured it.

If Auto Rendering is enabled

If auto rendering is enabled and you followed the configuration steps (adding beforeRender call to your controllers) then there is nothing else for you to do to render the JavaScript code.

If Auto Rendering is disabled

If you have auto rendering disabled (which it is by default), then you can call the render() method within your views which will return the rendered Google Analytics JavaScript code. In almost all cases, you should use this in your main layout views (e.g. protected/views/layouts/main.php)

<script type="text/JavaScript">
<?php echo Yii::app()->googleAnalytics()->render(); ?>
</script>

Note: The render method does not wrap <script></script> tags around the output. If auto-rendering is enabled, CClientScript::registerScript is utilized, otherwise JavaScript code is returned.