PowerShell Scripting to Replicate Google Analytics Data to MySQL

The CData Cmdlets for Google Analytics offer live access to Google Analytics data from within PowerShell. Using PowerShell scripts, you can easily automate regular tasks like data replication. This article will walk through using the CData Cmdlets for Google Analytics and the CData Cmdlets for MySQL in PowerShell to replicate Google Analytics data to a MySQL database.

After obtaining the needed connection properties, accessing Google Analytics data in PowerShell and preparing for replication consists of four basic steps.

Google uses the OAuth authentication standard. To access Google APIs on behalf on individual users, you can use the embedded credentials or you can register your own OAuth app.

OAuth also enables you to use a service account to connect on behalf of users in a Google Apps domain. To authenticate with a service account, you will need to register an application to obtain the OAuth JWT values.

In addition to the OAuth values, set Profile to the profile you want to connect to. This can be set to either the Id or website URL for the Profile. If not specified, the first Profile returned will be used.

Collecting Google Analytics Data

1. Install the module:

   Install-Module GoogleAnalyticsCmdlets

2. Connect to Google Analytics:

   $googleanalytics = Connect-GAnalytics -Profile $Profile

3. Retrieve the data from a specific resource:

   $data = Select-GAnalytics -Connection $googleanalytics -Table "Traffic"

   You can also use the Invoke-GAnalytics cmdlet to execute pure SQL-92 statements:

   $data = Invoke-GAnalytics -Connection $googleanalytics -Query 'SELECT * FROM Traffic WHERE Transactions = @Transactions' -Params @{'@Transactions'='0'}

4. Save a list of the column names from the returned data.

   $columns = ($data | Get-Member -MemberType NoteProperty | Select-Object -Property Name).Name

Inserting Google Analytics Data into the MySQL Database

With the data and column names collected, you are ready to replicate the data into a MySQL database.

1. Install the module:

   Install-Module MySQLCmdlets

2. Connect to MySQL, using the server address and port of the MySQL server, valid user credentials, and a specific database with the table in which the data will be replicated:

   $mysql = Connect-MySQL -User $User -Password $Password -Database $Database -Server $Server -Port $Port

3. Loop through the Google Analytics data, store the values, and use the Add-MySQL cmdlet to insert the data into the MySQL database, one row at a time. In this example, the table will need to have the same name as the Google Analytics resource (Traffic) and to exist in the database.

   $data | % { $row = $_ $values = @() $columns | % { $col = $_ $values += $row.$($col) } Add-MySQL -Connection $mysql -Table "Traffic" -Columns $columns -Values $values }

You have now replicated your Google Analytics data to a MySQL database. This gives you freedom to work with Google Analytics data in the same way that you work with other MySQL tables, whether that is performing analytics, building reports, or other business functions.

Notes

• Once you have connected to Google Analytics and MySQL in PowerShell, you can pipe command results to perform the replication in a single line:

  Select-GAnalytics -Connection $googleanalytics -Table "Traffic" | % { $row = $_ $values = @() $columns | % { $col = $_ $values += $row.$($col) } Add-MySQL -Connection $mysql -Table "Traffic" -Columns $columns -Values $values }

• If you wish to replicate the Google Analytics data to another database using another PowerShell module, you will want to exclude the Columns, Connection, and Table columns from the data returned by the Select-GAnalytics cmdlet since those columns are used to help pipe data from one CData cmdlet to another:

  $columns = ($data | Get-Member -MemberType NoteProperty | Select-Object -Property Name).Name | ? {$_ -NotIn @('Columns','Connection','Table')}