Export GA reports into Google docs with just one click

Reading the Blog Spanish Gringo (great name) from Micheal Freeman I fount a very interesting tip for Google Analytics. With your current Google Analytics version if you want to export a report to Excel you have to click on “export –> CSV”. If you do so, you will probably face a problem trying to import the CSV to Excel (you can, but it looks weird). So Micheal got the answer on “Greasemonkey” and now you can export your report into a spreadsheet directly to Google Docs with just one click. Sounds great uh, I guess it is.

Installation
1-
Install Greasemonkey and Firefox 2 or a later version (I have Firefox 3 and works great). Once you install Greasemonkey you will see the icon at the bottom right of your Firefox.

2- After than you will need to download and install the user script.
3- Then you need to login into your Google Analytics account and get a report (not the dashboard since is not possible to export it). Once you get the report you will have the export options with a new icon which will export the report, just with a mouse click, into a Google Docs spreadsheet. Is that simple and useful (take into account that your browser may tend to block the pop up message, if so just click on “allow popups from www.google.com).
4- The Google Docs list opens automatically and you can select to open the one you have just created.

After that you can use the information as you want.

It is important to note that even when this is a very useful functionality, it is just helpful if you normally work exporting the information into excel files and working there, but if you integrate your information with other sources then this is not for you. I just can’t imagine an Analytics Department from a big corporation exporting excel files and integrating that information with the rest manually. If that is your case, this functionality may be for you “good from far, but far from good”. The optimum functionally in that case is an API, but since is not yet available in Google Analytics, just export it into an CSV file and import it into your information database (SQL, MySQL, PostgreSQL, or even Access).

To wrap up, this is a great thing for Bloggers and SMB’s, so if that’s your case, what are you waiting to try it?

3 comments

  1. I get an error message that looks like this:

    Whoops! There was a problem logging you into Google Docs:

    Error: 403: Forbidden

    Please enter your Google Docs Password

    What am I doing wrong??

    Looks like a cool tool, but not sure if I can get it to work….

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