Looker Studio Connector - known issues and ETAs

Hello Guys!

I’m a Product Manager at Piwik PRO, now responsible for the maintenance and development of the Looker Studio Connector for Piwik PRO Analytics. In order to meet our client’s needs and expectations, we’ve just launched a project that aims to greatly improve the quality and usability of the Looker Studio data connector. To ensure access to information, transparency and to make our lives easier, I’d like to publicly share a list of known issues connected with Looker Studio, along with their statuses. I’ll be posting updates, adding estimated times of delivery when we set one. Thank you very much for all your patience and understanding!

In progress:

  1. Google Ads - Using Google Ads metrics/dimensions crashes connector (mid-November 2023)
    (Related posts: No Google Ads Campaign ID in Looker Studio / other Google Ads data breaks as soon as it is filtered)
  2. Average page views in session shows wrong numbers (mid-November 2023) (Average page views in session does not work in Looker Studio)
  3. Conversion rates on scorecards show wrong numbers (mid-November 2023) (Conversion rate issue in Looker Studio)
  4. Sum of product quantity, sum of product revenue show different numbers in LS and PPAS (mid-November 2023) (Sum of Product Revenue and quantity not the same in Looker Studio - #6 by joao
  5. IN_LIST filter operator should handle exclusions (mid-November 2023)
  6. Dashboards for Meta Sites show slightly wrong numbers (investigation pending, ETA unknown).

In the queue:

Waiting for changes in the product:

  1. Add the connector to the official Google Gallery and make updates smooth and easy (Q1 2024) (Change of authentication method required)

Known facts that are not bugs:

  • All metrics and dimensions appear as green fields in the Looker Studio connector for Piwik PRO - Google changed the way they treat data sources like Piwik PRO, and now lists both metrics and dimensions as “green” fields, which were previously reserved only for dimensions.
    After dropping any metric listed as a green field into the “Metrics” definitions, it will change the color to blue and become a proper metric.
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Thanks. Please keep us updated.

Hello Guys! I know there’s a lot of you waiting for an update here. We were working hard to meet the deadline and your expectations, and we’re finally ready to announce that a new version of the connector is ready. It will be published publicly on Monday, November 27th.

Here’s the list of changes that we managed to deliver:

  • Fixed Google Ads metrics/dimensions
  • Improved date/timestamp handling, added support for all date groups in reports like hour of day, day of week, week, month etc.
  • Fixed ‚Average page views in session’ metric
  • Fixed exclusion filters for is null/empty/equals to 0 conditions
  • Added support for exclusions with IN_LIST filters
  • Added handling complex conditions with IN_LIST filters (Example: Exclude Country in Denmark,Germany unless Device Type in Smartphone,Tablet)
  • Added support for all transformations for eCommerce metrics (Like Sum of product revenue (Orders), Average Revenue, Sum of product quantity, Median product quantity etc.)
  • Removed the product scope dimensions which are not available in Queries API and were breaking the connector (Like Product revenue (Array))
  • Fixed bounce rate showing wrong numbers.

We’re not stopping here - the next versions will now be released regularly. Stay tuned!

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Hello! A new version of the Looker Studio connector is already here :sparkles: :tada: :confetti_ball:

The final changelog:

  • Fixed Google Ads metrics&dimensions
  • Improved date/timestamp handling, added support for all date groups in reports like hour of day, day of week, week, month etc.
  • Fixed ‚Average page views in session’ metric
  • Added filters for ‘is null’/empty/‘equals to 0’ conditions (for both metrics and dimensions)
  • Added support for exclusions with IN_LIST filters
  • Added handling complex conditions with IN_LIST filters (Example: Exclude Country in Denmark,Germany unless Device Type in Smartphone,Tablet)
  • Added support for all transformations for eCommerce metrics (Like ‘Sum of product revenue (Orders)’, ‘Average Revenue’, ‘Sum of product quantity’, ‘Median product quantity’ etc.)
  • Removed the product scope dimensions which are not available in Queries API and were breaking the connector (Like ‘Product revenue (Array)’)
  • Fixed bounce rate showing wrong numbers.

Enjoy! :blush:

2 Likes

Hello! I’d like to drop a little holiday gift :santa: and share a new Looker Studio connector version 1.2.0 with you. Here’s a list of changes we managed to introduce:

  • Added support for filters with ‚Equal to (=)’ and ‚Contains’ operators for enum type fields (Disclaimer - Location dimensions (Country, City) will work like ‚Starts with’ filter when the ‚Contains’ operator is chosen in Looker Studio. This limitation will be resolved in Q2 2024)
  • Added ‚Goal ID’ and ‚Goal UUID’ dimensions (Disclaimer - Those fields support only the ‚equal to’ operator due to API limitations)
  • Fixed pie/donut charts showing wrong numbers
  • Fixed calculations after changing the number of pie/donut slices in charts
  • Fixed using dimensions like ‚Country’, ‚Browser name’, ‚Device type’ with pie/donut charts
  • Fixed Breakdown dimensions breaking the connector
  • Fixed filtering by Website name (and other enum type fields) in Meta sites
  • Added end user messages for a group of known limitations (Like mixing some specific Google Ads metrics&dimensions with specific Analytics metrics&dimensions)
  • Added support for more than 1000 websites/meta sites in the Site selector
  • Added limit of 100 results for enum type fields.

Additional important info for the above change log (which will also be included in the official connector manual):

  • The RegExp and ‚Starts with’ (which in fact is also a RegExp) filter types are still not supported. Our Analytics team is running research on the possibility of implementing it in our API, which would open the way to add it in Looker Studio.
  • Please, bear in mind that filters in Looker Studio are case sensitive (so to reflect some operators marked as ‚case insensitive’ in Piwik PRO UI, you’ll have to add additional conditions in Looker Studio).
  • When using filters on enum type fields, we have introduced a limit of 100 results. This performance enhancement helps to provide faster load times and a more efficient browsing experience. If you encounter a message indicating that too many values matched the filter, please refine your search criteria to continue.

And last but not least, this is another batch of fixes but we still have some points in our backlog that we’re going to take care of in the upcoming releases. If you find something that is still not working properly and it hasn’t been mentioned in this post, please report it here in the community forum or to our support.

We would highly appreciate also positive comments, so if you have any thoughts on the new connector, don’t hesitate to share.

Thank you very much!

2 Likes

Hello! I’m pleased to share that we have released a new Looker Studio connector version 1.3.0. Here’s a list of changes we’ve added this time:

  • Improved the data and charts loading performance
  • Added API token caching to reduce the number of token requests
  • Added support for specific goal metrics (instead of filtering out a specific goal while looking for example at the 'Goal conversion rate’ metric, you should choose a metric 'XYZ goal conversion rate’)
  • Added support for ‘Unique count of’, ‘Min’, ‘Max’, ‘Average’, ‘Sum of’ and ‘Median’ transformations for all eligible columns
  • Improved calculations of some aggregations for scorecards (they’re now less prone to user errors)
  • Increased the current limit of 100,000 returned rows to a 1,000,000 returned rows (Looker Studio limitation - Community Connector API Reference  |  Community Connectors  |  Google for Developers)
  • Added support for RegExp Contains (RegExp partial match) and RegExp Match (RegExp exact match) filters (Note - Those filters are not supported for enum type columns (like Country, City etc.))
  • Fixed filtering for transformed fields (e.g. Page Path).

You should also be informed that we are actively working on bringing the connector to a state where all Google’s requirements would be met and we could publish it as an official connector in the Looker Studio Gallery. This would allow for more smooth updates. Now, you should still remember to follow this instruction for each of your dashboards if you want to start using the new version of our connector.

I would also like to emphasize that Looker Studio users should be aware that in complex dashboards there might occur errors caused by exceeding the limitation put on Looker Studio by Google. The limitation is for simultaneous request executions per user and we have no influence on that limit. As a solution, Google provided the following recommendations:
image.png

I hope you’re going to enjoy the new features. We would appreciate your feedback and suggestions for further improvements :blush:

Thank you very much!

2 Likes

This is good news but…

Does this mean that I have to redo all of data connections in Looker? Most of my Piwik Pro data sources have custom metrics or dimensions. Will I have to redo those?

Hi David,

Yes, in most cases the data sources would have to be reconnected. Once the connector becomes official, this should happen automatically.

Ugh, I’ve got TONS of blended data metrics and they’d all have to be redone. Will the old version continue to work?

Yes, it’s just missing the new features and fixes.

There is still a massiv error using Looker with the Piwik connector. Still the revenue differs from Piwik and Looker. On a yearly scale I am missing 4 million € that are not shown. I just updated the connector 10 min ago. Best part … the bar charts show higher revenue than the overview boxes … still not the correct value.

Edit : I put a solution in this post Sum of Product Revenue and quantity not the same in Looker Studio - Reports and working with data - Piwik PRO Community

Really should not be a users job to fix basic stuff

Hi @Martin!

We are currently working on a fix for this. It’s a result of an additional aggregation made by Looker Studio:

New version 1.3.1, and still visitors total in Looker and Piwik is different:
same range, no filter, looker shows 80K visitors while in Piwik only 65K.
Version 1.2 at least showed the same value as Piwik interface.

Hi @muttley90, you are correct - we have not yet updated this behaviour as it will most likely require some changes to the core product and its API. Sorry for the inconvenience. I will update this thread when the fix is released.

In the meantime, you can use the “count distinct” aggregation on visitor ID:

Here are some more issues with 1.3.1 Looker Connector 1.3.1 Dashboard Issues - API & integrations - Piwik PRO Community

Is it only me or is there a problem regarding goal conversion rates? I have an account with two goals. Looking into conversion rate in piwik it’s for 3 days of testing 0.06% and when looking in LS it’s 0.16% (same amount of sessions and conversions both places when I look at those numbers). Any suggestions to why?