Documenting Google Analytics 4 (GA4) data collection is important, and especially because of the event based data model. You need to understand in an easy way what data GA4 Events are collecting, and which Parameters (Dimensions & Metrics) are connected to the Event.

I have seen many different attempts to make this documentation, from Confluence to Excel and Google Sheet. The shortcoming with all the solutions, including my previous own attempts, was that the documentation process was very manually and time consuming, and had no integrations with GA4.

This is the solution I came up with, and I have made it Open Source.

Overview of the GA4 Events & Parameters documentation solution

Google Sheet is used for doing the documentation, and Looker Studio is used for presenting the documentation.

Since the Google Sheet is integrated with several API’s, you can (bulk) create/edit/delete Custom Dimensions & Metrics and Conversion Events. This means that you can document and administrate Custom Dimensions & Metrics and Conversion Events in the same operation.

The GA4 documentation solution also makes it easier for “non-technical” people to understand what a particular Event Name is tracking, and what the different Parameters connected to the Event Name is tracking. This is done by presenting the documentation in Looker Studio.

Looker Studio comes in 2 different versions; Basic and Advanced.

Differences between Looker Studio Basic & Advanced

The Basic version is using the Google Sheet as a Data Source, while the Advanced version is using BigQuery as a Data Source. The BigQuery solution will join the GA4 documentation with your GA4 BigQuery data, making it easier to identify if the documentation is aligned with data collected in GA4.

The video below demonstrates the Advanced version, while the Basic version is demonstrated here.

The GA4 documentation solution also includes Annotations, which can help you understand changes to your data. GA4 doesn’t have annotations, so this is an attempt to at least present an alternative. Annotations can either be added manually, or automatically created from GA4 Property Change History or Google Tag Manager Container Versions.

Functionality	Advanced	Basic
Data Source	BigQuery	Google Sheet
Event & Parameter Documentation Overview	Yes	No
Event Search & Filtering	Yes	Yes
Parameter Search & Filtering	Yes	Yes
See relationship between Events & Parameters	Yes	Yes
See relationship between Parameters & Events	Yes	Yes
Differentiate between global parameters (GA4 Config Parameters) and Event specific parameters	Yes	Yes
Identify if documentation is aligned with data collected	Yes	No
Identify undocumented Events collecting data broken down on web, iOS and Android streams	Yes	No
Identify undocumented Parameters collecting data broken down on Events + web, iOS and Android streams	Yes	No
Identify documented Events that isn’t collecting data broken down on web, iOS and Android streams	Yes	No
Identify documented Parameters that isn’t collecting data broken down on Events + web, iOS and Android streams	Yes	No
Event count broken down on web, iOS and Android streams	Yes	No
Parameter count broken down on Events + web, iOS and Android streams	Yes	No
Days since Event was “last seen” broken down on web, iOS and Android streams	Yes	No
Days since Parameter was “last seen” broken down on Events + web, iOS and Android streams	Yes	No
Google Cloud costs may occur	Yes	No
Annotation report	Yes	Yes

2nd place in the Superweek Golden Punchcard Prize

Many weeks ago I attended Superweek, a really awesome conference within the digital analytics space me thinks (my opinion, not sponsored). They also have a competition called the Golden Punchcard Prize:

Demonstrate any Digital Analytics solutions or method of your own that is way beyond the defaults. Who decides who’s gonna win? The audience.

I won the Golden Punchcard Prize last year, and decided to try again this year, even if my GA4 documentation solution wasn’t 100% ready. It was a fully functional solution though.

It was a strong field with many awesome people and solutions, so I’m really happy for my 2nd place. Thanks to those who voted for me.

From throwing code at a problem to making the GA4 Documentation solution available to everyone

I have open sourced some Google Tag Manager Templates before, but this was something different. I had mainly been “throwing Apps Script and SQL” at some problems I wanted to solve.

It’s some lines of code, and many moving parts. Since making the GA4 documentation available to everyone means that it is not enough to just have the functionality in my head, I also had to write some documentation. This did take me some time.

In this process, I also decided to make the Basic version for Looker Studio. Although the GA4 documentation solution without BigQuery is not a complete solution, not everyone has activated BigQuery. I wanted to make the GA4 documentation solution available for them as well.

And finally, more testing had to be done. I have for example used it to bulk create more than 60 Custom Dimensions & Metrics across several GA4 360 Subproperties. The API quota did whine a little bit, but it saved me hours of boring work.

Where can I find the GA4 Event, Parameter & Annotation Documentation solution?

The GA4 documentation solution can be found on Github, and as mentioned, it’s Open Source.

Happy documentation!