Service update on the Analytics Dashboard

Dear Colleagues,

As some of you are aware, the DPLA Analytics Dashboard is not functioning properly. We believe this issue is related to a problem that occurred during changes implemented by Google to deprecate Universal Analytics in favor of Google Analytics 4 (GA4), a migration that DPLA had planned for and shared about to the network in June. We have spent significant time investigating the issue and wanted to send you an update on what we know.

You can still use the dashboard for metadata-related statistics, such as item counts, metadata field completeness, and Wikimedia readiness. However, current and historical web traffic statistics are incorrectly displaying zero for all categories. Additionally, some of the other features are unavailable, including the table of contributors and the list of top search terms for each hub. We first identified this issue as a drop-off in recorded traffic in mid-October, and then in November we were no longer able to query and display the historical data stored in Google Analytics. However, we are confident that we will be able to display historical data through the DPLA dashboard in the future.

As we have shared, we’ve had key staff leave this year, including the person responsible for analytics. As a result of our being short-staffed, I unfortunately can’t provide a specific time frame for repair. I know that the Analytics Dashboard is a resource valued by many of you. I briefed the Outreach and Assessment Working Group on the status of the dashboard last week and will continue to share updates as things progress. If you have any questions about our work—or would like to be part of our efforts —please reach out to me directly with any further questions at <dominic@dp.la>.

Thank you,

Dominic Byrd-McDevitt

Interim Director of Community Engagement