Add Annotations update API

[GoogleCodeExporter]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: This issue tracking system is for developer products only.  If you
are not a developer/programmer and have a problem with a Google web site,
please report the problem to the appropriate group.  More information can
be found here: http://www.google.com/support/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name of API affected:
Analytics Data Export API

Request summary:
Allow annotations to be added/updated via an API.

Use Cases:
When we release new builds/changes to our sites, we'd utilize the API to
add annotations as part of our release.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by ichc.lo...@gmail.com on 18 Jan 2010 at 11:50

[GoogleCodeExporter]

This would be a great addition. I envision being able to push changes to a 
website and use the API to automatically create annotations based off of recent 
SVN/GIT commit messages.

Original comment by jake.e.w...@gmail.com on 22 Feb 2012 at 10:21

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Yes, I would use this in conjunction with my website deployment system.

Original comment by jer...@burnbright.net on 22 Feb 2012 at 10:26

[GoogleCodeExporter]

guys, this is never gonna happen... let's stop asking!

Original comment by aaoui...@gmail.com on 22 Feb 2012 at 10:43

[GoogleCodeExporter]

[deleted comment]

[GoogleCodeExporter]

How can I unsubscribe to this? I'd love to see the feature, but I'm sick of the 
"me too" notifications.  On that note, sorry to everyone for triggering yet 
another email to this request. 

Original comment by simfo...@gmail.com on 22 Feb 2012 at 11:47

[GoogleCodeExporter]

No problem; as long as you're fine with getting this one too ;).

Btw; yes - I too still want this feature!

You should be able to unsubscribe by "unstarring" the thread. Though that will 
also undo your vote for this issue. And I guess we all want to keep those 
votes, so that perhaps one day somebody at Google will work on this.

Perhaps you should just make an email filter instead?

Original comment by wouter.v...@gmail.com on 22 Feb 2012 at 11:56

[GoogleCodeExporter]

[deleted comment]

[GoogleCodeExporter]

[deleted comment]

[GoogleCodeExporter]

When a ticket has been around long enough to start collecting SPAM, it's a 
definite sign that it's never going to get resolved... 2.5 years now. Geez.

Original comment by badmonkey0001 on 1 Jun 2012 at 6:19

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Yes yes yes! +1

Original comment by adba...@ualr.edu on 19 Oct 2012 at 6:07

[GoogleCodeExporter]

We're increasingly using the Google Analytics API to archive reports and slice 
the data in increasingly complex ways. I would love to see this implemented so 
we can pull our release annotations into our own reporting and have it 
centralized.

Original comment by c.filipe...@gmail.com on 12 Nov 2012 at 10:31

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Original comment by api.pe...@gmail.com on 16 Nov 2012 at 3:25

• Added labels: Component-CoreReportingAPI
• Removed labels: Component-DataExportAPI

[GoogleCodeExporter]

This API feature is a no brainer. Waiting anxiously!

Original comment by jcorr...@blastam.com on 20 Dec 2012 at 10:53

[GoogleCodeExporter]

We'd love to have this, too. 

Original comment by jure...@gmail.com on 16 Feb 2013 at 2:29

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Now that Google has made a change to it's User Permissions, this feature is 
invaluable to us as a company as we need the team to be able to add annotations 
that are 'shared' but do not want to give them 'edit' access for security 
reasons. So we are now missing out on valuable information on our trending 
graphs. 

If we had this feature on the API we would be able to do shared annotations 
more securely.

Original comment by shelly.w...@holidayextras.com on 10 Apr 2013 at 9:37

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Waste of time. I've been following this for 3 years and Google Still hasn't 
replied of given any idea if this feature is on the roadmap.

Original comment by dara.ho...@abbeytheatre.ie on 10 Apr 2013 at 10:12

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I'm still going to promote it. This would be a FANTASTIC feature to have.

Original comment by c.filipe...@gmail.com on 11 Apr 2013 at 9:24

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Please at lease support a google doc import/export or mass edit...  Please for 
the love of god let us know you are still thinking about this and wont just 
kill it next week. 

Original comment by t...@brickhousesecurity.com on 21 Apr 2013 at 3:54

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Please hurry Google. 

Original comment by michael....@gmail.com on 11 Jun 2013 at 1:50

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hey Google, Help US !!!

Original comment by raf...@rafaelfurquim.com.br on 2 Jul 2013 at 5:51

[GoogleCodeExporter]

doit.

Original comment by subs...@gmail.com on 8 Jul 2013 at 11:18

[GoogleCodeExporter]

+1 Still waiting on this. I would love to create our own internal annotations 
solution, but without being able to relate it back to our analytics (or being 
able to pull that data into our own system), it doesn't make sense!

Original comment by c.filipe...@gmail.com on 30 Jul 2013 at 9:28

[GoogleCodeExporter]

@c.fillipe You can pull the data out of GA, it's surprisingly easy to do.

Original comment by daniel.crompton on 31 Jul 2013 at 1:07

[GoogleCodeExporter]

@daniel How do you pull annotations data out of GA?

Original comment by es6.m...@gmail.com on 31 Jul 2013 at 1:49

[GoogleCodeExporter]

@c.fillipe sorry I was unclear, you want to create an internal annotation 
solution, so pull all the data out of GA and push it into this internal 
solution. Extracting GA data, with the exception of annotations, is 
surprisingly easy to do.

Original comment by daniel.crompton on 31 Jul 2013 at 2:12

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Oh, *much* clearer. LOL.

Original comment by fcher...@gmail.com on 31 Jul 2013 at 2:18

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I think the question is "Can I, using my API token, access my annotations data 
programmaticly?" That is to say:

* As an API user, I can send a request to retrieve all of my annotations so 
that I can store them in a third-party system
* As an API user, I can add annotations so that my third-party data can be 
reflected in Google Analytics
* As an API user, I can delete annotations so that my data is up to date

These are essentially the requirements that this ticket is trying to address. 
Additional features could be:

* Retrieve all annotations by date range
* Retrieve all annotations across multiple profiles

Original comment by step...@raventools.com on 31 Jul 2013 at 2:20

[GoogleCodeExporter]

My concern at this point is: Google seems to have no interest in this feature, 
in which case: what exactly are annotations meant to be used for? Since, 
apparently, it's not what we're expecting.

Original comment by w...@couturelab.com on 31 Jul 2013 at 2:34

[GoogleCodeExporter]

My original request was to be able to ADD annotations to GA via the API.
For example if I have a email program, it could add an annotation to GA every 
time an email is sent to customers, then we can easily look at sales behaviour 
based on that annotation.

Original comment by hogan.dara on 31 Jul 2013 at 2:54

[GoogleCodeExporter]

That's not what annotations are for. The correct way of tracking what you
want is with events. Events are really powerful, you should look into it.

Annotations were added to be one-off notes for final users for a date. Like
for example: next time you have a spike in your traffic, you an annotate
the date with a "emails sent to customer", so that when you look at it
again 3 months for now, you can remember what it is.

Original comment by eduardos...@gmail.com on 31 Jul 2013 at 3:25

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I'd have to agree with Hogan's use case. That sounds what annotations would 
ideally be used for. The 'Events' section in Analytics is for on-site click 
tracking (such as, opened a modal window or played a video) while annotations 
are for factors outside of the site itself (such as a trade show or an email 
newsletter).

Original comment by step...@raventools.com on 31 Jul 2013 at 3:41

[GoogleCodeExporter]

A common usecase of Annotations is to highlight the events on the history of 
the site: new features where added, new version of the site, a particular bug 
was found/fixed...etc.

It would be really convenient to be able to connect the bug tracker of choice 
to your GA account.

Or, the business is running Marketing campaigns that they may be tracking with 
a calendar in a certain application. Auto adding that would make sure that we 
are not losing information.

Original comment by gro...@gmail.com on 31 Jul 2013 at 3:48

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Basic CRUD operations on annotations via an API isn't too much to ask. 
Annotations are useful for any number of purposes, to track when:

- marketing events occurred
- site changes/releases occurred
- outages occurred
- 3rd-party / world events affecting site behavior occurrred (e.g., getting 
Slashdotted, a holiday occurring that impacts traffic, etc)
- marking the start of tests

Annotations are timeline metadata, to be compared against any other metric. 
Annotations have no quantitative value directly associated with them aside from 
the timestamp. It exists in a different space from tally-able data like Events, 
visits, etc - and is meant to be consumed alongside with it.

The idea behind exposing the API is not so we don't have to track this stuff 
internally - but specifically so we can, and have that data sync (back and 
forth) with Google Analytics.

Another nice feature would be being able to tag these annotations for 
categorization purposes, but I'll settle for the CRUD ops.

Original comment by c.filipe...@gmail.com on 31 Jul 2013 at 6:19

[GoogleCodeExporter]

This woudl be great.

Original comment by komal.se...@gmail.com on 3 Sep 2013 at 8:59

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Please, do it. I have to enter manually more than 100 annotations manually...

Original comment by torsan...@gmail.com on 5 Sep 2013 at 9:53

[GoogleCodeExporter]

The feature is, I think, absolutely necessary to make the annotations function 
what it really should have been from the start

Original comment by geekwith...@gmail.com on 19 Sep 2013 at 9:14

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Lost any hopes.... just look for different products, there are many!!

Original comment by mcons...@gmail.com on 25 Sep 2013 at 7:59

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Yes please!

Original comment by aidanas...@gmail.com on 27 Sep 2013 at 8:59

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Doesnt seem google wants to add this. Been tracking for nearly 2 years and 
still no visible movement. :(

Original comment by wizardin...@gmail.com on 28 Sep 2013 at 9:17

[GoogleCodeExporter]

wizardin... My guess would be that they haven't even seen it. Also, at 89 
comments over 2 years, it's not super active. 

Original comment by fil...@ancientfaces.com on 29 Sep 2013 at 6:29

[GoogleCodeExporter]

please :)

Original comment by gil...@leetix.com on 30 Sep 2013 at 3:49

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Yes please!

Original comment by twentysi...@gmail.com on 1 Oct 2013 at 9:49

[GoogleCodeExporter]

l.gudeoglu@hotmail.com

Original comment by nusretnakliyat35@gmail.com on 4 Oct 2013 at 8:01

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Issue 75 has been merged into this issue.

Original comment by pfrise...@google.com on 8 Oct 2013 at 8:10

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Please add the ability to get a users Annotations.   Use: A very useful 
dimension in my Google analytic's cube :)

Original comment by laurl...@gmail.com on 14 Nov 2013 at 8:56

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Bump. Either bulk annotation upload, or automated annotations triggered by blog 
posts, social activity, etc. This would be fantastic.

Original comment by jonat...@thrivenetmarketing.com on 18 Nov 2013 at 8:11

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Please add this, please, it should be fairly straight forward and would make 
this SOOOO much more useful

Original comment by Gwilym.H...@miniclip.com on 11 Dec 2013 at 9:00

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Yes please!

Original comment by yevgeny....@seotime.ru on 11 Dec 2013 at 9:19

[GoogleCodeExporter]

would be great to get this feature!

Original comment by wusat...@googlemail.com on 12 Dec 2013 at 10:22

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I'm very interested in seeing this, so I can import events from multiple 
locations and aggregate them for reporting purposes. Since business users 
prefer to annotate directly in GA, not having easy access to these 
significantly reduces the usefulness of these reports.

Original comment by nationwi...@gmail.com on 8 Jan 2014 at 2:34