We recommend you use the power of Google Analytics to monitor activity on your Overdrive site. It`s simple to set up tracking in Analytics, simply visit analytics.google.com and add your Overdrive site. You will be given a Tracking ID, copy the code and paste it into the Google Analytics box in Overdrive Site Settings > General. It may take up to 24 hours for Analytics to start tracking user activity. If you also want to add your site to Google Search Console, once you have added Google Analytics you can verify your Overdrive site in one click.
Note: If you are setting up a new property with the new version of Google Analytics, you will need to switch to a Universal Analytics property. To do this, when setting up the property choose "Show advanced options" and select "Create a Universal Analytics property".
Track Site Searches
Try out this method to track site searches through Google Analytics. Overdrive uses the parameter "q" in the search results url, so a search for the word "trial" will show a results page with the url: https://sitename.overdrive.io/search?q=trial.
If you add this parameter into the settings of your Google Analytics account, Google will track site searches and show them in the Content reports. To add the parameter follow the steps below:
- Go to your Google Analytics account
- Click Admin
- In the VIEW column, choose View Settings
- Scroll down to Site Search Settings and enable Site search tracking
- In the Query parameter box add q
- Save your settings
You can test this is working in the Real Time section of Analytics; choose Content, then open your Overdrive site in a new tab/window and conduct a search. Keep the Overdrive site tab/window open and go back to Analytics, you should see the search appear
User ID
Overdrive works with the User ID feature in Google Analytics. This feature connects multiple devices, sessions, and engagement data to the same user. To enable this feature you need to opt-in via Google Analytics. Complete Step 1, Overdrive looks after Step 2 automatically, you then just need to move to Step 3 and set up a User View.
User Names
Google Analytics has Privacy Guidelines that prohibit sending and storing personally identifiable information (PII) on its servers, so Overdrive does not send any user information by default. If you have your users' consent to send usernames to Analytics then you can configure Overdrive to send the users first name and ID number as follows:
- open Site Settings from your Overdrive site (Click on Cog icon)
- choose the Developers tab
- in the JS box paste in this code: odApp.site.settings.analytics.userTracking = true;
- visit your Analytics account and under Admin choose Custom Definitions > Custom Dimensions
- click on the +New Custom Dimension and add the Name "UserID" with a Scope of "User"
- Now you will be able to choose UserID as a Secondary Dimension on any Analytics report page (it may take 24 hrs for data to start to appear
If you are having difficulty with this, please contact our Helpdesk Team.
What you can track
Here’s just a few of the activities our Overdrive customers are tracking:
- Overall site traffic - how many users are accessing the site, using what browsers and devices
- Page views and content - which pages are the most popular; how long did users stay on a page
- Track the flow of users through an Overdrive site
- Site searches - discover what users are searching for
- Monitoring downloads and uploads.