How to Integrate Grafana with Google Analytics 4 (GA4) for Dashboard Tracking

Grafana GA4 Integration

Hi! We are attempting to collect Grafana metrics in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to track dashboard usage. We’ve created a property in our GA4 account and added the data flow ID to the Grafana configuration as an environment variable like this:

GF_ANALYTICS_GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_4_ID=G-XXXXXXXXXX

After deploying in kubernetes this change, we are still not receiving any metrics. Is there some configuration missing?

The short answer is:

The long answer is:

The environment variable GF_ANALYTICS_GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_4_ID is primarily for enabling Grafana’s built-in tracking of its own application events, which are quite limited and typically include only basic standard events like page_view when navigating between Grafana pages or a dashboard_load event when a dashboard first loads.

It doesn’t track things like user clicks on panels, time range changes, variable selections, or any specific interaction with the dashboard content, which is likely what you are hoping to capture to measure actual dashboard usage.

Since GA4 is designed to collect data from a variety of sources, the most robust and cost-effective solution for deep Grafana usage tracking is to build a custom integration using three key components: the Grafana HTTP API, a server-side tagging service, and the Google Analytics Measurement Protocol.

First, you should use the Grafana HTTP API to build a simple plugin or script that listens for specific user interactions within the dashboard – for example, a click on a button, a change in a time-series panel’s range, or a selection from a template variable.

When one of these interactions occurs, your script should use the Grafana HTTP API to capture the relevant information – the dashboard UID, panel ID, user ID, and the specific action taken.

Second, instead of sending this raw data directly to GA4, you should send it to a server-side endpoint you control, perhaps using Google Tag Manager’s server-side container hosted on Stape or on Google Cloud Platform.

This is an excellent and cheap solution because it allows you to clean, validate, and transform your custom event data into the precise JSON format required by the Google Analytics Measurement Protocol without exposing your Measurement Protocol secret or requiring complex logic in the browser.

Stape, for instance, offers a relatively inexpensive and scalable way to host this GTM server container.

Finally, the server-side container’s logic will then use the Google Analytics Measurement Protocol to send the completely formatted custom events to your GA4 property.

This approach gives you full control over the event names and parameters, allowing you to define highly specific custom events like panel_interact or time_range_change with all the necessary context, leading to rich, accurate, and reliable usage data in GA4.

About The Author

Nabil El Alaoui Sossey

I’m Nabil, a marketing specialist from Sweden with 7+ years of experience helping e-commerce businesses improve their conversion tracking, attribution, and advertising performance.

I focus on implementing advanced solutions such as Facebook Conversions API, Google Ads API, Google Tag Manager, and Stape for Shopify, WooCommerce, HubSpot and other platforms.

My goal is to help brands move beyond basic pixel tracking to accurate, privacy-resilient data pipelines that power better optimization and more profitable campaigns.

Always happy to connect with business owners who want to take their tracking, ads, and growth strategy to the next level.

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