Not able to make custom reports and schedule those for automatic reporting by e-mail
Hi!
I am helping some small companies with automatic reporting of the performance of their websites. In general they just give me access tot their Google Analytics accounts. In most case i can easily create custom reports and schedule the reports so they will receive these in their mail boxes.But in some cases I can’t. Then there is simply no option to create custom reports and send scheduled e-mails with those reports.
Google Analytics looks a bit differtent in those cases as well.
Below a screenshot of a environment where I cannot create these custom reports :
And here a screenshot of an environment with al the sharing en scheduling options I need to do the reporting.
Why is there this difference? In both situations I have admin rights.
Can someone help me out?
Thanks in advance.
Nikaj
Details
ReportingLocked
The short answer is:
The difference you are observing is due to the presence of two different Google Analytics versions: the older Universal Analytics (UA) and the newer, event-based Google Analytics 4 (GA4).
The environment with full custom report creation and scheduled email options is Universal Analytics, which has a dedicated “Customization” section and reporting view functionality that supports this feature.
The environment where these options are missing and the interface looks different is Google Analytics 4.
GA4 uses “Explorations” instead of the old custom reports, and while it now supports scheduled email for standard reports and those you create and save to the library as “detail reports,” the user-interface path and options are different.
To achieve your goal of automatic, customized reporting in GA4, the most robust and scalable solution involves leveraging the Google Analytics Data API and potentially the Looker Studio API or BigQuery API.
The long answer is:
The discrepancy in reporting capabilities is a direct consequence of the transition from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4, a fundamental shift in how Google measures and reports web data.
Universal Analytics utilizes a session-based model and features the dedicated “Customization” area and report views, making it straightforward to build and schedule email deliveries for custom reports.
Google Analytics 4, conversely, is an event-based system that reorganizes its reporting into standard reports and advanced “Explorations,” which are built in the “Explore” section.
While GA4 now allows you to create and save a “detail report” to the report library and schedule it via email, the older, more flexible custom reporting interface and email schedule options from UA are indeed absent in the standard GA4 interface.
The built-in scheduling feature in GA4 is somewhat limited in its customization and recipient count, which presents a problem for agencies or consultants needing advanced, highly personalized reports for multiple small businesses.
The superior, long-term technical solution for comprehensive and automated reporting from a GA4 property is to bypass the in-app scheduling entirely and integrate directly with Google’s APIs.
You should use the Google Analytics Data API to extract the specific dimensions and metrics you need for your custom reports.
This raw data can then be sent to a service like Google BigQuery for storage and complex transformation, or immediately piped to a visualization tool like Looker Studio via the Looker Studio API.
Looker Studio offers far more control over report design and, critically, has robust, flexible scheduling options for email delivery, allowing you to create one report that can be automatically generated and emailed to all your client mailboxes.
This API-driven approach is highly cost-effective because the core components – Google Analytics 4, Looker Studio, and the Google Analytics Data API – have generous free tiers, and it future-proofs your reporting workflow by decoupling your customized output from the constraints of the Google Analytics user interface.
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