Google Analytics vs. Adobe Analytics - User Administration

Part 5 of 6 - Comparing Google and Adobe Analytics user administration capabilities.

by Nikolay Gradinarov

 

 Adobe Analytics

Google Analytics

Authentication with Single Sign-On (SSO) enabled accounts
  • Adobe Analytics provides support for Single Sign On (SSO), allowing users to utilize their network credentials for accessing the reporting UI. Different Identity Providers (including Google) are supported. 

 

  • The process usually involves two steps: (1) provisioning users with access to the corresponding organization's security group and (2) enabling the users' emails with access to specific Adobe report suites and access permissions within the Adobe Administrative Console.
  • SSO access can be setup for Google Analytics .

 

  • Similarly to Adobe, this requires provisioning users with a Google Cloud Identity for a given organization followed by adding permissions for the users for the specific Google Analytics groups/properties/views.
Authentication with a vendor-controlled account
  • Users need to create an Adobe ID (associated with their email) and the email needs to be provisioned by an Adobe Analytics administrator with permissions to the corresponding reporting properties. 
  • Google Analytics requires the creation of a Google account. 

 

  • When granting access to Gmail accounts (through the ubiquity of Gmail) this process is fairly straightforward.
Granularity of User Permissions
  • Adobe provides ways for specifying really granular access permissions with controls allowing to fine-tune access to specific combinations of report suites, metrics, dimensions, and analytics tools. 

 

 

  • Permissions can be handily organized in Profiles (previously known as Groups) for scalable assignment to users/groups of users.
  • Google Analytics access permissions model offers three levels of control: (1) user access can be enabled on the level of properties, (2) individual views, and (3) assigned to one of the following permission levels: Read & Analyze, Collaborate, Edit, and Manage Users. 

 

  • GA also allows the creation of user groups with the options described above. 
User Activity Logging
  • Adobe maintains detailed logs (available for query directly in the administrative UI) for tracking usage activity by individual user id.

 

  • The reports can be helpful as an audit trail for what modifications have been made on the administrative side, as well as a way to review/curate the usage of various reports/dimensions/metrics.
  • Google Analytics does not make the usage records available in the current user interface 
Automatic Expiration of User Logins
  • Adobe provides a handy feature to set an expiration date for a given user account.

 

  • This can be helpful for improving data governance and making sure access to data automatically expires for external parties or employees that are granted access that do not use SSO. 
  • Google Analytics does not provide a way to automatically expire user accounts. 
 
Bulk User Management
  • Adobe Analytics supports the programatic management of users through an administrative API.

 

  • Users can be also managed in bulk through downloads/uploads of CSV files. 
  • Google Analytics also supports the bulk management of users through an API.  
 
Centralized Access Management for Related Platforms 
  • Adobe provides a centralized administrative console for managing user access to all of the products that are part of theAdobe Experience Cloud (Audience Manager, Target, Launch, etc). 
  • Access permissions for related Google products (Google Data Studio, BigQuery, Google Tag Manager, Optimize, etc) need to be managed separately. 

See Also:

Google Analytics vs. Adobe Analytics - Data Collection (part 1 of 6)

Google Analytics vs. Adobe Analytics - Data Processing & Configuration (part 2 of 6)

Google Analytics vs. Adobe Analytics - Data Analysis & Visualization (part 3 of 6)

Google Analytics vs. Adobe Analytics - Data Sharing & Integrations (part 4 of 6)

Google Analytics vs. Adobe Analytics - User Maintenance & Administration (part 5 of 6)

Google Analytics vs. Adobe Analytics - Other Considerations (part 6 of 6)

 About QA2L

 

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