Active users right now (Reporting API v4)

Question

I am struggling with getting the currently active users from Reporting API v4 via JavaScript. I found this part of documentation which is dealing with it, where is it available as "rt:activeUsers", but it is for v3, not v4 - https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/reporting/realtime/dimsmets/. It seems like there is no such option available in documentation of v4 - https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/reporting/core/dimsmets#cats=user

Did I just overlook something? See my code below

 <!-- API CALL -->
<script>

  // VIEW ID
  var view_id = '0000000';
  var start_date = '7daysAgo';
  var end_date = 'today';

  // LOAD DATA FROM GOOGLE ANALYTICS
  function loadAnalytics() {
    gapi.client.request({

        // CONFIGURATION
        path: '/v4/reports:batchGet',
        root: 'https://analyticsreporting.googleapis.com/',
        method: 'POST',

        // REQUEST
        body: { 
            reportRequests: [{

                // VIEW ID
                viewId: view_id,

                // DATA RANGE FOR RESULTS
                dateRanges: [{
                    startDate: start_date,
                    endDate: end_date
                }],

                dimensions: [

                    { name:"ga:browser" },
                    { name:"ga:browserVersion" },
                    { name: "ga:userType"}

                ],

                // REQUESTED DATA
                metrics: [

                    { expression: 'ga:hits' },
                    { expression: 'ga:users' },
                    { expression: 'ga:newUsers' },
                    { expression: 'ga:sessions' },
                    { expression: 'ga:avgSessionDuration' },
                    { expression: 'ga:percentNewSessions' },
                    { expression: 'ga:sessionsPerUser'},
                    { expression: 'ga:bounces' },
                    { expression: 'ga:bounceRate' },
                    { expression: 'ga:activeUsers'}

                ]

            }]
        }

    // PUSH OBTAINED DATA TO DISPLAYING FUNCTION
    }).then(prepareVariables, console.error.bind(console));
  }

Answer 1

Reporting API V4

The most advanced method to programmatically access report data in Google Analytics. Build pivot tables as well as cohort, lifetime value, and advanced segmentation reports with the most flexible access to your data.

The Google Analytics reporting v4 api can be used to request data from Google analytics. This is not real time data. This id data that appears in the google analytics website as soon as it has been processed. It can take time for data to appear in this API any where from a few hours (This data is probably not actuate) to a few days.

This is due to data latency doc

Processing latency is 24-48 hours. Standard accounts that send more than 200,000 sessions per day to Analytics will result in the reports being refreshed only once a day. This can delay updates to reports and metrics for up to two days. To restore intra-day processing, reduce the number of sessions your account sends to < 200,000 per day.

Realtime API V3

Get user activity occurring on a property right now. Realtime reports are updated within seconds so you can build live dashboards to monitor how users are interacting with your property at any moment.

The realtime api is very basic. not all of the data is there. but its this api that you should be using

Google Analytics APIs

This is in response to the comment below. The google Analytics APIs are split into several APIs.

1. MetaData api used for returning dimensions and metrics from google analytics.
2. Management api currently in V3 used for managing Google analytics accounts.
3. Core reporting APIs. Used for selecting Google analytics data that has completed processing currently there is v3 and v4. (v2 technically still works but I wouldn't recommend using it.)
4. Real time api which is used to request real time google analytics data for example how many users are currently active on a users account. there is only v3 of this api.

So just because the Reporting api, management api, and realtime apis are all have v3 versions does not mean that they are the same. The reporting api does NOT have realtime data that's not what its for that's what the realtime api is for.