Analytics Top content is sorted by title and not by views

[gmmedia]

Bug Description

The Google Analytics Top content widget is sorted by the title column and not by the views column.

Steps to reproduce

Same wrong sorting on the 3 pages:

• WordPress Dashboard widget
• Site Kit Dashboard
• Analytics

Screenshots

Additional Context

• PHP Version: 7.3
• OS: Win7
• Browser: Chrome
• Plugin Version: 1.13.0

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Acceptance criteria

• For Analytics top content displays (and underlying queries), results should be sorted by descending views/pageviews. Top content appears in the following locations:

  • WordPress Dashboard - "Top content over the last 28 days"
  • Site Kit Dashboard - "Most popular content"
  • Analytics Module page - "Top content over the last [28] days"

Implementation Brief

• In includes/Modules/Analytics.php, in the handler for case 'GET:report', in the orderby handling immediately following the inline comment // Order by.:
  • remove [0] from the if condition block which checks whether $orderby is a numeric array or not:

// When just object is passed we need to convert it to an array of objects.
if ( ! wp_is_numeric_array( $orderby[0] ) ) {
	$orderby = array( $orderby );
}

• Create a new protected method parse_data_orderby in the includes/Modules/Analytics.php that accepts an instance of the Data_Request class and returns $orderby result using algorithm from the GET:report handler.
  • Create unit tests for this method.
• Update GET:report handler to use the new method to get orderby settings.

QA Brief

• Go to each of the following pages and check top content report, it should be sorted descendingly by the number of page views.
  • WordPress Dashboard widget
  • Site Kit Dashboard
  • Analytics

Changelog entry

• Fix regression where Analytics top content wouldn't be sorted correctly by views.

[adamsilverstein]

Thanks for the bug report @gmmedia.

I can confirm I am seeing this as well, top content is sorted by page title in version 1.9.0:

In 1.8.1 I see pages forted by descending Views:

Using git bisect I tracked down the issue to commit 2a0eb8f. After this commit, the sorting no longer works as expected. cc: @eugene-manuilov

[eugene-manuilov]

Thanks @adamsilverstein! This issue is caused by a typo here:

site-kit-wp/includes/Modules/Analytics.php

Line 977 in 897c92e

if ( ! wp_is_numeric_array( $orderby[0] ) ) {

We don't need [0] there, it should be just if ( ! wp_is_numeric_array( $orderby ) ). Once it's removed, everything will work as expected. We need to udpate IB to state that we just need to remove [0] from that line.

[eugene-manuilov]

IB is updated

[adamsilverstein]

✅ IB looks good to me!

[eugene-manuilov]

Created a new PR against master branch: #1875

[aaemnnosttv]

@eugene-manuilov would you please add a QA Brief here so this can be merged?

Assigning to @felixarntz for a final pass on the PR.

[eugene-manuilov]

@aaemnnosttv QA Brief is added.

[cole10up]

Tested:

Installed 1.13.0 and activated SK and Analytics with a site having lots of data:

Notice error:

Reset SK, uninstalled, deleted and installed 1.13.1. Activated SK and Analytics with the same above site:

Notice fix:

Confirmed adjusting duration functions properly for sort:

Checked each duration - confirmed functional
Checked links driving to GA - confirmed functional within SK

One thing to note - Clicking links within WP Dashboard drive to the actual page and not GA:

Checked see full stats link - confirmed functional
Checked removing and re-installing analytics - confirmed functional
Checked adding new properties, views and accounts functions properly

Passed QA ✅