Is there a way to get view activity for google docs? - google-apps-script

Question

My team is looking to get view activity data for some google docs which are shared out organization-wide. Ultimately we want usage stats for these docs. It would be nice to be able to count views for copies of these docs too, but we'd be happy with just the views on the original docs to start.
I've tried to find view details somewhere within the document methods to no avail (I found the getViewers but that won't help me here).
I've also looked into binding a script to the documents to count when a user opens it but onOpen only triggers for users with edit access -- most of the people opening these docs will be opening with read-only access.
Any suggestions?

Answer 1

You can use activities.list in Reports API to access Drive audit logs which contains view log activities and other events. See Drive Audit Activity Events for a list of events available.
Example Using Admin Console:
Sample activities.list Request Parameters:
userKey: all
applicationName: drive
eventName: view
filters: doc_id==13NgKy87BggedOXnmkymygTyEh0xxxxxxxx
Sample Response: (Removed some sensitive information)
{
"kind": "admin#reports#activities",
"etag": "\"gwJsVSTi6OzvUGrf7ei0V53d9qZWZz_Kvb9LYWitNI4/sGVnptbK063qxxxxxx\"",
"items": [
{
"kind": "admin#reports#activity",
"id": {
"time": "2021-03-24T18:49:24.579Z",
.....
},
"actor": {
"email": "user1#domain.com",
"profileId": "1043405157872289xxxxx"
},
"events": [
{
"type": "access",
"name": "view",
......
}
]
},
{
"kind": "admin#reports#activity",
"id": {
"time": "2021-03-24T18:49:01.942Z",
.....
},
"actor": {
"email": "rm#domain.com",
"profileId": "1146312647848028xxxxx"
},
"ipAddress": "110.54.238.28",
"events": [
{
"type": "access",
"name": "view",
......
}
]
},
{
"kind": "admin#reports#activity",
"id": {
"time": "2021-03-24T18:48:29.751Z",
.....
},
"actor": {
"email": "",
"profileId": "1052505060979797xxxxx"
},
"events": [
{
"type": "access",
"name": "view",
......
}
]
},
{
"kind": "admin#reports#activity",
"id": {
"time": "2021-03-24T18:47:30.288Z",
.....
},
"actor": {
"email": "rm#domain.com",
"profileId": "1146312647848028xxxxx"
},
"ipAddress": "110.54.238.28",
"events": [
{
"type": "access",
"name": "view",
......
}
]
},
{
"kind": "admin#reports#activity",
"id": {
"time": "2021-03-22T21:17:35.009Z",
.....
},
"actor": {
"email": "rm#domain.com",
"profileId": "114631264784802xxxxx"
},
"events": [
{
"type": "access",
"name": "view",
......
}
]
}
]
}
NOTE:
If the file was viewed by a user outside your organization, the email address will not be available (User is anonymous)
Drive audit logs has a data retention time of 6 months. You can access Drive audit logs data this far back. You might want to consider saving your data count probably on a monthly basis so that if ever previous drive audit logs were removed you still have the data with you.
References:
View user Google Drive file activity
Data retention and lag times