Web Analytics Italia: la piattaforma di monitoraggio statistico dei siti web della PA (15/03/2023)

Web Analytics Italia (AGID) — webinar summary (15/03/2023)

Purpose & context

• Web Analytics Italia is a statistical monitoring platform for public administrations (PA) to understand how users use institutional and thematic websites/services.
• The platform has been available to PAs since 2019. The webinar focuses on the recent strengthening/migration of the underlying infrastructure and what this enables.
• Agenda includes:
  • Registration/onboarding
  • Platform management
  • A cloud migration success story
  • A real-life usage case (Puglia Region)
  • Q&A

---

Key technological and product concepts

1) Why statistical monitoring matters (data-driven usability)

Monitoring is presented as a way to:

• Verify how content/services are actually used (rather than relying on intuition).
• Improve usability via data-driven decisions, including focusing usability tests on the most-used pages/documents/services (testing rarely used pages is considered inefficient).
• Support improvements after redesigns or content publishing, using evidence from real usage.

2) Platform foundations and openness

• The platform is described as open source and based on Matomo (tracking/analytics foundation).
• The design goal is to make monitoring easy to adopt even for non-experts in web analytics/data science.

3) Infrastructure strengthening (scalability due to load)

• The platform faced issues during periods of massive load / sudden registrations, requiring infrastructure strengthening.
• The updated infrastructure is positioned as necessary to support:
  • Increasing membership
  • Higher tracking volumes (many pages per site and large numbers of visits)

---

Main platform features mentioned

A) Data collection & tracking mechanism

• Tracking is implemented by embedding a tracking code fragment into participating websites’ HTML.
• User browsers then report:
  • Page URL/address
  • Page title
  • Other visit metadata
  • Device/operating system/browser information (e.g., mobile vs desktop)
• Visits appear in reporting after the code is inserted and validated.

B) Reporting/analytics processing (dashboards & widgets)

Analytics results are displayed through:

• Dashboards containing widgets
• Widget types depend on the data kind:
  • Pie charts for categorical/ordinal data (e.g., browsers/OS)
  • Histograms/line charts for quantitative trends (e.g., visits)
• Widgets can be embedded into a site as a “statistics page/summary,” allowing citizens (and/or internal stakeholders) to view usage metrics.
• Widget scope restriction: widget code works only for the specific configured domain/site, to avoid showing stats on unrelated pages/domains.

C) Email reporting

• Reports can be scheduled and sent via email in text format and can include graphs.
• Rationale: email can be easier than manually checking dashboards.

D) Role-based multi-user management and permissions

• Each administration can add users.
• Permissions can be granular per website (e.g., a user may view statistics only for specific thematic sites).
• Strong emphasis on supporting administrations with many sites and multi-user workflows.

---

Onboarding / registration (how PAs join)

Requirements and steps

Key requirements highlighted:

• The PA must be present on the PA index (IPA).
• The person acting for the administration must have SPID credentials.
• The PA (or its technical contact/supplier) must have access to the website source code to insert the tracking code.

Simplified onboarding flow (from the webinar):

1. Choose the administration on the Web Analytics Italia portal (after SPID authentication)
2. The institutional website is pre-filled from the PA index
3. The platform associates/assigns a tracking code in an unconfirmed state
4. Insert the tracking code into the institutional website
5. After insertion, the platform confirms the association; otherwise the association expires

Operational notes from Q&A:

• In-house companies can use the service if they are listed in the PA index.
• If multiple people try to register the same PA, the platform does not reveal who registered first (for privacy). Guidance: contact the digital transition manager.

---

Metrics and examples shared during the webinar

Adoption figures

• 2,600 active websites registered
• 4,330 websites activated total

Highlighted analytics examples

• Navigation/visits by desktop vs smartphone
• Breakdown by operating systems (Windows/Android/iOS mentioned)
• Browser usage, including mobile browsers such as Chrome Mobile and mobile Safari
• Mobile-first is emphasized as crucial due to the significance of smartphone traffic.

---

Cloud migration (technology evolution)

A dedicated section covered the migration to cloud services:

• Work began June 2022 to migrate Web Analytics Italia infrastructure to the Cloud.
• Migration phases:
  • Phase 1 (analysis & design): set up a hosted cloud test environment and run performance tests
  • Phase 2 (migration/commissioning): Oct 2022 → Jan 2023, including commissioning the new Cloud platform
  • Post-migration observation/RAM phase: use advanced monitoring tools and prepare future evolution

Reported outcome and benefits

• New platform performance described as at least ~10x higher than the former data center setup.
• Benefits listed:
  • Higher performance → reduced risk of interruptions
  • Elastic/scalable infrastructure to match load and control costs
  • Agility: faster delivery of new features via a streamlined CI/CD-like release lifecycle
  • Security improvements via layered protection, encryption/data protection mechanisms, and modern defenses
  • Reduced downtime through automatic updates and large-scale automation (infrastructure-as-code-like concepts)

Q&A clarification

• The cloud provider/platform is described as Amazon Web Services, hosted “within national territory” framework.
• The procurement approach follows Consip/official procurement channels (framework agreement/ordering), not arbitrary choices.

---

Real-world use case: Puglia Region

• Puglia Region has used Web Analytics Italia since March 2020.
• They report expanding their online coverage (institutional portal + broader tracking), with adoption accelerating after concerns about using Google Analytics.

Claimed value

• Simple and easy operations
• Multi-user management across multiple portals
• No need for separate credentials beyond using SPID
• Ability to analyze multiple dimensions:
  • Infrastructure response performance
  • How content/structures are used
  • Audience segmentation (origin/destination, user types)
  • User behavior and post-analysis

Q&A notes from the case

• Internal vs external access separation: not directly possible; they rely on pages known to be used internally (e.g., directory/staff pages) and infer patterns based on those signals.
• Widget comparisons: differences in identifiers may require manual page-by-page analysis.

---

Privacy and compliance points (Q&A highlights)

• The platform is described as not collecting personal or sensitive data.
• It includes IP address anonymization: IP is part of required internet protocol data and is then anonymized.
• No additional mandatory obligations were said to remain, though discussions with the privacy authority were mentioned.

---

Accessibility testing relationship (clarification)

• The webinar stresses that:
  • Statistical monitoring and accessibility testing are different activities.
  • There is work planned to combine accessibility testing with statistical monitoring, framed as an evolution/merge rather than a simple “extension.”
• They mention additional content coming from AGID in the following weeks.

---

Adoption / policy stance

• Adoption is described as:
  • Recommended/encouraged by guidelines
  • Not mandatory by regulation, so lack of use has no sanctions (as clarified by the speaker).

---

Main speakers / sources (as mentioned)

• Dr. Claudio Celeghin — Agenzia per l’Italia Digitale (AGID) (accessibility/usability, statistical monitoring rationale)
• Davide Porro — AGID (platform management, tracking/reporting architecture, onboarding steps)
• Carlo Martufi — Accenture (cloud services and migration experience section; referenced for the cloud migration)
• Dr. Sandro Zizzari — Puglia Region (case study of adoption and usage)
• Gianluca — webinar moderator/host (introductions and transitions)

Additional references:

• Dr. Carlo Martufi and other speakers were also referenced in Q&A, with brief answers from Claudio Celeghin and Carlo Martufi.