v201506 Report Fields CSV

[Mark McKelvey]

Hello,

We are using v201506 of the the API.  We've made use of the csv that details the report names and types from the previous version of the docs.  Does anyone have a copy of those csvs? They seem to have been taken down from the web.

Thanks,

Mark

[Nadine Sundquist (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Mark,

Is there a specific place in the documentation where you were getting the CSV? Do you happen to have an old copy of one of the CSVs that you could send me?

Thanks,

Nadine, AdWords API Team

[Nadine Sundquist (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Mark,

I'm just following up here. Were you able to get this figured out?

Cheers,

Nadine, AdWords API Team

[Florian Lherbette]

Hi Nadine,

Is there a specific place in the documentation where you were getting the CSV?

I think Mark was talking about the CSV download links on https://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/appendix/reports (e.g. https://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/appendix/reports/campaign-performance-report.csv for https://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/appendix/reports/campaign-performance-report)

Reporting documentation (unlike SOAP documentation) is not versioned, which is very annoying for developers. Once a new API version is released we lose documentation for the API version we're still using in our code (we have to use the release notes and migration guide to guess what the report fields specification was before).

And since I'm on the topic of documentation problems, I'll complain a bit more: I (and some of my fellow developers too) really don't like the new 2-column table structure. It was much better/easier to use when when had separate columns for "Type", "Display name", "XML attribute", "Behavior", etc.

Does anyone have a copy of those csvs? They seem to have been taken down from the web.

 

To Mark: I don't have a copy of the old CSVs, but it's still possible to get the report fields from previous API version through the SOAP ReportDefinitionService. See for example https://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/reference/v201506/ReportDefinitionService for v201506.

You should even be able to re-build an similar CSV file for each report type.

-- 

Florian

[Florian Lherbette]

Small correction on my own message:

On Thursday, November 19, 2015 at 4:50:51 PM UTC+1, Florian Lherbette wrote:

And since I'm on the topic of documentation problems, I'll complain a bit more: I (and some of my fellow developers too) really don't like the new 2-column table structure. It was much better/easier to use when when had separate columns for "Type", "Display name", "XML attribute", "Behavior", etc.

This remark only applies to the HTML documentation. The CSV files we have now still have the proper columns (although the multi-line cells often make those CSV files hard to read/parse).

-- 

Florian 

[Nadine Sundquist (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Florian,

Thanks for clarifying. I could see that would be very helpful. I've put in a feature request for us to do that the next time around. Thanks for providing the workaround for Mark.

The table structure changed because the templates available to us changed when the website was revamped. I'll pass that feedback on to my team; we're constantly reworking documentation based on developer feedback.

Thanks again for helping out a fellow developer!

Nadine, AdWords API Team

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Florian,

Regarding CSVs and HTML tables for old versions, I have good news: we just added that to the reports page. If you scroll to the bottom on the left, you'll see there's an expandable widget for links to the v201506 documentation, e.g., CAMPAIGN_PERFORMANCE_REPORT.

Cheers,

Josh, AdWords API Team