How to set up Sitecore Experience Analytics?

Question

On my sitecore Azure environment, I already have a working xDB collecting data about visitors. Now I want to display graphs to see for instance, with what frequency goals were registered.

I tried enabling some configuration files here and there. I also created reporting and reporting.secondary SQL databases on Azure (with no further configuration) and referenced them in connection strings. Still, I can't see any data in the reporting databases. Plus, I get those errors when loading the Experience Analytics dashboard,

The TopTenCampaignsByValue graph cannot be displayed due to a server error. Contact you system administrator.   
The OnlineInteractions graph cannot be displayed due to a server error. Contact you system administrator.   
The TopTenPatternsByValuePerVisit graph cannot be displayed due to a server error. Contact you system administrator.    
The OnlineInteractionsByVisitsAndValuePerVisit graph cannot be displayed due to a server error. Contact you system administrator.   
The TopTenGoalsByConversions graph cannot be displayed due to a server error. Contact you system administrator. 
The ChannelsByVisits graph cannot be displayed due to a server error. Contact you system administrator.

I can't manage to find any precise documentation on this yet important Sitecore feature.

Does anyone know how to set up all the experience analytics features end to end ?

Errors in the logs:

2017-07-17T13:38:05  PID[149424] Error       73080 13:38:05 ERROR Exception when executing agent aggregation/automationCleanupService
Exception: System.Exception
Message: Invalid object name 'Properties'.
Source: Sitecore.Kernel
   at Sitecore.Data.DataProviders.Sql.DataProviderCommand.ExecuteReader()
   at Sitecore.Data.DataProviders.Sql.DataProviderReader..ctor(DataProviderCommand command)
   at Sitecore.Data.DataProviders.Sql.SqlDataApi.<>c__DisplayClass12.<CreateReader>b__10()
   at Sitecore.Data.DataProviders.NullRetryer.Execute[T](Func`1 action, Action recover)
   at Sitecore.Data.DataProviders.Sql.SqlDataApi.CreateReader(String sql, Object[] parameters)
   at Sitecore.Analytics.Aggregation.SqlReportingStorageProviderProperties.GetProperties()
   at Sitecore.Analytics.Aggregation.SqlReportingStorageProviderProperties.get_Item(String key)
   at Sitecore.Analytics.Aggregation.SqlReportingStorageProviderProperties.GetCutoffDate()
   at Sitecore.Analytics.Automation.Aggregation.Data.Processing.CleanupAgent.<Execute>b__0(IAggregatedAutomationStateStorageProvider r)
   at System.Linq.Enumerable.WhereSelectEnumerableIterator`2.MoveNext()
   at System.Linq.Enumerable.Min[TSource](IEnumerable`1 source)
   at Sitecore.Analytics.Automation.Aggregation.Data.Processing.CleanupAgent.Execute()
   at Sitecore.Analytics.Core.BackgroundService.Run()

Nested Exception

Exception: System.Data.DataException
Message: Error executing SQL command: SELECT [Key], [Value] FROM [Properties]

Answer 1

Setting up xDB and your website connection to it is the first step so your instance can collect data. Do you get any rows in the interations collection on the analytics database after browsing?

Sitecore then takes the xDB data and aggregates it, storing it on your reporting database. It seems like it's the reporting service setup that you might be missing hence why you don't get reports.

This documentation page guides you on how to setup the reporting service, local or remote.