How to effectively use GTM Tools by Stape

Created by Simo Ahava, GTM Tools has already gained popularity due to its functions and ease of use. It includes many features that save time while working with GTM containers. The features include cloning the container, its visualization, and editing. GTM Tools has now been relaunched and is fully supported by Stape.

In this article, we will review GTM Tools use cases and how to work with the utility. We are working on developing and adding new features, so we’ll share our plans.

Stape’s GTM Tools will be helpful for a lot of people:

• Business owners
• Digital marketers and analytics experts
• Freelancers who work with numerous GTM containers

The tool is designed for everyone looking for an effective tag management tool. It helps you order, edit, clone, and visualize assets in the GTM container. These functions save a lot of time and nerves while working with GTM; keep reading to find the tool's pros.

The GTM Tools provides its users with the following server-side tagging benefits:

• Easy management of GTM container(s) and their contents. The tool's interface is straightforward; you can use tools like Inspect to see GTM assets in the form of a list or Visualize to view the map of the container. Thanks to them, you can see hermit nodes, the dependencies between assets and easily edit their settings.
• Wide range of functions. Check well-known and loved tools like Inspect, Visualize, Clone, and Workspace mode. These tools help structure, visualize, duplicate, and mass-update the contents of your GTM container.
• Handy container audit. GTM Tools now supports web and server GTM containers. As GTM Tools helps highlight the dependencies between GTM assets, you can easily find Tags/Triggers/Variables that need to be removed. The audit of the GTM container will help to load your website faster.

Open GTM Tools. To start using GTM Tools, you need to sign in with your Google account credentials.

After the signing-in process, you need to pick the Google Tag Manager Account you want to work on - click “GTM Accounts” → from a drop-down list and choose the account (if you have access to multiple accounts).

These are all steps required to start working with GTM Tools, and the next step is to choose what tools you need to use.

On the Container page, you will find a list of tools for the GTM container. Below, we describe in a nutshell what each tool does. Feel free to click on the tool name to jump directly to the section with its detailed description.

1. Clone only some GTM assets (Tags, Triggers, Variables). Unlike the Clone tool, with Inspect, you can see the container's contents and manage them as you need. Choose the asset you want to clone, add it to My assets, and clone it to another container or GTM account.

2. Changes to tag configurations and adding tags to a different container. If you are going to run a website with a similar structure and configuration settings but need to make some minor changes in existing tags, you can use the feature "Export overview as CSV" in the text editor, make those changes, and then upload the revised configuration to a needed container.

Inspect is a default tool you see after choosing the container. You can choose what workspace you would like to work with. By default, GTM Tools will inspect the latest version, but you can change it from the drop-down menu. The tool shows the number of each asset in your GTM container version.

Inspect tool provides the following features:

• Note. The column shows the notes that you added to a specific tag, trigger, or variable.
• CSV. Click here to download all the contents of the container in CSV format.
• My Assets. Add or remove the specific GTM asset from the “My Assets”.
• Links. See the connection between tags/triggers/variables.

Explain the GTM ecosphere to a client. If you are a freelancer in digital marketing and/or analytics, you may have many clients who would like to know how their GTM container is built and its dependencies.

To build a map of your GTM container, click "Visualize". No additional settings are required.

As a result, you will get the GTM container visualization like on the screenshot below:

You may use the following functions to work with the visualization:

• Hover the cursor on the Tag/Trigger/Variable. In this way, you will see the dependencies between assets.

• Search node. Just type the node name you want to see, and it will be highlighted.
• Highlight hermit nodes. You have two options here: select and deselect hermit nodes. This will highlight the assets (Tags/Triggers/Variables) not connected to other assets.

Please note that when you hover the cursor on a specific asset, you will see detailed information about it. The information includes the Name, Asset (Tag/Trigger/Variable), and Type.

1. Creating a new website with a similar structure. If you are running a business and want to create a project with a similar (or the same) structure as the existing one, you can clone the existing Google Tag Manager container contents into another GTM account.

2. Building a container for a new client. The clone tool is helpful for freelancers who use standard naming for common Tags/Triggers/Variables and need a solution to copy the container's template into a new account.

The Clone tool is straightforward to use. You can choose the version of the GTM container you want to clone (by default, it is the latest version) and the target GTM account.

When the settings are configured, click "Clone".

Editing multiple assets. If you need to pause/unpause a few GTM assets, edit JSON, and rename Tags/Triggers/Variables without going to the GTM account. With Workspace mode, you can edit every asset you need in GTM Tools without opening multiple tags, triggers, or variables in new tabs.

The Workspace mode interface is similar to the Inspect tool. As the Workspace mode is used to edit and apply changes in the container, it takes the current version of the GTM container, and you can't choose the older version.

Next to each asset (tag, trigger, variable, template) of the GTM container, you will see the following columns:

• Changes - changes that were applied to a specific asset.
• Links - connections between assets.
• JSON - edit JSON directly. Edit JSON is a handy tool for changing the parameters of a specific asset. Thanks to this function, you can do it directly in GTM Tools; there is no need to download JSON files, go to an editor, and change parameters. Just click "Save" after editing the parameters.

• Actions - choose from the list of options: pause (for tags only), edit folder, edit JSON, reset changes.

Also, you can update Client templates (for server GTM container). To do it, go to the Templates tab → search for the Client name → click Update.

When you have made all the changes to Tags/Triggers/Variables/Templates, click "Update workspace" to apply them and reload the page. If you want to decline the changes to all the assets, click "Reset all changes".

After Stape’s update, the Cart and Library are combined. In “My assets” you can access all your saved assets and create or manage new containers.

When you select the items, you have a few options:

• Clone to a container - duplicate all the assets to a specific container.
• Save to collection - save a selection of assets into a set to be used later.
• Remove - delete the changes from “My assets”.

We have already redesigned a platform and added server GTM support. In the future we plan adding GitHub templates import (e.g., Data Client, Snowplow Client).

Feel free to share your feedback and suggest features you would like to see in GTM Tools on the Feature Request page.

GTM Tools is a powerful solution for Google Tag Manager management. It will be helpful for business owners, freelancers, digital marketing and analytics specialists. The tool provides a wide range of functions, such as container editing, downloading, cloning, and visualization.

The tool will save time and nerves for everyone who wants to organize and optimize a GTM container. Stay tuned for more GTM Tools updates!