: You might get confused with goals and funnels here. A funnel means a "path" a visitor must follow, if a user does not start at step 1, it is not in the funnel A goal is just "smaller",

You might get confused with goals and funnels here.

A funnel means a "path" a visitor must follow, if a user does not start at step 1, it is not in the funnel

A goal is just "smaller", a simple action/url visit can be a goal.

So a funnel can consist of multiple "goals"

With the API, as far as i can see, you just get goal information, which is different from the funnel view in analytics.

What if someone completes goal1 without finishing / going to goal2?

So if you just get the goal information, you have to view it per goal, not per funnel. The funnel values can only be calculated if you know how many visitors completed goal1 AND goal2. Which is not the information you have.

Example:

Shopping cart visited => goal 1

If 100 users open this page, you get 100 goal completes.

But how many visitors from this pages, also finished goal 2? You don't have this information, since you just get "105" users started this goal (which could be, visit the address page), where goal finish is "submit the page". In this case you get 84 ppl submitting the form, and 21 just "exiting"

The next step would be "6" people entering this page + 84 who finished.

etc.

Depending on how the goals are set, how users get to your page (back button in browser, multiple times between 2 steps etc.), your "goals" in between can get more visits (and thus more goal completes) than you would expect.

Off course the last step (last goal) (the checkout) is always correct... i don't know a lot of people ordering the same basket 3 times.

Hopefully this long answer makes it a bit more clear...