Part II:
Excel Integration Since the Omniture acquisition of Visaul Sciences much has been discussed about the how, why and when to migrate an HBX implementation to Omniture. Semphonic has written a comprehensive implementation toolkit and bloggers far and wide, including my Semphonic colleagues, have mused on some of the finer points of migration.
As far as I have read, though, little has been written specifically pertaining to transitioning physical Excel based reporting. Although, transitioning your Excel reporting doesn’t have the same glitz, glamour and sex appeal (are you laughing, disgusted or just worried about me?) as the greater account migration, it ain’t doing it itself.
In the days following acquisition, when no aspect of the Omniture product direction when unspeculated, I hear discussion that maybe an automatic conversion tool, transferring Report Builder reporting to Excel Client, would be built. I immediately dismissed that idea as somewhere between impossible and insane. Surprisingly enough, however, when I surfaced the idea to a VP at Omniture he confirmed that the feasibility of building such a tool was considered. Alas, Omniture quickly concluded the tool had too stark of fundamental differences, leaving us on our own to rebuild reporting.
Obviously before any Excel based report is transferred you must ensure all necessary reporting metrics will be/have been properly tagged. To read more on constructing a reporting ready Omniture implementation click here.
Data blocks cannot be built around data that has not populated in SiteCatalyst, so if you had plans of building reporting in advance, think again. If possible, you should try to have a month or two (or more) window when both HBX and SiteCatalyst are collecting your web analytics data. Having this window will give you an opportunity to build Excel Client reporting, while still being about to deliver your regular Report Builder reporting. Additionally, it’s the perfect opportunity to determine the differences between the tools (I can guarantee at least small ones will exist) and audit your implementation. Frequently, requesting running both tools in parallel will get push back for development or cost implication reasons, but from a data quality and report development standpoint is largely worth the added challenges and costs.
When it comes time to begin building Excel Client data blocks keep a few things in mind. In 99 out of 100 reports you build, you will want to populate your data blocks in hidden places in the report, most commonly one or several tabs. Text and numbers in data blocks cannot be formatted using the full spectrum of options available in Excel. Refreshing a data block will simply overwrite much or all of any formatting applied. Additionally, you cannot build data blocks without pesky (or helpful, depending on your outlook) headers, like “Most Popular Pages.” To ensure you can build a report closely resembling your existing HBX reporting you will need to apply formatting to forward facing tabs which reference your data blocks.
As you are constructing a hidden data block tab make sure to allocate plenty of space for each block, specifically those that might include additional line items with time. Report Builder simply won’t allow one data request to sit on top of another, but when Excel Client data blocks bleed onto one another things get ugly.
Try to format the hidden data tab(s) in a way that make them easy to troubleshoot. Your first few reports probably will have data tabs with data blocks all over the place, especially reports where new metrics are added over time. Try to learn as you go so future data tabs can be intuitively constructed and have room for report expansion. You’ll have to determine for yourself how you can best group data blocks for easy troubleshooting later. I have seen successful reports built with data block for similar types of data grouped together and others that making the hidden tab roughly resembles the forward facing report.
You need to utilize the tools in excel client to keep the data you are referencing in the forward facing tabs in consistent cells. Be especially mindful of dates as it is a common, but rarely obvious, mistake to reference a correct metric but with an inappropriate date range. Excel Client allows you to select specific items, like page names, so that they will always populate on the same line in the data block regardless of volume. Utilize this feature to keep the cells you are referencing on the forward facing tab consistent. Alternatively, you can pull a large data block and utilize a vlookup, on either the forward facing tab or a hidden tab, to populate metrics in a consistent cell.
Above everything else, recognize the thankless task of transitioning reports will take time. No magic conversion tool will ever do it for you. Not even a “sooner than you might think” update of Excel Client promises to make the process any easier. I haven’t heard any stories of HBX clients postponing a migration to Omniture because they are waiting for improvements to the Excel integration tool, but if you consider yourself in that group (even secretly), stop stalling and start building.
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