Omniture Likely to Phase Out Excel Client

Author's note: Due to conflicting information that has recently come to light, I ask you to treat the following as speculation as to what might occur with the Excel Client and Omniture Report Builder products.

On October 26, 2007 I wrote an open letter to Omniture requesting that Excel Client would be ditched and ReportBuilder retained.  On February 1, 2010 I learned that I would soon have my wish. 

First the facts in the form of a rough time-line of how we arrived at this point in time:

• October 25, 2007 - Omniture announces the acquisition Visual Sciences and with it the Report Builder technology
• October 26, 2007 -  I write a polite, sarcasm free, letter requesting Omniture drops Excel Client like a bad habit
• October 26, 2007 - Josh James, a devout follower of my blog, reads "An Open Letter to Omniture" and immediately adjusts the development paths of Excel Client and ReportBuilder accordingly
• Q3 2008 - Omniture announces ReportBuilder features will be integrated in Excel Client
• Q1/Q2 2009 - Omniture releases Omniture ReportBuilder, an apparent divergence from the Q3 2008 plan of integrating ReportBuilder features into Excel Client, it is only available to HBX clients migrating to SiteCatalyst
• August 6, 2009 - Omniture ReportBulder becomes available (for purchase) by all Omniture clients
• February 1, 2010 - Omniture Client Care suggests Excel Client will not receive any further enhancements.  Currently some clients can exchanged Excel Client licenses can be exchanged for ReportBuilder licenses on a 1:1 basis
• Although phase out of Excel Client is possible there is no planned point in time where Omniture ReportBuilder will replace Excel Client

Second the analysis, opinion, reaction and speculation:

    Just like the New Orleans Saints and Chicago Cubs, Omniture is due.  In October 2007 they acquired the ReportBuilder technology and a year later Excel Client functionality had not changed.  In August 2008 a VP of Customer Support promised ReportBuilder features would be integrated into Excel Client “sooner than you think” and year and a half later still no evolution of the Excel Client product. 

    At present day, the condition of the Excel Client (EC) tool is unacceptable.  It occasionally goes down and becomes unusable for days on end.  Bugs are too numerous to list. The tool technically has an automatic refresh and delivery feature, but even Omniture admits that the functionality cannot be trusted (in my experience it works about 50% of the time).

    So far the development path of ORB has been a series of soft releases.  When it first came out it was only for clients migrating from HBX (a relatively small percent of Omniture clients), who were aware of the ORB tool (a small percent of the small percent) and specifically asked for it within their contract (a small percent of a small percent of a small percent).  The reaction of a fellow analyst, who described the tool as "having the features of ReportBuilder, but the bugs of Excel Client" might explain why the tool launch was kept baby bottom soft.  Within those first few months after launch Omniture had an ideal setup with a tool that could be used as a carrot to lure lingering HBX clients to SiteCatalyst and a built in limited population to beta test on.

    The move on August 6th, 2009 to allow any Omniture client to purchase ORB licenses was clearly a vote of confidence in the tool by Omniture.  Given that it is unlikely that Omniture will maintain two Excel integration tools in the future, this move is heavily suggestive that ORB will be Omniture's excel integration tool of the future.
 
    As of today there is no capability to refresh EC data blocks with ORB, so if you take Omniture up on their 1:1 license swap offer, you'd have to rebuild all existing EC based reporting with ORB or run multiple versions of report building tools on a regular basis.  Omniture did promise, however, that if a migration were to occur that ORB would have the EC data block refreshing technology in place.

    At this point in time, I can't advocate for anyone to go swap all their EC licenses for ORB ones, but if you do have one license to spare it wouldn't be a bad idea to swap.  If nothing else, the having ORB in house would be good for training purpose.  Although the EC and ORB are similar, learning ORB will take time.  Even those familiar with HBX's RB will need to do some relearning and make adjustment to the Omniture changes. 

    So will I get my wish?  Maybe, but only time will tell.  When I first talked to Omniture about their plans to integrate RB features into EC, they explained that the tools were (understandably) built in silos.  This means that the ORB tool we see today isn't HBX's RB, just a simulation of its look, feel and (some of its) features.  I did prefer the look and feel of HBX RB, but that's not what truly differentiated it from EC.  The HBX RB had incredibly powerful features in its lookup/matching capabilities, copy and pasting of data requests and mass editing of data requests.  Even more importantly, HBX RB could reliably update and distribute reporting.  And the final kicker, HBX RB did it all (nearly) bug free.

    At this point, I haven't spent enough time in ORB to give you a true assessment of the tool.  Others who I know and trust have mentioned bugs, limited availability of SiteCatalyst reports and the lack of some features that were previously available in HBX RB, but I'll wait until I personally have spent 100 hours plus hours in the tool (which should be all too soon) to pass judgment. 

    The Saints, Cubs and Omnitures are all due, but who is going to deliver this 2010?  The over/under from the Vegas bookies stands at 1.5.  I'm taking the under.  Mr. Brees, Mr. James  -- make me eat my words.    

Comments

[John Hodson]

I haven't had many of the types of problems with the Excel Client as you have described but I will say it has been "buggy" from an interface perspective. My concern is that my company's contract with Omniture includes unlimited Excel Client licenses and while we don't use that many; I'd had to loose a decent free tool & have to start paying for Report Builder even if it is better.

I hope that Omniture deals with this transition properly and takes care of it's customers who might be forced to migrate over.

[Jesse Gross]

John,

I don't think you have anything to worry about. You'll need to check with your Omniture rep, but from what I understand most clients should be able to swap EC licenses for ORB licenses at no additional cost.

Omniture has also promised that if a transition is to occur it will be slow (based on what I know now, my quoted time frame seems totally unrealistic) and will be done so in a way that puts the client's needs first.

Jesse

[Josh Dannemann]

I agree that the Site Catalyst Excel Toolbar has more than a few issues, but phasing it out with no adequate replacement is a proposition that I find to be out of the question. Especially so considering that the solution to the aforementioned problem of data blocks timing out (Refresh all bug) is so simple that it calls for a smack on the forehead: disable the background refresh. A simple macro to throttle the refresh also helps and I understand all to well the allergy the IT community has to VBA. It's the reason I keep finding a job. I write Excel integrated tools with VBA and .NET and the beauty of the Site Catalyst Excel Toolbar is that it brings most of the functionality of a full-fledged API to Excel without actually having to work with an API. The tools I write then enable us to refresh something along the lines of eight hundred queries every night.

[excel development]

In Microsoft Word, these types of custom changes are saved in a system file or template called normal.dot. Installing Acrobat or Acrobat Elements 7.0 can prevent Word from automatically saving these changes.

[קורס איפור]

I like that maintains two Omniture Excel integration tools in the future, this movement is strongly suggestive that the ORB is the integration of Omniture Excel tool for the future.

[Toyota]

In the first months after the launch of Omniture has an ideal configuration with a tool that could be used as a carrot to entice customers to SiteCatalyst HBX and persistent. Built in limited population to beta test.

[DigitalMArketingContest2012]

Informatic post about omniture