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I want to pass multiple values for multiple products on a single page. When I am referring to multiple products I don’t mean products as in the e-commerce world, I mean s.products the only variable in Sitecatalyst that can take multiple values on the page.

Take this publishers example I have stories and stories can be about more than one topic and include more than one company. So I tag the story with multiple topics and a couple of companies. So far so good I can achieve this within Sitecatalyst. Most obvious thing to do here is use s.products in conjunction with categories and I can pass these values.

e.g s.products=”themes;music,themes;phone,company;apple,company;nokia”

So in the above I am setting a themes category which contains the themes music and phone and a company category with apple and nokia in there. So what’s wrong with that? Well since all values in there are essentially products I have an issue I want to correlate themes with companies in the same way I could with products and an e.var. The issue here is I can’t correlate across products. 

So I am stuck. Who can help me? Any suggestions?

After 5 point releases Sitecatalyst 14 is finally pulling into a usable shape, but is this simply too late. It launched with a major user inteface overhaul employing ajax and other trendy techniques but failing misarably from a usability perspective. Now we see the launch of version 14.5 and its just about a usable platform. Adoption of this version has been painful so should Omniture dump 14 and bring in a leaner meaner more in tune with the market version 15 aka windows 7. 

If Omniture did one thing for the next release it should be to allow segmentation live within sitecatalyst without the need for datawarehouse. Segmentation is where all the gold is in terms of insights into your analytics data and in this day and age its not acceptable to wait for a segmentation report for multiple hours or days. We know there is the over priced discover application and to be honest we could do without all that functionality in favour for simple, instant and live segmentation of data in the sitecatalyst 14 user interface. The power of reporting on segments to the business using this tool would be immence. This is an area that the old school analytics packages are playing major catch up to the likes of Google analytics and Index tools which both offer that functionality for free. 

Its time our premium analytics packages supported live segmentation by default its the life boold of the analyist and mad that this is packaged as another product. Like MS Vista sitecatalyst 14 has been riggled with bugs, missing functionality and out of step with the market. A quick release of 15 with segmentation would fix this. So come on Omniture accept that 14 is a dud and move on and more importantly catch-up with the rest of the world and give us live segmentation free of charge in the next release.

Enhancements

• Added the Date Range to dashboard reports.
• Added Publishing List Override to the Edit Reportlet page. This feature prevents a publishing list from overriding the report suite used in the reportlet. 
• Added an improved format for displaying a CSV report. 
• Updated Web Services API with ReportSuite.GetIPAddressExclusions,  ReporSuite.SaveIPAddressExclusions, and ReportSuite.DeleteIPAddressExclusions.
• Added Video Sharing (beta), a report that displays video usage across common Web video sharing sites.
• Changed the layout of Breakdown menus so that they are patterned after the main report menus in SiteCatalyst.
• Improved Back, Forward, and Refresh behavior, letting you step back and forward through incremental report configuration changes.
• Added the ability to tie metrics to products in data sources integration. 

Improvements and Fixes

• In the Scheduled Reports Manager, you can reset reports scheduled via ExcelClient.
• Fixed a JavaScript error regarding the date range on bookmarked data extract reports.
• Improved the reliability of reportlet placement in the dashboard.
• Fixed Total row cut-off in report tables.
• Improved the save reliability of reconfigured reportlets.
• Fixed a bug in the trended view of breakdowns.
• Improved shared calculated metrics across report suites for ExcelClient.
• In Data Extract, we fixed ExcelClient’s report list to match SiteCatalyst’s when building the list.
• Fixed a mixed content warning when downloading a report in IE6.
• Resolved a login issue in the developer portal.
• Fixed an error in the Account Activity report in the Admin Console.
• Trended page report now returns Daily granularity as expected.
• All appropriate classifications now display in the Classifications Manager.
• Improved the tabular version of the Next Video Flow report.
• Fixed the display of Japanese characters in report notes.
• Fixed Overtime reports to display the complete date range in the graph.
• Fixed an Access to Resource error in the Scheduled Reports editor.
• Fixed a persistency issue occurring in Fixed Dates in a dashboard.
• Improved the Company Summary report to use the proper currency.
• Fixed an issue in which calculated metrics were being classified as traffic metrics in the reporting API.
• Fixed error issued when using report suite functions in the admin API.
• Added Romania to Geosegmentation reports.
• Fixed date-enabled classifications not displaying in the Classifications Manager.
• Removed invalid classifications from the Classification Manager.
• Fixed totals for orders in Customer Loyalty reports.
• Fixed an issue in which the SAINT upload was not refreshing.
• Improved filter persistency in bookmarks.

Speak to your account manager to get yours booked ASAP. Places are limited.

• The breakdown menu now separates the available correlation and conversion breakdown options for the current report. Also, the breakdown menus have been visually improved.
• Persistent gradient headers have been added to dashboard reportlets.
• The Comparison field in the Calendar has been improved to no longer auto-fill with a previous timeframe when you manually change the date range of a report.
• The Notes field has been enhanced to provide report-specific information that includes a timestamp and user’s name, and the ability to edit or delete the note.
• The Application Measurement Solutions for Android, Blackberry, and iPhone are new.

Improvements and Fixes

• Corrections in the x-axis of charts.
• Corrected a security warning pop-up appearing in IE6.
• Improved the visits metrics in T&T reports.
• Fixed a fatal error issued in rollup reports.
• Fixed a data retrieval error in the Path Length report.
• Improved mobile breakdowns for dashboards.
• Improved the breakdown
• Improved the Data Extract wizard navigation.
• Improved display of international number formats.
• Improved international text support in the Admin Console.
• Improved localization display in charts.
• Improved support for video subrelations.
• Fixed date display in the Return Visits report.
• Improved how report titles are displayed.
• Improved the stacked vertical bar display in Page reports.
• Fixed ability to save a custom report for a mobile breakdown.
• Fixed date display in reportlet graphs.
• Improved trended views in Mobile > Devices report.
• Fixed the name length limits in reportlets to match how they display.
• Improved multilanguage support in the Search field.

I use sitecatalyst on a regular basis and what frustrates me the most is just how much of a handicapped tool it is for real world analytics. Sitecatalyst gives the impression that it will be useful but then disapoints so easily. A Omniture staff member once told me that the Omniture consultancy team do not use Sitecatalyst, they have access to and pretty much exclusivley use the very expensive Discover tool. It also appears that Omniture use Sitecatalyst as an upsell platform for their Discover tool. So I thought I would share with you some of the common problems we encounter in Sitecatalyst. Some of these points are feature requests, interface changes and bugs but they all have one thing in common the ability to infuriate the user. 

1) Sitecatalyst cannot display any segment data what so ever! Take a look at Google analytics and I can define and show up to 4 segments on a standard report it takes me 10 seconds to set this up. Sitecatalyst has datawarehouse feature which is itself a chargable addition to the standard package. Now datawarehouse allows you to build a segment then wait a few hours for an excel sheet to come back with some data. Then if I want to see the same data for a different segment I can repeat the process. There’s no way for me to compare this data in Sitecatalyst this is all done externally by pull this data together by hand. 

2) Excel client can’t deal with Segments so I can’t automate pulling multiple segments together in an excel sheet in point 1. 

3) The boardroom ready reports are not ready for the boardroom. Try building a big dashboard and downloading a PDF version of that file. The formatting will be slightly strange but also some headers will overlap and become un-readable.

4) At least in version 14 where an evar has a none value and is associated with a product there is no way to remove the none value and have the totals in the product adjust accordingly. We can do a filter does not contain none but the numbers don’t change. It may be a bug but its been there for 4 point releases of version 14 now. 

5) Publishing lists are useless, on release of version 14 a big deal was made around this functionality which should allow you to distribute the same master dashboard for different report suites with out having to re-build the dashboard. It does not work and has not been fixed in 4 point releases of version 14.

6) Why do I have to create a default metric for bounce rate and other common metrics? Why can’t we put this metric against useful items such as search keywords, referrer types etc etc

7) Why can’t I trend on useful items such as referrer types! Can do this in excel client but why should I?

Percentage change alerting is almost useful but when dealing with percentage changes across a large amount of values I get some text in a e-mail in no sort order either by the value or the percentage change. There’s no option for an csv file just this plain text e-mail which is not useful.

9) Monthly forecast has gone in version 14

10) Contextual performance against last month and year is only available on some report types and some graphs

11) We can do stacked graphs but no 100% stacked graphs (these are very useful when reporting to clients and you want to provide comparitive performance without providing numbers).

12) The only way to report on google news performance is to look at all referrer url’s and then do a filter for news.google why? referrer is an exceptionally long report to run.

13) Why does the excel client time out when pulling larger and more usful data set. E.g I can’t event pull in top 50 search terms month on month in excel with out time outs. 

14) Having multiple data blocks on an excel worksheet causes all data blocks to fail. 

15) Why do I need to set-up a plug-in to establish if a visitor is new or returning. 

16) Just when you need it Sitecatalyst reports never have a total colum.

17) The video reporting integration may not upload a persons viewing information until they visit the site for a second time. What happens if they dont no data for that video play.

They fix and improve a load of things in the process… bye bye whitespace in your dashboards Publishing Lists still useless :( 

SiteCatalyst 14.3 provides the following enhancements and improvements:

Integration with Test&Target

• Optimize site performance by analyzing your Test&Target campaigns in SiteCatalyst.
• Compare different tested experiences using SiteCatalyst success events.
• Leverage SiteCatalyst traffic variables in Test&Target for targeting, profiling, steps, and conversion.

Integration with Omniture Survey

• Survey v1.5 combines the power of Web site analytical data with survey responses to help drive marketing and remarketing strategies.

Limited Administration Permissions

• You can grant non-admin users specific administrative rights, such as editing classifications or naming variables.

Reporting API Enhancements

• Access video and mobile reports via the Web Services API.

Redirect Tracking

• Redirect tracking for mobile link and podcast tracking.

Improvements and Fixes

• Improved dashboard look, feel, and functionality.
• Enhanced readability in charts.
• Enhanced correlation/subrelation functionality for mobile and video reports.
• Added video report functionality: Hourly granularity for Video Views reports, and report smoothing on Video Segments Viewed reports.
• Added a new and improved Advanced Scheduler for scheduled reports.
• Added the ability to rerun failed scheduled reports.
• Improved calendar functionality for comparing date ranges.
• Improved rendering for Excel downloadable/scheduled reports.
• Fixed advanced filter persistence.
• Improved data extract functionality for the Natural Keywords report.
• Improved the adding calculated metrics experience.
• Improved downloading for Pathfinder reports in Excel format.
• Improved localization in Bubble charts.
• Improved Video report granularity.
• Improved the CSV report download.
• Improved creating public bookmarks.
• Improved the Referring Domains and Referrer Types reports.
• Improved the Mobile 5×5 breakdown report.
• Improved handling of half-width Japanese characters for property and eVar values.
• Improved handling of plain text reportlets.
• Improved pagination in the Admin Console log.
• Improved the mobile SiteCatalyst client.
• Improved the localized login page.
• Improved the Schedule Report Manager.
• Improved interoperability in Visual Studio for Web Services API.
• Improved single sign-on.

Maintenance Release 11/13/08

• Fixed refreshing performance of Excel Client spreadsheets that have multiple data blocks and multiple report suites.
• Data extracts can now be bookmarked and retrieved in Excel (version 14.2).
• You can filter the data in Customer Loyalty reports in data extract.
• Fixed daylight savings issues in certain time zones, and for ASI scheduling.
• Improved login issues with reports on mobile devices.
• Fixed calculated metric data display when emailing dashboards.
• Fixed issue with date compare, where date fields were being populated incorrectly.
• Fixed issues when importing classifications for video.
• Fixed submission of email questions in Internet Explorer.
• Fixed error when scheduling a bookmarked report.
• Fixed report filters to filter special characters correctly.
• Changed how the system closes the Report Suite Selector when you click the View Complete List link. The Report Suite Selector now remains open.
• Fixed dashboard and Excel rendering issue for clients with multiple character encodings in the data.
• Fixed ReportBuilder log in issue when logins failed because Temporary Login was enabled.
• New report API method added: Report.GetStatus. See the API documentation for more information.
• Fixed several bugs in the Omniture SOAP WSDL.
• Reports emailed from Discover as an .xls file have the following additions to the email notification:
  • A report name and title
  • The date range of the report data
  • Segmentation information
• In the heading of the .xls report, the following information has been added:
  • The date range of the report data
  • Segmentation information

The holy grail of analytical measurement has to be Visitor Engagement. What is visitor engagement and how can we measure this metric and how can we apply it to our analytical strategy? Web analytics demystified provided a very insightful and complete guide to one approach in how to measure the immeasurable. 

Don’t be put off early on when you read the part which says there are only a few analytics platforms capable of measuring all these metrics. Typically the premium on-demand packages like Omniture Discover. The whitepaper is full of interesting interpretations of standard readily available metrics. It also does an excellent job of listing the pitfalls of these standard metrics and will help any understand the true meaning of these metrics. Let me know what you think.