15 for 15: Data Warehouse Improvements

SiteCatalyst 15 brings with it several exciting changes for Data Warehouse customers. Many of these changes were suggested by customers on the Idea Exchange, so I am very pleased today to share with you some details about these data warehouse improvements.

Duplicate a previous request

In the past there has been no easy way to reuse an existing data warehouse request as the basis for a new report. That makes duplicating data warehouse requests time consuming and prone to mistakes. No more! With SiteCatalyst 15 you can duplicate any data warehouse request by clicking a link in the Data Warehouse Request Manager:

Clicking this link will build a duplicate data warehouse request which you can then modify as necessary and resubmit, thus saving you time and making life easier. Cool, eh?

Improved status information

Have you ever submitted a Data Warehouse request, waited for a while, and then wondered just how far along the request has progressed and how much longer it might take? With SiteCatalyst 15 we have improved Data Warehouse status messaging by including information that helps you answer these questions. In the Request Manager, click on the Report Name for any data warehouse request. If the report is currently processing you’ll see something like this in the popup window:

If the report date range covers 30 days and Data Warehouse is currently processing day #2, you know the job is just beginning. If the status says you are on day #15, you know the processing is about halfway done.

New dimensions and metrics

Data Warehouse now supports a several new dimensions (a.k.a. breakdowns) and metrics:

• Test&Target. Customers who have implemented the Test&Target integration to SiteCatalyst can now pull campaign and recipe reports via Data Warehouse, and create segments based on campaign and recipe.

• Survey. Customers who have implemented the Survey integration to SiteCatalyst can now pull survey, question, and response reports via Data Warehouse, and create segments based on these breakdowns.

• List variables. Data Warehouse now supports reporting and segmentation based on the new SiteCatalyst 15 List Variables.

• “Visits - All Visitors” metric. Data Warehouse now supports two Visits metrics: “Visits” and “Visits - All Visitors.” “Visits” is the legacy version and, like SiteCatalyst 14, excludes visitors who reject cookies. “Visits - All Visitors” is a new metric which matches SiteCatalyst 15 and Discover business rules and includes visitors who reject cookies. Yes, you can have it both ways.

“Same-As-SiteCatalyst” VISTA processing

In the past, VISTA has been applied to SiteCatalyst reports in a slightly different manner than Data Warehouse reports. With SiteCatalyst (all versions), VISTA rules are applied to data real-time as data is being processed. With Data Warehouse though, VISTA rules are (generally) applied at report run time rather than at data collection time. (There are nuances I won’t bore you with now, but for the most part VISTA is applied to Data Warehouse at the time you run the report.) The end result is normally the same, but processing VISTA at report run time introduces a few issues as described below.

Starting with SiteCatalyst 15, Data Warehouse works a different way. VISTA is applied to Data Warehouse data at data processing time just like SiteCatalyst. We gave this functionality a fancy name: “Same-as-SiteCatalyst” VISTA processing. ;) Think of it as having VISTA rules “baked into” the data before you run reports, rather than being applied to the data later.

So why should you care? Three reasons:

• Report speed. Data Warehouse reports using VISTA will run much faster.
• Better data consistency between SiteCatalyst and Data Warehouse. Same-as-SiteCatalyst VISTA processing helps ensure VISTA is applied in exactly the same way in both SiteCatalyst and Data Warehouse.
• SiteCatalyst 15 Processing Rules. It is important to note that SiteCatalyst 15 Processing Rules, like VISTA, are applied to SiteCatalyst and Data Warehouse data at data processing time. This ensures all VISTA and Processing Rules are reflected properly in your reports.

Conclusion

Well, that’s it. These are the improvements we have made to Data Warehouse with SiteCatalyst 15. I hope you find this information useful. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave a note in the Comment box below. And thanks, as always, for sharing your ideas on the Ideas Exchange.

• Matt Freestone
• 0 responses
•  Web Analytics

• Share on   Digg Reddit Facebook MySpace StumbleUpon Propeller Slashdot Newsvine ma.gnolia
• Bookmark at   del.icio.us Technorati Google Bookmarks Yahoo Bookmarks Yahoo! My Web Windows Live Furl