Monday, June 9, 2008

HBX to SiteCatalyst Migration: Common Considerations

In January of 2008 Omniture completed one of the largest web analytics acquisitions through the purchase of Visual Sciences giving HBX customers the opportunity to migrate to Omniture SiteCatalyst. Since then we have received a lot of inquiries from online marketers for an objective assessment as to whether they should move to SiteCatalyst.

1. HBX customers should begin planning for the move. The product road map for HBX looks very thin.

2. There is no such thing as an “Upgrade” from HBX to SiteCatalyst. The two architectures are fundamentally different and automating a conversion is impractical. Therefore, if you do choose to switch, expect to re-tag pages and undergo a SiteCatalyst implementation from square one.

3. No parallel periods. Once you cutover from HBX you’ll be in the new world of SiteCatalyst. You’ll still have your historical data, but you’ll need reference historical data by hopping between the two systems.

4. On a technical note, SiteCatalyst offers the ability to use standard naming conventions for page views while HBX does not. For sites that are content rich, this was a major drawback in the HBX solution.

5. Check out your Genesis partners ahead of time. The Genesis solutions are generally developed directly between the providing company and Omniture and you should generally have little need to customize the bridge. However, keep in mind that the solution purchased from the partner may need to undergo an implementation that is different than your current HBX install.

6. Using SAINT, or 3rd party integration tools with Omniture may simplify the import of external data sources such as data with Call Centers, IVRs, Customer Relationship Management systems (CRM), In-Store Kiosks, and Point of Sale (POS) data. The biggest challenge here is ensuring that each definition of the field/column is consistent across all systems.

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