Adventures in Utah!

This week I had the great fortune to go to Orem Utah for Omniture SiteCatalyst Implementation.   I was excited not only for the training, but also this was my first trip to Utah.   My flight got in well after dark so I did not see the mountains until the next morning, but man is it pretty out there!

I've been busy for the past few months working to integrate Omniture into our web site, and I have made a lot of good progress and I was quite sure that there was still much to learn in the training, however, I was not prepared for how much I still had to learn.

Despite all I had managed to learn on my own, and the resources I had managed to find on the web, there were some basic concepts that had escaped me (and will be rectified):

Core understanding of the 4 types of Omniture variables. (Traffic, Conversion, Configuration, Automatic):
I had a basic grasp on how each of these variables worked, but had not wrapped my head around how each of these variables not only related to other variables of the same type,  but how to properly format and track each one to maximize the detail you can achieve within SiteCatalyst.

Clearly define business goals & requirements before you code
In the process of jumping head first into the coding and figuring out ways to get the data we needed into Omniture, the critical step of getting all the goals defined and updating our Solution Design Document to reflect the goals was skipped.

Have Client Care enable additional features:
Yet another seemingly simple item of having pathing enabled, and adding additional metrics to variables , was missed.

There are a few other small things that I might go into more detail later, but this is as much ignorance on this topic I wish to share at this time.   The major item I am taking away from this training is that no matter how much you think you know, there is always something else to learn.

I would also like to give kudos to the trainers from Omniture!  Our instructor, Doc Cochran, was extremely knowledgeable about SiteCatalyst, and took the time to make sure that any and all of our questions were answered.   He also had a great way of relating each example/item to a real world scenario that all could benefit from.

From this class I have a full list of items to review and address once I am back at work and I am looking forward to applying the new knowledge and getting the full benefit from our investment in Omniture.

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I would also like to thank the other Omniture employees that I was able to meet with to discuss past and future initiatives we are working on.   It was great to be able to sit face to face and talk though some past successes and challenges with these folks.

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Lastly, it was a little on the surreal side to be in Orem when the news broke that Adobe was buying Omniture.  There are been many, many articles written about this and I will throw in my 2/5's of a nickel.   As a ColdFusion developer I have worked with many folks in the Adobe community for some time and have always been impressed with the dedication to innovation that is part of Adobe's culture.   I truly think that this is a great fit and the communities of both products/companies should benefit greatly from this merger.   I am looking forward to seeing how they will be able to tie the technologies together.

I had an absolutely great trip to Utah.  I learned tons, met great people, and soaked in the amazing landscapes!

-Rudi

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