The 'How to Guide' to Adobe Analytics

[JordanB]

The ‘How to Guide’ To Adobe Analytics

Through Adobe Analytics the ability to collect and visualize data from your websites has allowed for improved decision making, yet the format of that data can only take you so far. Within Alteryx you now have the ability to connect to Adobe Analytics and bring that data into Alteryx, allowing you to perform greater data manipulation to provide further insights, as well as Predictive & Spatial Analytics! 

There are just a few things you need in order to use the Adobe Analytics connector:

• Adobe Analytics Account (user or developer)

• This tool is not automatically downloaded with the designer, please download it from the Alteryx Analytics Gallery.

Step 1: Download the Connector

• Please download from the Alteryx Analytics Gallery
• The downloads are now performed through an YXI file
• Click Run

• This will take you to the screen below and then you can press the Appropriate download for your Alteryx Designer version.

 

• If you press the ‘Adobe Analytics Install’ it will download the installer from your web browser, hit ‘open’ and it will open a slash screen in Alteryx Designer.

• Once you hit OK you have downloaded and installed the connector, and it ca be found in the connectors parent category.

Step 2: Sign In

• When you drag the connector into the canvas this will update the configuration window to show the ‘User’ and ‘Developer’ Login.
• User Login will prompt a pop out window

User Login

• The User login will last for 30 Days or any time a new instance of the tool is added.
• The User login requires web services access which is granted by your adobe administrator.
• To gain single-sign you will need to link your adobe analytics account to your Adobe ID.
• If you wish to link your accounts please go to marketing.adobe.com and log in with your Adobe ID (Adobe Admin will be needed).
• You then need to click on the grid icon in the top right hand side and click on the Analytics logo.

• You then need to go to Admin>>>User Management

• Within this page you can select the ‘users’ button and edit user login permissions.

Developer Login

• The Developer login is recommended for when you are using the connector in a scheduled workflow or adding workflows to the Gallery.

• To create a developer login you will need to create an application on the Adobe Developer Page using your Adobe Analytics account

• When logged into the create an application page you need to select ‘Developer Tools’ tab in the navigation bar on the left hand side.

• When in the developer tools page, please click on the ‘Applications’ tab in the left hand side navigation window.

• When inside the Application page you can add the application.

• You want to keep the drop down as ‘Client Credentials’ and name you’re Application, company and scope to whatever you see fit.

• This will then provide you with the Application (Client) ID and Secret which you will need in the developer Login screen.

Step 3: Configuration

• After logging in the configuration will update and allow you to choose the Report Suite.

Report Suite

• The Report Suite which will populate are those available in the drop down on the right hand side of Adobe Analytics webpage.

 Date Range & Granularity

• Select your date range & Granularity.
• The default start date will be todays date.
• Due to specific system requirements, the minimum date that can be used in the date, dateFrom, and dateTo parameters is 2000-01-01, and the maximum date is 2899-12-31.
• The time units used to display data in a report that organizes the data by date.

  

Metric

• The metrics available are those specified under site metrics in Adobe Analytics. They can be used to tailor your report to return the metrics which you want.
• Select up to 5 metrics

Element (1, 2, 3)

• The elements have three different level. Element 1 is used to breakdown the metric, whereas Element 2 is used to break down Element 1 and Element 3 is used to break down Element 1 & 2.
• For example, you can generate a report for page view (metric) by the Web browsers (element) used to access the page. The resulting report lists page views by Web browser type. As part of the report definition, you can specify the elements to include in the report as a parameter, using the tns:reportDefinitionElementList data type (Referenced from Adobe) 
• You can also use the advanced options to choose a specific classification, record limit and starting value. 

Segments

• Segments are optional, but you can only choose a maximum of two. Only valid combinations of segments can be used.

Step 4: Run the connector

• You have now configured the connector and can run the workflow!

Tips and Tricks

All report suites do not offer all elements. Use ReportSuite.GetAvailableElements (in the Administration API) to get a list of Element IDs available in a particular report suite.

Social elements are available only if Social is enabled.

Video elements are available only if v15 video measurement is configured in Admin Console.

Mobile elements are available only if mobile application reporting is enabled in Admin Console.

Factors affecting report generation time please see API best practices

Common Issues

"As the connector auto-populates based on your log in credentials you should not receive any errors related to Adobe."

• However, if you do they are referenced here.

If you have any issues please reach out to Alteryx Support

Best,

Jordan Barker

Solutions Consultant, Alteryx Inc. 

[bryanbumgardner]

This tool is great! I'm having some problems though.

The "Metrics" field under "Report Breakdown" isn't showing all the metrics that I can see through my Adobe Analytics UI. Is there a reason I wouldn't be able to see it?

I have no problems creating my entire report in Report Builder for Excel, but we're trying to automate this process. 

thanks.

-Bryan 

[APolly]

@bryanbumgardnerSorry to hear you've had issue with the current Adobe Analytics tool. We are in the process of developing a new Adobe Analytics tool and believe your issue will be resolved by the new release of the connector. That said, we are expecting a delivery of late-March or early-April for the new connector.

Please reach out with any further questions/concerns.

Alex Polly

[timsmith]

Will the new Adobe Analytics tool have the ability to pull metrics by segment?  I have a number of segments we used to pull data from Adobe Analytics so that is a critical need for us.

In addition, it would be great if the End time could be set to yesterday or today.

Tim

[joeantwi]

Hello,

thanks for the tutorial, I'm trying to add a filter to return only specific page names that contains "WEB" for example. Is there a way to pass this filter in the tool? 

-Joseph

[JordanB]

Hi  @joeantwi

Unfortunately the tool cannot be opened nor values past into the interface due the html front end. I would suggest adding a filter after the adobe analytics tool to reduce your dataset.

Best,

Jordan

[JordanB]

Hi @timsmith

Feel free to post this onto the ideas section for the developers to consider in the next iteration of the tool.

Best,

Jordan

[joeantwi]

@JordanB

Thank you for replying, i'm trying to get data for two months and it takes forever to return results, i thought adding filter will hep but i guess that's not available...

[JordanB]

HI @joeantwi

Check out the latest version of the adobe analytics tool above. This now has a more custom date range filter you can use.

[Gsandoval]

Hi,

@jordanB

My Adobe log in page ask for Company, user name and pwd.

On the Tool I only get ether user name an pwd or user name and secret ID.

Nether combination allows me to log in.

[jamesus]

Hello,

Currently using V2 of the connector.

I have a use case that requires 4 Elements (Visit Number > Device > Traffic Driver > Offer). Given the cascading nature of Elements, is there a way to incorporate an additional Element into the connector? If not, how would I incorporate the 4th Element (in my case mentioned above the Offer Element)?

Thanks,

James

[JordanB]

Hi @jamesus

You can find the inside of the adobe analytics engine macro here C:\Users\%Username%\AppData\Roaming\Alteryx\Tools\AdobeAnalytics\Supporting_Macros

I would suggest taking a look at the adobe reporting API documentation to see if an additional 4th element can be added. If so, this is where it can be added.

You could then re save the macro, however because this is a html front end there would need to be additional work to add this element into the interface. 

Alternatively, you could just run the workflow as it is rather than inserting as a tool on the canvas.

Best,

Jordan

[LukeAhn]

Does this connector still work?  I tried installing this, but it does not open up the 'Tool Installer' option.  Rather, it opens up a zipped file. 

[JordanB]

Hi @LukeAhn

Yes I've just tested it and it works. You should be getting a .yxi file

Please try this link: http://downloads.alteryx.com/Tools/AdobeAnalytics_v2.yxi

Best,

Jordan

[LukeAhn]

Thanks @JordonB !  I had to open up the URL directly.  Think it was something on my end. 

[george_allen]

I have a colleague who's tried the install of the connector, as have I, but we're having different results.  When my colleague attempts the install, she encounters a brief "splash screen", followed by this "empty" dialog where all that seems possible is to dismiss:

The tool installer seems to "hang" here -- any idea what the problem may be? There's a quick "splash" screen, then this empty dialog with just the apparent option to "x" out.

[JordanB]

Hi @george_allen

What version of Alteryx do you have?

Best,

Jordan

[george_allen]

11.7

[ChrisWragge]

Hey Jordan,

I have a use case I was hoping you could help with. I have around 20 report suites that I need to pull the same data out of (metrics, dimensions, same segments). I know i could run these extractions all separately and then Union the results, however I was hoping to do this via a macro that just changed the report suite name. That way if I edited the workflow I would not have to repeat this process in 20 places.

Is there a relative easy way to do this?

Thanks,

Chris

[ChrisWragge]

And followup question - has anyone had success in adding additional metrics to the tool? I know the limit is 5, but i need about 15 for my reports which means x3 connectors across multiple report suites meaning the workflow takes about an hour to run...

[IanCo]

Anyone had experience of using a lower level of granularity than hour? If so, how did you do it?

[fefinotto]

Anyone tried to login via the Developer option now? Adobe changed its API details in Adobe IO and it seems that it doesn't work. Even if I create an OAuth Integration or a Service Integration, I'm always getting this message below:

[ninasun]

I installed the tool, logged in, configured the report, but am getting errors after many tries: tool#43 and tool#51.

My alteryx is version 2018.3. The tool version is AdobeAnalytics_v2.0.1.yxi

Can anyone tell me what I'm not doing right? Thanks for your help!