Omniture Excel Client – How to Deal with Bugs

The Omniture Excel Client Tool is indispensable for reporting purposes.  It is also as sensitive as Middle East politics.  I have very little idea of how it technically works, but over the years I’ve found some practices which help make the tool more reliable. 

First, how do you know the tool is broken?  Here are some things I’ve seen:

1)      Data Blocks return all “0’s” where last week there was real data.

2)      Line-items you’ve defined come up now as “Undefined” or “Unspecified”.

3)      Instead of the data-block, you get an Excel version of the Omniture Login screen.

4)      Your date-range is nonsensical (such as dates in the 1990’s).

5)      You get a “No Data Returned” message when you know data should exist.

6)      On “refresh”, the data-block disappears and nothing happens.

7)      The structure of the Data Block changes  (e.g. dates are now left-right instead of top-down)

8)      You get error messages telling you that an Excel-referenced value is missing.

If any of these happens, there’s a bug.  Here are some tips to try to fix it:

1)      Logout, then login again. 

2)      If you’re trying “Refresh All”, go to each worksheet and use “Refresh Worksheet” instead (Refresh All is notoriously unreliable).

3)      Quit Excel and re-enter, opening only the Omniture-fed document (other Excel Documents might be confusing the Excel Client).

4)      Do a “Edit Data Block”, don’t change anything, and refresh the request manually.

5)      Make sure there are no other people logged on as you in either Excel Client or SiteCatalyst (I don’t think this affects SiteCatalyst, but I know it effects Excel Client).

6)      If you’ve renamed the document recently, go back to the earlier version and refresh that one instead (this is a tip for symptom #8 above).

7)      Wait an hour or two, use a different computer, change your IP address, or use a proxy server (I think bugs are specific to different Omniture servers).

To avoid bugs, here are some tips:

1)      Keep all Omniture Data Blocks in one worksheet, with no formatting, and have forward facing, pretty tables in other tabs.

2)      Never insert, delete, or move columns, rows, or cells in the worksheet with SiteCatalyst Data Blocks.

3)      Excel-referenced values should be on the same worksheet as the Data Blocks, and should be kept to a minimum.

4)      Don’t move around in Excel when you’re refreshing a Worksheet.

5)      When designing the Data Blocks, decide whether to have data going top-down or left-right, and keep that consistent.

6)      Use the same login when creating multiple Data Blocks.  Also use the same Excel version (2003 or 2007) when constructing the document.

7)      The tab with the Data Blocks should be called something very simple – no caps, spaces, or strange characters.

If anyone has other tips or tricks, please let me know.  The last thing I ever want to do is call Omniture and open a ticket. 

Comments

[Kailee]

I've experienced a lot of bugs with Site Catalyst Version 14, Discover and also excel client. One of the major problems with excel client (for at least 2 months now) is that when I refresh the data block, some of my metrics would be missing. This obviously is interfering with many of our weekly KPI reports. I have found that sometimes, if you just edit the data block then reinsert it then it will work. Another option is that wait for a day and then login again. This hasn't always worked. Its very inconsistent.

[paul legutko]

Yes we've also seen an increase in buginess in Excel Client -- they pushed an update sometime at the end of May, which has interfered with many reports.

Most of the editing I've done recently on Excel Client data has been done on earlier versions on Excel Client, with old versions of Excel (2000 or 2003). These seem cleaner. To get an older version of Excel Client, login to 13.5 and re-install from that interface.

Good Luck,
Paul

[darryl]

With the Omniture Excel plugin spreadhseet open I cannot toggle (Alt+Tab) between other Excel spreadsheets! Most frustrating especially as this is required to access various data sources at once. Any help welcomed!!

[Robert Barker]

Some added tips with regard to Omniture Excel Client:

Always have the dates externally referenced (from worksheet cells). This allows for easy reproduction of the report for retroactive periods. It also avoids the problem of the Excel client randomly forgetting things like date range, "rolling" and other important facts. In conjunction, I always check the "display filter, row and column headings" box in my Excel client data blocks. This allows me to visually check the appropriate date range is imported, or it is quite simple to create a formula which compare the header dates with those the user input in Excel. I go one step further and use conditional formatting to alert me of problems (cell turns red if dates don't agree).

Also, if you do need to change the date ranges via the Excel client box, it is important to start at the top of the box and reselect all three variables (preset date, rolling-fixed, and granularity). For some reason, if you change only one of these elements and not the others, even the change you attempted will not take hold.

Thanks again!

Bob

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This allows me to visually check the appropriate date range is imported, or it is quite simple to create a formula which compare the header dates with those the user input in Excel.

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Also, if you do need to change the date ranges via the Excel client box, it is important to start at the top of the box and reselect all three variables (preset date, rolling-fixed, and granularity). For some reason, if you change only one of these elements and not the others, even the change you attempted will not take hold.

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Also, if you do need to change the date ranges via the Excel client box, it is important to start at the top of the box and reselect all three variables (preset date, rolling-fixed, and granularity). For some reason, if you change only one of these elements and not the others, even the change you attempted will not take hold.

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Also, if you do need to change the date ranges via the Excel client box, it is important to start at the top of the box and reselect all three variables (preset date, rolling-fixed, and granularity). For some

[Chris Grant]

I'm somewhat relieved that others are having problems with this tool, even 2.5 years from the original post. We get run-time errors all the time, and once we experience one (usually when opening a workbook we have used before or doing Refresh All in a workbook we have used before) we have to regress to an earlier workbook, bring it up to date ... and wait for the inevitable next time it happens, which could be the next day or the next week. We have wasted countless hours doing these regressions. In our opinion, the Excel Client is broken.

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Excel is a great interface and using the Omniture Excel Client is a clever idea for some purposes. Thank you for helping for those bugs anyhow. I'm sure that the use of it will be real easier now :)

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