Adobe Analytics

nickh86417692 · 3/30/18

There are two use cases for VRS component customization:

1: Specifying a smaller set of core components to be available in a VRS (auto-exclude anything new)
2: Removing specific components that might not be applicable to a VRS (but wanting everything else included)

By default, any new component created in the parent report suite is placed in the Exclude bucket, this works great for use case #1, but for use case is #2, we constantly have to be going into the VRS settings to move new components from "Exclude" to "Include".

It would be awesome if there were a toggle in the VRS settings to auto include, or auto exclude newly created components.

Jennifer_Kunz · 1/17/19

Yes, this is a really big issue for anyone using a Virtual Report Suite to "curate" their components. If I create a new segment, not only do I need to do the standard sharing to make it accessible to my peers, I have to also go into the VRS editor and make sure that segment is on the "include" side. It seems I have to do this even if I DON'T want to share that segment and just use it myself within the VRS.

jen_lasser · 1/17/19

Hey Jenn! When you create a segment or calculated metric within a Workspace project based on a VRS, you should get a pop-up like the following after you click 'save' in the builder. You would just check the box to include the new component in the VRS moving forward. Does this meet your needs?

VRS Add Component.jpg

nickh86417692 · 1/17/19

Hi Jen,

The problem we've run into at our company is that we probably add 5-10 events per week, maybe a variable or two, and some classifications. And then we have 6 or so VRS that we actively use.

We have two VRS that are used very often, which have just slight differences between them. When I create a calculated metric or segment for one, I want it to show up in all 6 VRS. So between having to add all new segments and calculated metrics to all the other VRS, and then having to go through all 6 VRS any time we add a new event, eVar, classification, etc... it was adding a lot of maintenance that could be easily fixed by the toggle in this idea.

It was enough of a pain that we've decided not to use this feature for now (customization of VRS components). Which is a real bummer, seeing that we classify our marketing channel detail variable, and now there are 3 versions of each of those classifications floating around, and once they've been dragged into a report, they're indistinguishable from each other. We would really have liked to use the renaming functionality so that each of these classifications could have a different name (indicating first, last, or multi attribution).

So this "component may not appear" pop-up is a nice first attempt, but ultimately not helpful enough to enable us to use the VRS features that we would love to be using.

Andrew_Wathen_ · 1/18/19

Hi jen.lasser

We have also been forced to abandon the use of curated VRS due to the way the curation affects user created components (i.e. calculated metrics & Segments).

This is really frustrating as VRS curation should be a really powerful feature, but at the moment it is of no use to us.

My strong preference would be for VRS curation not to include curation of user created components as there are already other methods which are more flexible and appropriate for managing these components (e.g. workspace curation, sharing, user permissions)

Always happy to provide more information of use cases that it's causing problems with etc. if you are interested

Really hope Adobe revisits this one!

Jennifer_Kunz · 1/18/19

Thanks for looking into this and responding, Jen!

That "component may not appear" message does help a bit, though the messaging is a bit weird (something more along the lines of "would you like to include this component in the VRS? Yes/No" would be much clearer, and if I'm in a VRS it should default to "included", since the assumption is I created the thing because I want to use it here) but I still feel like for bigger orgs particularly, it's going to be a mess to maintain.

jen_lasser · 1/21/19

Ok thank you guys for providing this added info! I will pass this along to my colleagues focused on VRS so they can take it into consideration for the next iteration of VRS curation.

Jennifer_Kunz · 2/4/19

Note this is related to/a duplicate of Have components addition in Virtual Report Suites be "exclude only" .

Jennifer_Kunz · 2/4/19

jen.lasser Alas, I have some followup- I'm doing a training on Wednesday and have given a training account the same sorts of access/rights that my users will have, so we see the same things. And now I see that without fuller rights to Virtual Report Suite admin, I don't even GET the "add new component" tick box-

This is what our users-in-training will all see when I have them create a new calculated metric. It's icky enough, I'm going to give up on using the VRS for now:(

Andrew_Wathen_ · 2/5/19

Sorry to hear you are still struggling. I sympathize greatly as we've had to abandon the use VRS curation until Adobe sorts this out :-(

The confusion and impact on our end users was similar to what you appear to be experiencing.

I still come back the fact that I don't really understand why Adobe have included user created components (i.e. segments/calculated metrics) in VRS curation.

There are so many other better ways to manage access to segments/calculated metrics such as sharing, and workspace curation.