Step 2: Choose your upgrade path

At this point in the upgrade process, you need to perform various tasks before your Customer Journey Analytics environment is ready to use.

These additional tasks apply to upgrades from Adobe Analytics as well as new Customer Journey Analytics implementations.

These tasks include:

• Bringing other data into Experience Platform
• Creating connections between Platform datasets and Customer Journey Analytics
• Creating data views
• Porting the reporting API usage
• Accounting for Data Feeds and Data Warehouse
• Migrating projects and components
• Planning user onboarding

For more information, see Customer Journey Analytics Getting Started.

• Provides all the advantages of hosting data in Experience Edge Network:

  These advantages include:

  • Highly performant reporting and data availability because Adobe Experience Platform is built to power real-time personalization use cases
  • Consolidate implementation for Adobe Experience Cloud data collection between other Experience Cloud products (AJO, RTCDP, and so forth)
  • Not reliant on Adobe Analytics nomenclature (prop, eVar, event, and so forth)

• Future-proof: Future implementation updates are easier.

• Requires a new implementation from scratch: The requirement to do a new implementation from scratch means the following disadvantages:
• • Time consuming: This is the most time-consuming and demanding upgrade path because it requires that you start over with a new implementation.
  • Must re-create the full schema in XDM: Before you can start implementing the Web SDK, you have to re-create the full schema in XDM.
  • Must re-create rules and data elements: Before you can start implementing the Web SDK, you have to re-create any rule conditions and data elements from your Adobe Analytics implementation. Does not account for retaining historical data: Adobe recommends using the Analytics source connector in conjunction with a new implementation of the Experience Platform Web SDK in order to retain historical data after upgrading to Customer Journey Analytics.
• Does not account for comparing data from your original implementation with that of your new implementation: Adobe recommends using the Analytics source connector in conjunction with a new implementation of the Experience Platform Web SDK in order to compare data after upgrading to Customer Journey Analytics.

• Provides all the advantages of hosting data in Experience Edge Network:

  These advantages include:

  • Highly performant reporting and data availability because Adobe Experience Platform is built to power real-time personalization use cases
  • Consolidate implementation for Adobe Experience Cloud data collection between other Experience Cloud products (AJO, RTCDP, and so forth)
  • Not reliant on Adobe Analytics nomenclature (prop, eVar, event, and so forth)

• Uses your existing implementation: While this approach requires some implementation changes, it does not require a completely new implementation from scratch. You can use your existing data layer and code with minimal changes to implementation logic without impacting your existing Adobe Analytics reporting.

• Provides flexibility to create an XDM schema for your organization at a later time: You can migrate your existing Adobe Analytics implementation to use the Web SDK and validate that everything is working in Adobe Analytics, then create the XDM schema. This flexibility allows for a more methodical and thoughtful upgrade to Customer Journey Analytics.

• Requires mapping to send data to Platform: When your organization is ready to use Customer Journey Analytics, you must send data to a data set in Adobe Experience Platform. This action requires that every field in the data object be an entry in the datastream mapping tool that assigns it to an XDM schema field. Mapping only needs to be done once for this workflow, and it doesn’t involve making implementation changes. However, it is an extra step that is not required when sending data in an XDM object.
• Technical debt: Because this approach uses a modified form of your existing implementation, it can be harder to track implementation logic and perform changes in the future when needed.

• Least time-consuming and demanding upgrade path.

  Data is migrated to Customer Journey Analytics quickly with minimal investment

• Data is not sent to Edge Network:

  This results in the following disadvantages:

  • Highest level of latency in reporting across all upgrade paths; not optimized for real-time personalization use cases.
  • Data cannot be shared with other Adobe Experience Platform applications; it is constrained to Customer Journey Analytics only
  • Reliant on Adobe Analytics nomenclature (prop, eVar, event, and so forth)

• Difficult to move to the Web SDK in the future: Eventually, you will likely want access to the advantages provided by the Experience Platform Web SDK. In order to start using the Experience Platform Web SDK, you must do a new implementation.

• Uses the Analytics Experience Event field group in your schema: This field group adds many Adobe Analytics events that are not needed in your Customer Journey Analytics schema. This can lead to a more cluttered, complex schema than what is otherwise needed for Customer Journey Analytics.

Because of these disadvantages, Adobe recommends using the Analytics source connector in conjunction with a new implementation of the Experience Platform Web SDK.

This is the preferred upgrade path if your Adobe Analytics implementation is already using the Web SDK.

• Provides all the advantages of hosting data in Experience Edge Network:

  These advantages include:

  • Highly performant reporting and data availability because Adobe Experience Platform is built to power real-time personalization use cases
  • Consolidate implementation for Adobe Experience Cloud data collection between other Experience Cloud products (AJO, RTCDP, and so forth)
  • Not reliant on Adobe Analytics nomenclature (prop, eVar, event, and so forth)

• Uses your existing implementation: While this approach requires some implementation changes, it does not require a completely new implementation from scratch. You can use your existing data layer and code with minimal changes to implementation logic without impacting your existing Adobe Analytics reporting.

• Provides an option to use an XDM schema: You can choose to use your existing Adobe Analytics schema or create an XDM schema and map fields in the data object to your XDM schema. XDM schemas are a flexible schema to define any fields you need, and only those fields that are relevant.

  See “Using your own XDM schema” below for more information about the advantages of using your own XDM schema.

• Retains rules and data elements: While it does require new rule actions, you can reuse your existing data elements and rule conditions with minimal changes.

• Future-proof: If you choose to use your own XDM schema, then future implementation updates are easier.

Advantages of using the Adobe Analytics schema include:

• Ease of upgrade

  If you are already sending data to Adobe Analytics with the Adobe Experience Platform Web SDK, you can add an additional service to your datastream to send data to Adobe Experience Platform (which then can be used in your Customer Journey Analytics configuration).

Disadvantages of using the Adobe Analytics schema include:

• While using the Adobe Analytics schema doesn’t limit you in terms of how it can be used with other Platform applications, it does result in a schema that is more complex than it otherwise could be. This is because the Adobe Analytics schema contains many objects that are specific to Adobe Analytics that are unlikely to be used by your organization.

  When changes to the schema are required, you have to sift through thousands of unused fields to find the field that requires updating.

• Advantages of updating to your own XDM schema include:

  • A streamlined schema that is tailored to the needs of your organization and the specific Platform applications that you use.

    When changes to the schema are required, you don’t have to sift through thousands of unused fields to find the field that requires updating.

Disadvantages of updating to your own XDM schema include:

• Updating your schema is a time-consuming process that is required before you begin sending data to Platform.