Benefits of virtual report suites
Customers pay for secondary server calls, so eliminating these calls can result in significant savings. A virtual report suite is also completely retroactive. If the global report suite already contains data, the relevant data is automatically included in a new virtual report suite. A new secondary report suite would only begin collecting data after it is created, so it would not include any historical data. When you implement Analytics, you only need to send data to one report suite, rather than having to create implementations for the global report suite and each secondary report suite.
Virtual report suites help:
- Simplify implementation by allowing you to use a single Report Suite ID (RSID) across all sites/domains. Having all data in a single report suite enables customer analytics as we move toward the next generation of Adobe Analytics.
- Business users in your organization always see only the data segments that are relevant to them.
- Improve security by allowing Admin users to control data access more easily and more granularly after implementation.
- People metric
- A single-customer view of data (in the future)
- The ability to create unlimited virtual report suites to segment out data
Limitations of virtual report suites
Virtual report suites have the following limitations:
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Any limitations of segments also apply to virtual report suites
A virtual report suite is nothing more than a segment applied to a report suite. Because each report suite has its own Data Warehouse and its own Data Feed, using multiple report suites results in some benefits that segments do not provide.
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Real-time report
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Settings and variable names cannot be customized like in a full report suite
Virtual report suites vs. multi-suite tagging
Capability | Virtual report suite | Multi-suite tagging |
---|---|---|
Offers real-time or “Current Data” reporting | No | Yes |
Works in all Analytics Tools (Analysis Workspace, Report Builder, etc.) |
Yes. Note: You can edit and identify them as virtual report suites only in Analytics > Components
Important: Virtual report suites with report time processing and variable customization are not currently supported in Adobe Report Builder. | Yes |
Can upload data to it (via classifications, data feeds, etc.) | No | Yes |
Supports creation of DL Reports, bookmarks, dashboards, targets, alerts, segments, calculated metrics… | Yes | Yes |
Can be individually added to Permissions Groups | Yes | Yes |
Can use Admin functions to modify individual settings on this report suite (Admin > Report Suites) | No (Settings are inherited from parent) | Yes |
Combine virtual report suites and multi-suite Tagging
In some cases, there are benefits to using both virtual report suites and multi-suite tagging.
For example, a retailer might use a report suite for each brand, and virtual report suites for each brand to break data out by region. Similarly, an athletic organization might use a report suite for each team, then virtual report suites to divide fans in the team’s region from those outside the region.