Marathon

Multi-Suite Comparison Tool

V2.05, May 2017

1 | Marathon Tool Guide

Contents

2 | Marathon Tool Guide

Using the Comparison Tool
The Marathon Tool (formerly the Multi-Suite Comparison Tool) can be used to:

 Compare eVars, list variables, props, and events settings across up to 2000 report suites.
 It can also be used to compare administrative settings across a login company's report suites.
 Retrieve historical visit data for the past 13 months at the report suite level.
 Compare indiviual variable values across suites.

Report Suites Tab

The Report Sheets tab lists all report suite IDs and report suite names in a given login company, for up to 2,000
suites. It can be populated at any time by clicking the "Get Report Suites" button on the Instructions worksheet.

You can explicitly choose which report suites to include in a comparison by setting the value in the "Include" to
either "TRUE" to have a report suite included in the comparison, or "FALSE" if it should be excluded. All suites are
included by default. There is also the added ability to toggle between selecting/deselecting all suites at once.

Report suite visit history, aggregated at the monthly level for the last 13 months, can be retrieved by checking the
“Include Visits” checkbox on the Instructions sheet.

Multi-Suite Variables & Events Tab

Every individual variable & metric setting in the selected report suites will be listed within this tab. Note that this
also compares to see if the values are the same in all suites, with specifically formatted text in the variable & event
name column (column A).

Each eVar and traffic variable setting is hyperlinked in the leftmost column. Clicking on any of those links will
generate a comparision of those variable top 100 values across all of the selected report suites for the last 30 days
on the Temporary Variable Comparison tab.

Multi-Suite Admin Settings Tab

Several high-level report suite settings can be compared within this tab. Like the variables & events tab, this also
compares to see if the values are the same in all suites.

Legend
This tab can be used to customize the background colors and text indicators for variabbles & events comparison.
Background colors are used to indicate whether variables are enabled or disabled. If eVars are not labeled as
[COUNT], they are assumed to be [TEXT]

PLEASE NOTE: Do not modify rows or columns anywhere in the report. Simply filter and unfilter.

3 | Marathon Tool Guide

Running the Marathon
Update Time

Update time per report suite is approximately one minute per ten report suites. A popup notification will be
displayed when the comparison update is complete.

Update Steps
1. Retrieve your Adobe Analytics username and a Web Services (shared secret) password from Admin User
Management.

2. Fill in the yellow cells on the instructions tab with the applicable information for your company.

3. The first time you run the comparison, or any subsequent time after report suites have been added, you will
need to retreive your login company report suites.
4. On the Report Suites worksheet you can indicate which suites should be included in the comparison by setting
the true/false include flag after your suites have been retreived.
5. To compare your variables & metrics and administrative settings, click "Generate Comparison".

4 | Marathon Tool Guide

System Requirements
 The tool can be run on Windows machines and Macs that run VMWare Fusion.
 The tool needs to be run with Excel 2010 (32-bit or 64-bit) or later in order to have the correct VBA
libraries. The Health dashboard will run a check to make sure these libraries are present. If they are not
present, the libraries will be added automatically.

- VBA Libraries needed -

5 | Marathon Tool Guide

Resources
This tool was created and is maintained by Adobe Consulting.

Please reach out to your primary Adobe Analytics consultant if you have any issues with the tool, questions, or
suggestions for future releases.

6 | Marathon Tool Guide