Earlier last year the SearchCenter integration was the issue, but that’s been fully resolved now as far as I know, so, barring a volume challenge, I would have thought you’d be able to get onto the upgrade list. Have you talked to your account manager to find out when you’re scheduled?

Essentially, my point was that we’ve prepared for the migration, we’re ready to go from an Organisational standpoint, we worked with our AM, been through the migration docs as linked to (and more), but didn’t meet the criteria, despite having spent the last 6+ months beta testing our data, on multiple report suites, in SC15…we know that bit all works. So, if we can de-couple SearchCenter+ from within our SiteCatalyst data (i.e. don’t send the data into SiteCat, just use SearchCenter for reporting on it – not ideal, but it gets us into SC15), then thats something that we’d happily look at.

So, need to have another DM session with Cameron (product manager of SearchCenter+)…Cam you around?

I know it’s a huge change for all, and certainly there are lots of reasons for many companies not to choose to migrate yet – but I think that should be their choice, not an imposed restriction on them.

Thanks for coming back so quickly though.
Tim

Thank you for your comments here. We understand and certainly appreciate the excitement around SIteCatalyst 15 and the desire to upgrade immediately, or as soon as possible. I hope we’ve made it clear between CAB meetings, beta phone calls, and other communications that we want to facilitate this request. There are a variety of reasons why our customers are upgrading to SiteCatalyst 15 over a period of time; I’m not sure whether you’ve seen Bret Gundersen’s recent blog post on the upgrade process, located at http://blogs.omniture.com/2011/04/12/15-for-15-how-to-upgrade, but it discusses this process and the reasons behind it.

You make a good point about rewarding customers who have been involved with SiteCatalyst for a number of years. In working with CAB members and beta testers, we found that, in fact, many of these longer-term users needed more time to prepare their organizations — sometimes hundreds of users — for this upgrade. Internal trainings are part of that, but there are other recommended steps that your Account Manager will discuss with you. To be clear, everyone will have the opportunity to upgrade; we need to ensure that this happens at the right time for each organization. We want to help you get there as soon as humanly possible.

To your point about SearchCenter+, be aware that our recommendation relative to upgrading if you are using that product is extremely temporary and your Account Manager should be aware of this fact. At this point, I would not consider SearchCenter+ usage a long-term barrier to upgrade. You can begin to prepare now and choose an upgrade date in the relatively near future, even if you are using SearchCenter+.

I apologize if this process hasn’t been explained clearly enough, or if it appears that we are giving you or other long-term SiteCatalyst users the shaft. That certainly isn’t the intent, and in fact we believe that the upgrade partnership between you and your team on the Adobe side will produce the best possible experience for the largest number of users. We continue to appreciate your input and your passion for analytics and the Adobe Online Marketing Suite. You know where to find me if you’d like to discuss this more offline.

Thanks,
Ben Gaines
Product Manager
Adobe Systems, Inc.

I think that this problem will truly manifest itself as the CAB and beta programs move forward if there continue to be members that can no longer contribute in practice because they are stuck on SiteCatalyst 14 while others have been migrated to 15. Another interesting thing will be to see how next year’s Summit works if a significant number of attendees are still on SiteCatalyst 14 while the Summit continues to move forward, being focused on SiteCatalyst 15 features and newer technology.

One thing they could do right away is to give power users like us a free account for our personal use, to allow us to experiment with SC15 at least. It’s actually something I’ve been meaning to suggest on Ideas anyway, so we’ve got somewhere we can try wild ideas without the corporate overhead of getting things approved, rigorously tested etc etc.