Protecting Your Adobe Analytics Implementation from Start to End

Part of every implementation requires multiple environments, load order rules, data collection processing and User Acceptance Testing (UAT). Unfortunately, there currently isn’t a solution in the market that can unify all these moving pieces due to the complex nature of data collection but I have a list of tools that can make your life easier and concise free when it comes to auditing your Adobe Analytics, formally known as SiteCatalyst or Omniture, and Adobe Dynamical Tag Management (DTM) implementations and future releases.
Most of today’s savvy digital analytics marketers are already either using a tag management system or started migrating their legacy clickstream hard code implementation to a TMS approach. To successfully audit your Adobe Analytics implementation, you must first understand the full process of data collection for your specific implementation. For the purpose of this post, our use case will be focus on auditing our Adobe Analytics and DTM implementation.
DTM Process
Potential Issues:
A data element (Cookie, URL Parameter, Custom Script, CSS Selector, or JS Object) that is mapped to a tool such as Adobe Analytics can return empty if the wrong load rule was selected.

Source: https://marketing.adobe.com/resources/help/en_US/reference/processing_rule_order.html
Solution: Disruptive Advertising’s Adobe DTM Debugger
Description: Easily view your Processing Rule Sets and Processing Order.
Pricing: Free
Link: http://www.disruptiveadvertising.com/analytics/introducing-the-adobe-dtm-debugger/
Adobe Analytics Process
Potential Issues:
If the selected Dimensions (Custom Values, Context Data, Traffic Variables, Hit Attributes, Conversion Variables, Success Events) uses an incorrect conditional logic statement, your data collection could cause major ramifications such as overwriting variables and incorrect mapping.

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Source: https://marketing.adobe.com/resources/help/en_US/reference/processing_rule_order.html
Solution: Stratigent’s Adobe Analytics SMART Bookmarklet
Description: Easily view your Processing Rule Sets and Processing Order.
Pricing: There are two pricing models for the application:

1. Current version, no updates:  $5,000 for unlimited use, one-time fee
2. Current version, plus any future updates to it:  $10,000 for unlimited use, one-time fee

Link: http://www.stratigent.com/our-solutions/partner-specific-solutions/adobe-analytics-smart-bookmarklet
Other Considerations:
Adobe DTM Switch: Adobe self-owned plugin extension that allows you to toggle the debug mode and staging mode for Adobe Dynamic Tag Management.
Web Analytics Solution Profiler (WASP): Digital Analytics quality assurance auditing tool created by Cardinal Path that allows you to visualize what and where tags are firing.

ObservePoint Tag Debugger: Creates a new tab in the developer tools to enable quick finding and detailed viewing of analytics tags and other technologies on the current page.

There are a number of digital data collection auditing options available from web packet sniffers, browser plugins, console add-ons and QA tools, but these solutions were selected for 2 reasons, which are 1) Adobe centric and 2) User Friendly. These solutions should help get you started and up and running with safe guarding your Adobe Analytics implementation.