Census

Census is a Reverse ETL platform that makes it easy to connect your data warehouse into sales, marketing, and other customer facing tools that drive your business. Using Census, you can easily copy data from your data warehouse into Blueshift so that your marketing teams can leverage that data to drive action and personalize customer experiences.

Supported Data Warehouses

Using Census you can import data from the following data warehouses into Blueshift:

• Databricks
• Google BigQuery
• Azure Synapse
• AWS Redshift

Note: Census supports out of the box connections with many other sources and you can import data from any of these into Blueshift.

Supported Imports

Using Census you can import the following data into Blueshift:

• Customer data
• Event data (Standard events and Custom events)

Prerequisites

Before you can set up integration with Blueshift, you must complete the following steps:

1. You must have a Census account set up.
2. You must set up a source in Census for the data that you want to import into Blueshift. You can optionally set up a data model as well. See the Census documentation to set up a source.
3. You must generate the Auth token for Census integration in Blueshift.

Generate Blueshift Auth token for Census integration

To generate the Auth token for Census integration, complete the following steps:

1. Go to Account Settings > API keys in Blueshift.
2. Go to Auth token for Census integration and click Generate.
3. Copy the API key and use it in Census to set up integration with Blueshift.

Set up integration in Census

To integrate with Blueshift in the Census platform, complete the following steps:

1. Set up a connection to Blueshift as the destination.
2. Create a Sync in Census to integrate your data warehouse with Blueshift.

Set up a connection to Blueshift as the destination

To set up a connection to Blueshift in Census, complete the following steps:

1. Log in to Census and go to your workspace.
2. Go to Connect > Destinations and click +New Destination.
3. Search for and select Blueshift as the destination.
    
    
4. On the Configure tab, add a Name for the connection.
5. Add the Auth Token for Census integration that you created in Blueshift.
    
    
6. Click Connect to save and test the connection.
7. Click Finish to complete the destination setup.

You have now set up a connection to Blueshift in Census. You can view the connection on the Destinations tab in Census.

Create a Sync in Census

To send data to Blueshift, you must create a sync in Census. When you create a sync, you must map the fields from your data warehouse to the fields in Blueshift. 

To create a Sync in Census, complete the following steps:

1. Go to Activate > Syncs and click + New Sync.
2. In the Select a Source section, select either Existing Source or Warehouse table depending on your source data warehouse.
3. Select the source Connection and the data that you want to sync.
    
    
4. In the Select a Destination section, select the connection that you set up with Blueshift.
5. Select the Object based on the data that you are syncing. You can sync either Customer or Event data with Blueshift.
    
    
6. In the Select a Sync Behavior section, set up the synchronization type.
    
    
   • If you are syncing Customer data, the Update or Create mode is supported.
   • If you are syncing Event data, the Create only mode is supported.
7. Select a Sync Key for record matching purposes. Census uses this key to match a record in your data warehouse to a record in Blueshift.
    
    
8. Map the other fields from your data warehouse to the fields in Blueshift.
    
    
   • Click Generate Mappings to automatically map fields or you can Add Mapping manually.
   • If a field from the source data is not available in Blueshift, a field will be created in Blueshift when you sync the data.
9. Click Run a Test Sync to test the integration.
   You can look for the test data in Blueshift to ensure that the data is being mapped correctly.
    
    
10. Click Next.
11. Confirm the Sync details and click Create.
    You can also select the option to run a full sync immediately.
     

The integration is now set up and you can use your data in Blueshift. You can find your syncs on the Syncs tab in Census.

Click a sync to view the details for the sync.

Supported sync modes

When you set up a sync, the Sync Behavior you select determines the action that Census applies to your data.

 

Data type	Sync modes supported	Sync keys
Customer	Update or Create Update existing destination records when IDs match, otherwise create new ones if they are missing.	One of the customer identifiers in Blueshift
Events	Create only Treat the destination as an create only log of data suitable for Event data.	event_uuid or one of the customer identifiers in Blueshift