Transferring data from Amazon S3 to Snowflake

If your data currently sits in Amazon S3, you can transfer it to Snowflake or another relational data warehouse using the ELT (Extract Load Transform) process.

Automated load process

This automated load process moves data into Snowflake, which will allow you to use the Braze Looker Blocks to visualize that data in Looker to help drive insights and feedback into your campaigns, Canvases, and segments.

After you have a Currents to S3 export set up and are receiving live events data, you can configure your live ELT pipeline in Snowflake by configuring the following components:

• AWS SQS queues
• Auto-Ingest Snowpipes

Configuring AWS SQS queues

Auto-ingest Snowpipes rely on SQS queues for sending notification from S3 to Snowpipe. This process is managed by Snowflake after configuring SQS.

Step 1: Configure the external S3 stage

When you set up Currents in Braze, specify a folder path for your Currents files to follow into your S3 bucket. Here we use currents, the default folder path.

Then, create the following in the listed order:

1. In AWS, create a new public-private key pair for the desired S3 bucket, with grants according to your organization’s security requirements.

2. In Snowflake, create a database and schema of your choice (named currents and public in the following example).

3. Create a Snowflake S3 Stage (called braze_data):

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CREATE OR REPLACE STAGE
    currents.public.braze_data
    url='s3://snowpipe-demo/'
    credentials = (AWS_KEY_ID = '...' AWS_SECRET_KEY = '...' );
show stages;

Next, define the AVRO file format for your stage.

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CREATE FILE FORMAT
    currents.public.currents_avro
    type = 'avro'
    compression = 'auto';

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ALTER STAGE
    currents.public.braze_data
SET
    file_format = currents.public.currents_avro;

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CREATE OR REPLACE PIPE
  pipe_users_messages_pushnotification_open
    auto_ingest=true AS

COPY INTO
  users_messages_pushnotification_open
          FROM
           (SELECT
             $1:id::STRING,
             $1:user_id::STRING,
             $1:external_user_id::STRING,
              $1:time::INT,
              $1:timezone::STRING,
              $1:app_id::STRING,
              $1:campaign_id::STRING,
              $1:campaign_name::STRING,
              $1:message_variation_id::STRING,
              $1:canvas_id::STRING,
              $1:canvas_name::STRING,
              $1:canvas_variation_id::STRING,
              $1:canvas_step_id::STRING,
              $1:canvas_step_message_variation_id::STRING,
              $1:platform::STRING,
              $1:os_version::STRING,
              $1:device_model::STRING,
              $1:send_id::STRING,
              $1:device_id::STRING,
              $1:button_action_type::STRING,
              $1:button_string::STRING

              FROM
@currents.public.braze_data/currents/dataexport.prod-01.S3.integration.INTEGRATION_ID_GOES_HERE/event_type=users.messages.pushnotification.Open/);

Finally, use the show pipes; command to show your SQS information. The name of the SQS queue will be visible in a new column called NOTIFICATION_CHANNEL because this pipe was created as an auto-ingest pipe.

Step 2: Create bucket events

In AWS, navigate to the corresponding bucket of the new Snowflake stage. Then, under the Properties tab, go to Events.

Create new events for each set of Currents Data, as needed (Messaging, User Behavior), or both.

Check the appropriate box for the object create notifications, as well as the ARN on the bottom of the form (from the notification channel column in Snowflake).

Configuring auto-ingest Snowpipes

To make sure the AWS SQS configuration produces the correct tables, you must define the structure of the incoming data properly by using the following examples and schemas determined in our Currents documentation for Message Engagement or Messaging Events, User or Customer Behavior Events, or both.

It is critical to structure your tables in accordance with the Braze Currents schemas, as Braze Currents will continuously load data into them via specific fields with specific data types. For example, a user_id will be loaded as a string and called a user_id in Currents data.

• user behavior events
• messaging events

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CREATE TABLE
  users_behaviors_app_firstsession (
        id               STRING,
        user_id          STRING,
        external_user_id STRING,
        app_id           STRING,
        time             INT,
        session_id       STRING,
        gender           STRING,
        country          STRING,
        timezone         STRING,
        language         STRING,
        device_id        STRING,
        sdk_version      STRING,
        platform         STRING,
        os_version       STRING,
        device_model     STRING
    );

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CREATE OR REPLACE PIPE
  pipe_users_behaviors_app_firstsession
    auto_ingest=true AS

COPY INTO
  users_behaviors_app_firstsession
          FROM
            (SELECT
              $1:id::STRING,
              $1:user_id::STRING,
              $1:external_user_id::STRING,
              $1:app_id::STRING,
              $1:time::INT,
              $1:session_id::STRING,
              $1:gender::STRING,
              $1:country::STRING,
              $1:timezone::STRING,
              $1:language::STRING,
              $1:device_id::STRING,
              $1:sdk_version::STRING,
              $1:platform::STRING,
              $1:os_version::STRING,
              $1:device_model::STRING

              FROM
@currents.public.braze_data/currents/dataexport.prod-01.S3.integration.INTEGRATION_ID_GOES_HERE/event_type=users.behaviors.app.FirstSession/);

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CREATE TABLE
    public_users_messages_pushnotification_open (
        id STRING,
        user_id STRING,
        external_user_id STRING,
        time INT,
        timezone STRING,
        app_id STRING,
        campaign_id STRING,
        campaign_name STRING,
        message_variation_id STRING,
        canvas_id STRING,
        canvas_name STRING,
        canvas_variation_id STRING,
        canvas_step_id STRING,
        canvas_step_message_variation_id STRING,
        platform STRING,
        os_version STRING,
        device_model STRING,
        send_id STRING,
        device_id STRING,
        button_action_type STRING,
        button_string STRING
        );

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CREATE OR REPLACE PIPE
  pipe_users_messages_pushnotification_open
    auto_ingest=true AS

COPY INTO
  users_messages_pushnotification_open
          FROM
           (SELECT
             $1:id::STRING,
             $1:user_id::STRING,
             $1:external_user_id::STRING,
              $1:time::INT,
              $1:timezone::STRING,
              $1:app_id::STRING,
              $1:campaign_id::STRING,
              $1:campaign_name::STRING,
              $1:message_variation_id::STRING,
              $1:canvas_id::STRING,
              $1:canvas_name::STRING,
              $1:canvas_variation_id::STRING,
              $1:canvas_step_id::STRING,
              $1:canvas_step_message_variation_id::STRING,
              $1:platform::STRING,
              $1:os_version::STRING,
              $1:device_model::STRING,
              $1:send_id::STRING,
              $1:device_id::STRING,
              $1:button_action_type::STRING,
              $1:button_string::STRING

              FROM
@currents.public.braze_data/currents/dataexport.prod-01.S3.integration.INTEGRATION_ID_GOES_HERE/event_type=users.messages.pushnotification.Open/);

To see the types of analytics you can perform using Braze Currents, consult our Looker Blocks.