Overview

Managing data from various platforms can be challenging. Snowflake Data Sharing is a powerful solution that enables you to merge your Element451 data with information from other platforms, providing a comprehensive view of the entire student lifecycle like never before.

What is Snowflake?

Snowflake is a cutting-edge, cloud-based data warehousing platform designed to handle large-scale data processing and analytics. With its unique architecture, Snowflake separates storage and computing, allowing for unmatched scalability and performance. It empowers higher education institutions to manage diverse datasets efficiently and gain valuable insights from their data.

Element451 utilizes Snowflake to store data for analysis, model data, and provide it to our Insights dashboards. If your institution is also utilizing Snowflake as its data platform or if you want to access the same power and convenience, Data Sharing is right for you.

Snowflake is a non-affiliated, third party.

How does Data Sharing work?

Element451 Partners can consume data via Snowflake Data Sharing in two ways:

Direct Share (Recommended)

Direct Share requires your institution to have its own Snowflake account. In this scenario, Element451 will share data directly to your institution's Snowflake account. Element451's shared database will appear in your warehouse and you'll be able to query shared data immediately, using your account's compute resources.

Reader Account

In this scenario, your institution does not have a Snowflake account. Element451 will provide a reader account for you to use. Once accessed, you'll be able to query your data using Element451's account compute resources or move your data to another warehouse of your choosing.

Learn more about Snowflake and Secure Data Sharing on the Snowflake documentation site.

Benefits of Data Sharing

Data Across Platforms: Bring all of your data together in one place, either in Snowflake or by sending shared data from Snowflake to your preferred data warehouse.
Informed Decision-Making: With a comprehensive view of the student journey, institutions can make data-driven decisions to enhance student success, retention, and engagement. Understanding student behavior throughout their academic journey is crucial for tailoring support and services.
Pre-built Models: In addition to un-modeled JSON objects, Element451 provides pre-built data models within the share. These models also power Insights dashboards.
Real-Time Analytics: Data sharing in Snowflake is nearly real-time, providing access to the most current information. This immediacy is invaluable for tracking your critical performance metrics.
Cost Efficiency: While duplicating data from Snowflake to another data warehouse is possible, it isn't necessary. Snowflake's architecture enables sharing from Element451's account to yours without storage costs to you.
Data Security and Compliance: Snowflake's robust security features ensure that data remains protected and access is controlled. Data Providers can enforce granular access controls, safeguarding sensitive information.
Scalability and Performance: Snowflake's cloud-native architecture allows seamless scaling of resources, ensuring optimal performance even during peak data processing periods.

Working with Merged and Deleted Records

When two contacts are merged in Element451, the surviving record keeps its Element ID and the duplicate is removed. Both IDs can still appear in EL_USERS_RAW, so a query that does not account for this may return the same person more than once.

To return only current records:

Keep only rows where deleted_at is null.
Exclude any ID that appears in EL_ACTIVITIES_RAW with an action of userDeleted.
Exclude any ID that appears as the duplicate_id on a userMerged activity, since that is the record that was absorbed by the merge.

A query using all three filters looks like this:

with activities as (
  select element_id, action, src:duplicate_id as duplicate_id
  from ANALYTICS.V1_ELEMENT451_SHARED.EL_ACTIVITIES_RAW
  where element_id is not null
    and action in ('userDeleted', 'userMerged')
)
select u.*
from ANALYTICS.V1_ELEMENT451_SHARED.EL_USERS_RAW u
where u.deleted_at is null
  and u.src:active = true
  and u.src:type = 'external'
  and u._id not in (select element_id from activities where action = 'userDeleted')
  and u._id not in (select duplicate_id from activities where action = 'userMerged')

📌 Note: There is no column in the share that maps a merged (old) Element ID to the record that survived. To trace that relationship, use Deduplication History in Element451.

Adding Snowflake Data Share to Your Contract

Data sharing is a premium feature. To add this feature, speak to your institution's Element451 Captain or Element451 Customer Success Manager.

Data Dictionary

Consult our Integrations Guide for comprehensive documentation of all data available through Snowflake Data Sharing.

View Data Dictionary