Set Up Reverse ETL Connection

Setting up a Reverse ETL connection involves the following steps:

1. Creating a Reverse ETL source
2. Connecting it to a destination
3. Specifying the data mappings
4. Defining a sync schedule
5. Activating the connection

RudderStack supports 1:many Reverse ETL connections, meaning you can connect your Reverse ETL source to multiple destinations.

Note the following:

• You can set up to 10 connections in the RudderStack Cloud Free and Starter plans and unlimited connections in the Growth and Enterprise plans.
• Reverse ETL connections are source-driven. You must create a source first and then connect it to a destination.
• You cannot connect multiple Reverse ETL sources to the same destination.

Add source

1. Sign in to your RudderStack dashboard and click + Add source in the default Connections view.

2. Under Sources, click Reverse ETL and select your warehouse source.

3. Configure your source. See the source-specific documentation for configuration details.

RudderStack requires some warehouse-specific permissions to sync data from it. These permissions are listed in the source documentation, for example, see BigQuery permissions.

Make sure to grant these permissions before you set up the source.

Connect destination

Once you have created a Reverse ETL source, connect it to an existing or new RudderStack destination.

RudderStack supports connecting a Reverse ETL source to multiple destinations.

To connect a destination:

1. Click Use existing destination or Set up a new destination depending on your requirement.

You can connect an Audience source only to Audience and List destinations.

2. Enter the connection settings for the destination. See the destination-specific documentation for more details on these settings.

Specify data mappings

RudderStack provides two options to map your warehouse columns to specific destination fields before syncing your data:

• Map with Visualizer
• Map with JSON

RudderStack supports the Map with Visualizer option only for selected destinations.

Other destinations that do not support Visual Data Mapper have the Map with JSON option by default, with the Map with Visualizer option greyed out.

The steps to set the data mappings (using JSON) are listed below:

1. Select the Sync mode to specify how RudderStack syncs each record to the destination. RudderStack supports two sync modes:

2. Select the Event Type - RudderStack supports sending the synced data to your downstream destinations as identify or track events.

If you select track as the Event Type, you also need to set the event name that is sent to the downstream destination. This is because every track event requires a name. You can also set the column name as the event name by turning on the Lookup event name by column toggle and selecting the column from the dropdown:

3. Set at least one user identifier from user_id or anonymous_id in the Choose user identifier setting.

4. Preview the resulting data and make the necessary changes before proceeding.

Schedule syncs

You can configure the schedule settings and sync frequency at the connection level. This is because a source might be connected to multiple destinations and the sync interval and frequency might need to be configured differently for each connection.

RudderStack determines how and when to run a sync based on the sync schedule you set for your Reverse ETL connection.

Configure advanced settings

This option is available only if you have set up a new destination.

Once you create a connection successfully, you can configure the optional advanced settings to receive the data correctly in your destination.

1. Click Configure your destination.
2. Specify the advanced settings and click Save.

Activate connection

1. Activate the destination by turning on the toggle.
2. Turn on the connection to activate the connection.

You will be redirected to the connections page.

RudderStack will send data to your destination as per the specified sync frequency. Click Sync now to manually trigger a new sync.

Click Turn on the connection to activate the connection.

You will be redirected to the connections page.

RudderStack will send data to your destination as per the specified sync frequency. Click Sync now to manually trigger a new sync.

Stop data syncs for connection

Go to the connection page and turn off the connection toggle to stop data syncs for the connection.

Note that the Sync Now button is greyed out and the connection status is Paused until you turn on the connection again.

Update mapping configuration

Go to the Schema tab of your connection and click Update to change the mapping configuration and update your column selection.

The Object (for VDM mapping), Sync mode, Event type, and User identifier fields are not editable.

Click Save to update and save the configuration.

Update connection settings

Go to the Settings tab of your connection to:

• Get the Connection ID.
• Change the sync schedule and frequency.
• Delete the connection permanently.

View all connections for Reverse ETL source

Go to the Overview tab of your Reverse ETL source. Here, you will see all the destinations connected to that source. Click the required destination or click View > Connection details to go to the connection’s page.

RudderStack automatically redirects you to the Syncs tab where you can view the latest sync details or check past syncs.

View sync details

Go to the Syncs tab to see detailed metrics on the latest sync. You can also view details of the past syncs (up to 1 month). These details include:

You can also see the following source and destination-specific metrics:

View invalid records

Click View invalid records and click a row to see all the invalid records that RudderStack did not sync to the destination.

You also see the error message and sample erroneous rows in this view.

View sync graph

This graph is only available for:

• The latest sync.
• Syncs performed using Upsert mode.

RudderStack provides an intuitive visual graph detailing the records sent to the destination over time. The X-axis represents the time of the day and the Y-axis represents the number of records classified as:

• Successfully synced records
• Dropped records
• Records that failed to sync

Switch to the Retries tab to get a graphical view of the retries over time. The X-axis represents the retry time of the day and the Y-axis represents the number of retry attempts.

Questions? Contact us by email or on Slack