Census•Resources

Census Resources

**Census Docs**: https://docs.getcensus.com/

8 min read

Census Resources

Official Documentation

Core Documentation

API Documentation

API Example:

Learning Resources

Official Learning Materials

Census University:

Blog & Guides: https://www.getcensus.com/blog

  • Use case deep-dives
  • Customer success stories
  • Best practices articles
  • Product announcements

Notable Blog Posts:

  • "What is Reverse ETL?" - Foundational concepts
  • "Census + dbt: The Golden Workflow" - Integration patterns
  • "Data Activation at Scale" - Enterprise patterns
  • "Syncing to Salesforce: Best Practices" - Popular destination guide

Webinars & Events

Live Webinars:

Census Summit (Annual):

  • User conference
  • Keynotes, workshops, networking
  • Typically held Q2

Office Hours:

  • Weekly Q&A sessions (Enterprise customers)
  • Technical support and best practices
  • Schedule via Census support

Video Content

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@getcensus

  • Product tutorials
  • Customer case studies
  • Feature demos
  • Conference talks

Key Video Series:

  • "Getting Started with Census" (5-part series)
  • "Destination Deep-Dives" (Salesforce, HubSpot, etc.)
  • "dbt + Census" integration patterns
  • "Operational Analytics 101"

Community Resources

Census Community

Community Slack: https://www.getcensus.com/community

  • 3,000+ members
  • Channels:
    • #general - General questions
    • #dbt - dbt + Census integration
    • #salesforce, #hubspot, etc. - Destination-specific
    • #show-and-tell - Share your syncs
  • Census team active daily
  • Quick answers from experienced users

Discussion Forum: https://community.getcensus.com/

  • Long-form discussions
  • Feature requests
  • Troubleshooting threads
  • Searchable archive

Social Media

Twitter: @getcensus

  • Product updates
  • Customer spotlights
  • Industry news
  • Weekly tips

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/getcensus

  • Company updates
  • Webinar announcements
  • Job postings
  • Thought leadership

User-Generated Content

Blog Posts by Users:

  • "How We Built a Data-Driven Sales Org with Census" (by Amplitude)
  • "Scaling Reverse ETL at [Company]" (various)
  • "dbt + Census: Our Data Stack" (various)

GitHub Examples:

  • Census-provided dbt example models
  • Community-shared sync configurations
  • Python scripts for Census API automation

Integration Guides

Data Warehouse Sources

Snowflake:

BigQuery:

  • Service account setup
  • IAM permissions
  • Authorized views for row-level security
  • Quota management

Redshift:

  • User creation and permissions
  • VPC configuration for secure access
  • Query performance optimization
  • Spectrum for S3 data

Databricks:

  • SQL Warehouse connection
  • Unity Catalog support
  • Token authentication
  • Delta Lake compatibility

Popular Destinations

Salesforce:

  • OAuth setup
  • Object and field mapping
  • Lookup relationships
  • Custom objects
  • Sandbox vs production

HubSpot:

  • OAuth scopes required
  • Contact vs company syncs
  • Property creation
  • Lists and workflows
  • API rate limits

Braze:

  • API key setup
  • User attributes
  • Custom events
  • Catalogs
  • Canvas triggering

Google Ads:

  • Customer Match setup
  • Audience creation
  • Offline conversion import
  • Store sales uploads

Intercom:

  • User vs company objects
  • Tags and segments
  • Metadata limits
  • User attributes

dbt Integration

Official dbt Integration Docs: https://docs.getcensus.com/sources/dbt

  • Connecting to dbt Cloud
  • Using dbt models as Census sources
  • dbt exposures for dependency tracking
  • Triggering Census after dbt runs

dbt Cloud Webhooks:

dbt Exposures Example:

Tools & Extensions

Python SDK

census-python (Community):

Airflow Operator

CensusOperator (Community):

Terraform Provider

terraform-provider-census (Community):

Comparison Resources

Census vs Competitors

Census vs Hightouch:

  • Very similar products (main competitors)
  • Census: Slightly better dbt integration, UI/UX
  • Hightouch: Slightly better visual audience builder, pricing flexibility
  • Both excellent choices; often comes down to preference

Census vs Fivetran:

  • Different directions: Fivetran is forward ETL (to warehouse), Census is reverse ETL (from warehouse)
  • Often used together: Fivetran loads data, dbt transforms, Census activates
  • Census for operational use cases, Fivetran for analytics ingestion

Census vs Segment:

  • Segment: Event streaming and customer data platform
  • Census: Warehouse-native reverse ETL
  • Segment for real-time events, Census for batch activation from warehouse
  • Can complement each other

Census vs Polytomic:

  • Polytomic: Smaller, newer reverse ETL platform
  • Census: More mature, larger destination catalog, better enterprise features
  • Polytomic: More affordable for small teams

Support & Help

Getting Support

Support Channels:

  1. In-App Chat (fastest):

    • Click "?" icon in Census dashboard
    • Available during business hours (8am-6pm PT)
    • Enterprise customers: 24/7 support

  2. Email: support@getcensus.com

    • Response time: < 4 hours (Enterprise), < 24 hours (all others)

  3. Slack Community:

    • Peer support from other users
    • Census team monitors and responds

  4. Office Hours (Enterprise):

    • Weekly scheduled calls with Customer Success
    • Architecture reviews
    • Best practices guidance

Status Page

Census Status: https://status.getcensus.com/

  • Real-time service status
  • Scheduled maintenance notifications
  • Historical uptime data
  • Subscribe to updates (email, SMS, Slack)

Troubleshooting Resources

Common Issues:

Destination-Specific Troubleshooting:

  • Salesforce validation errors
  • HubSpot property limits
  • Google Ads customer match requirements
  • Braze API errors

Case Studies

Published Case Studies: https://www.getcensus.com/customers

Notable Customers:

  • Canva: Sync user data to Braze for personalized marketing
  • Notion: Operational analytics for sales and success teams
  • Figma: CRM enrichment with product usage data
  • Amplitude: Self-serve reverse ETL for go-to-market teams
  • Loom: Churn prevention via Intercom syncs

Key Takeaways from Case Studies:

  • Reduced manual data work by 80-90%
  • Improved conversion rates by 20-40%
  • Faster time-to-value for data initiatives
  • Data team shifts from pipelines to analytics

Pricing & Plans

Pricing Model:

  • Based on rows synced per month
  • Number of destinations
  • Sync frequency (real-time costs more)

Plans:

  • Core: $500-1k/month (basic syncs, scheduled)
  • Growth: $2k-5k/month (more destinations, higher frequency)
  • Enterprise: Custom (real-time, SLA, premium support)

Free Trial:

Additional Resources

Data Activation Resources

Books:

  • "The Data Flywheel" by Tristan Handy (dbt founder) - Warehouse-centric architecture
  • "Designing Data-Intensive Applications" by Martin Kleppmann - Systems design
  • "The Modern Data Stack" - Benn Stancil (Mode Analytics)

Podcasts:

  • Analytics Engineer Podcast - dbt and modern data stack topics
  • Data Engineering Podcast - Interviews with data tools founders
  • Datacast - Data platform and infrastructure discussions

Newsletters

  • Census Blog (subscribe on website) - Product updates, best practices
  • Locally Optimistic - Data and analytics leadership
  • The Analytics Engineering Roundup (dbt) - Weekly data news

Conferences

Data Conferences Featuring Census:

  • Coalesce (dbt conference) - October annually
  • Data Council - Multiple times per year
  • Snowflake Summit - June annually
  • Databricks Data + AI Summit - June annually

Need help getting started? Check out Getting Started Guide or join the Community Slack!

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