Since we launched our support for dbt Core, hundreds of Fivetran users have run tens of millions of model runs. Today, we are excited to give you a sneak preview of some of the exciting new features that will be available for users of both Fivetran and dbt Core in the coming weeks. 

Supporting more than 8,000 companies, dbt Core, the open-source project by dbt Labs, is a popular transformations tool in the data analyst community and one that many Fivetran customers also use. Fivetran’s new features help support this open-source community in getting the fastest, most reliable data where it needs to be.

Integrated scheduling — which will be available from February 1 — allows data teams to automatically trigger dbt Core model runs immediately after a Fivetran sync completes. This reduces data latency by speeding up your end-to-end ELT pipelines and saving you money on unnecessary compute.

Data lineage graphs, coming later in 2022, combines information on data pipelines and data transformations to give users a holistic understanding of their ELT data pipelines. 

The dbt Core you already love and more

We understand that without an effective and reliable way to run transformations, companies fail to translate raw data into analytics-ready data sets. In fact, almost 1 in 2 companies say key data is not usable for decision making, according to a survey by Dimensional Research and Fivetran. The same study found 68% of data engineers don’t have enough time to extract maximum value from existing data. 

dbt Core brings best practices from software development, such as testing, version control and auto generated documentation, to make data transformation more accessible for a modern ELT (extract, load, transform) approach.

Fivetran Transformations for dbt Core reduces the complexity of transformations by empowering both data engineers and analysts to own and manage the end-to-end data pipeline in Fivetran. The combination of our reliable data connectors, dbt Core’s powerful transformations tool and Fivetran pre-built data models makes Fivetran one of the most powerful ELT solutions on the market. 

Only run transformations when new data is available  

Integrated scheduling has been the number one transformation feature requested by our customers. Within Fivetran, users can now schedule their dbt Core models to run automatically following the completion of a Fivetran connector sync. 

By seamlessly running the full ELT process, data end users are empowered with the latest and freshest data and they won’t miss reporting a SLA again. In addition to reducing data latency, integrated scheduling can also help save on cloud computing costs. If a data sync fails, downstream transformations won’t run, saving you the compute costs of running transformations on old data. 

Increase data visibility & velocity  

With data lineage graphs, data analysts can visually see the flow of data and understand the transformations being applied at each stage of the dbt Core project. Data engineers can use the data lineage graphs to assess pipeline performance and pinpoint where errors have occurred to quickly and easily troubleshoot. Data lineage graphs also support your data governance strategies by allowing users to track data changes and increase visibility of data movement and quality. 

Save weeks of coding 

Since we launched pre-built SQL data models, more than 800 members of the dbt community have downloaded 1,500 Fivetran Data Models. These Data Models contain SQL that transforms raw data into analytics-ready sets that can be consumed by visualization tools for dashboards and reports. Data teams can deliver new reports in a matter of minutes with as little as two lines of code. Data models are also extensible, so they can be built upon by applying your own custom SQL for your business logic.

The future of Fivetran Transformations 

More exciting releases to come this spring: quickstart data models that you can install in minutes (with no code!), real-time logs for all your observability needs and REST API support for Fivetran Transformations for dbt Core. We’ve also released an open-source Visual Studio Code extension, which helps accelerate your time-to-commit with error highlighting and autocomplete tables and field names for your dbt project. 

Getting started with Fivetran Transformations for dbt Core 

Head over to our documentation for step-by-step instructions on how to get started with these new features today. Integrated scheduling will be available to existing Fivetran customers starting February 1, 2021. For more details, reach out to your representative or request a demo today.  

*dbt Core is a trademark of dbt Labs, Inc. All rights therein are reserved to dbt Labs, Inc. Fivetran Transformations is not a product or service of, or endorsed by, dbt Labs, Inc.