Secure Data Share FAQs
This article applies to Dutchie POS.
General FAQs
What is Secure Data Share?
Secure Data Share is data sharing product for customers who want to see the underlying data that makes the Point of Sale system run. The data share product allows us to share with you extensive data that drives your business. This is great for users who can manage their own data and want to do more with their data for analytics that are currently not available in the POS or the embedded BI tool.
How is the product supported?
While Dutchie doesn't provide ad-hoc or custom reporting options, we are committed to ensuring our customers have the necessary resources to navigate and utilize our data effectively. We offer comprehensive documentation and dedicated support services to assist your teams in understanding our data structure and nuances. Our team is readily available to provide guidance, answer questions, and address any concerns you may have regarding the utilization of our secure data sharing product.
Setup
How does this work if I already have Snowflake?
You will need to provide us with a set of credentials from your Snowflake account to establish the connection. Once the connection is made, we'll give you access to the corresponding share. This will allow you to create a database in your account from the share, which will be your "dutchie database." This data will then be queryable and joinable with other databases you may have imported. We’ll supply the following details to use so you can join your Dutchie data with other data in your Snowflake instance.
- Snowflake Organization Name
- Snowflake Account Name
- Snowflake Account Locator
- Snowflake Account Region
Once we are set up, what’s next?
After you have connected your data, we will work with you for a few weeks to assist you in understanding the Point of Sale and Ecommerce data model. We have documentation that will assist this process as well, but we know you might want further assistance when starting. We will be available for 3 meetings to provide you assistance in understanding the data model and how to query for data sets. We do expect that your team will be staffed with engineers who understand data modeling and business intelligence types technologies.
Data
What technology does Secure Data Share run on?
Dutchie leverages Snowflake Secure Data Sharing to facilitate data sharing with our customers.
Is my data secure?
Yes, Snowflake provides a secure connection that no one else will have access to. We use Secure Direct Sharing which enables private, account-to-account sharing of data utilizing Snowflake’s Secure Data Sharing technology.
How do we query the data when setting up our own Snowflake instance?
You won't need to import anything, move data around, or set up any pipelines. You will have direct query access to the data, but it will remain within our account. Simply query the data through your account.
Can we pull a full copy of our data?
Yes, you can. While it's not required, you have the option to do so.
Can we participate in data sharing and consolidate our other data sources as well?
Absolutely. However, you will need your own Snowflake account.
Can you tell us the size of our data?
We typically do not expose data size to customers, and it is difficult to calculate due to certain Snowflake limitations. However, you don’t need to worry about storage costs as they are not charged to you.
Costs
Do we have to pay for storage?
No, you do not have to pay for storage. Since no data is being moved and you’re not storing data in your account, there are no additional storage costs.
Do we pay ingress and egress costs?
No, you don't.
Is there a transfer fee?
There is no transfer fee unless you are using a different cloud provider. Snowflake supports intra-region transfers, so both accounts must be in the same region. If you are not in the same region but on the same cloud provider (e.g., AWS), we can assist with that. If you are on a different cloud provider, Snowflake can still accommodate the transfer, but the replication costs are high and will be passed on to you.
Can we estimate our costs?
Estimating exact costs can be challenging. The primary cost driver is compute usage (Snowflake warehouses), which are used to run queries. Warehouses spin up when you run a query and spin down during periods of inactivity. The cost of your experience depends on the complexity of the queries you run. Warehouses are highly configurable, allowing you to choose your own hardware to run the queries.
Is there any way to control our costs?
Yes, you can use Snowflake's resource monitor functionality. This feature allows you to cap the amount spent on warehouses. It can either notify you or terminate the warehouse to prevent excessive credit consumption.
Documentation
Can I see both my POS and Ecommerce data sets?
Yes, and we connect the dots for you between POS and ecommerce orders. This will allow you to explore the link from POS to your online sales funnels.
Can I still connect to the Dutchie APIs?
Yes, that technology doesn’t go away at all. The Secure Data Share does provide a way to eliminate API calls since you have access to the underlying data, but this doesn’t mean you are prohibited from using the API.
What don’t you support?
We currently do not offer support building out your internal data analytics team and program. The Secure Data Warehouse tool is a powerful way to access your data, but the expectation is that your organization will own and manage this product. We provide guidance on how to query data but we are not an execution team building out the reports you desire.
What if I want to rebuild a report already in the Point of Sale?
While that is a possible use case for this technology, it is not recommended. For more sophisticated users, understanding correlations in data that have not yet surfaced as reports in the POS can be important to your business. The data warehouse technology allows you to develop these investigations without relying on the Dutchie feature development timeframe. You want fast insights, the data warehouse can provide you with that speed.
How do I see more documentation?
You can access supporting documentation in our Help Center at support.dutchie.com. This includes a setup guide and data modal documentation. Some documentation is only available to specific users groups. Contact your Secure Data Admin about access to more documentation. To access it:
- Sign in to support.dutchie.com with the email and passwords provided by your data admin.
- Click the Dutchie POS Help tile.
- Under Dutchie POS select Secure Data Share.
If you are new to Dutchie and don't have an account, visit support.dutchie.com to gain access to documentation for your user group:
- Click the Sign In button.
- Create a new account by clicking Sign Up next to 'New to Dutchie?'.
- Fill out the Name and Email fields in the Sign Up to Dutchie window.
- Click Sign Up.
- Follow the Check your email prompt to complete your log in.