[meta] Establish common data model for analytics

[MeltyBot]

Migrated from GitLab: https://gitlab.com/meltano/meltano/-/issues/34

Originally created by @joshlambert on 2017-11-09 23:52:16

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Today the vast majority of the fields in SFDC, Zuora, Marketo, another SaaS services are custom. While there are some default fields, these are the exception rather than the rule.

This means that every company has a different data schema, but is calculating largely similar types of metrics. (For example many SaaS companies utilize common metrics for establishing business performance, etc.)

This presents both a problem and an opportunity:

• Setting up the integration between these services, and then the analytics to make use of the data is time consuming and expensive. It often involves consultants or dedicated employees. This is expensive and time consuming.
• We have an opportunity to try to establish a common "best practices" data model, where more of these types of analytics could "just work" if you followed the conventions. This would dramatically ease downstream analytics and more tools/config/samples could be shared and applied.

To that end, we should do a few things:

1. Iterate ourselves towards the common "best practice" data model and schema.
2. Implement a "mapping stage", to map a customers custom fields to the fields in the common data model. This could be manual at first, and more automated/intelligent later.
3. Evangelize the common data model, it's benefits, and the interim bridge step of the mapping service.

[MeltyBot]

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