Metroflow Playbook · E-commerce & Retail

Executive summary

Connect Shopify ingest, dbt, Airflow, and BI in Metroflow. Certify GMV and contribution margin before peak season. Run blast-radius on every promo-season schema change.

Peak season turns small pipeline issues into revenue surprises. Marketing and finance report different GMV because attribution lives in spreadsheets and DAG failures go unnoticed until Monday standup. Metroflow links Shopify sync, fct_orders, and exec dashboards in one graph.

1Certified GMV across marketing and finance

<15mTo answer what breaks if the 2am sync fails

Pre-peakSchema impact checks before Black Friday

01

What broken lineage costs you

Typical patterns at E-commerce & Retail organizations. Ranges, not guarantees.

Black Friday DAG failure

Silent stale fct_orders until revenue standup

With Metroflow: Linked Airflow + dbt blast-radius. Notify owners before 6am.

Three versions of GMV

1–2 hours per exec meeting reconciling

With Metroflow: One certified GMV metric. Rogue explores flagged automatically.

Attribution black boxes

Marketing cannot defend ROAS to finance

With Metroflow: Trace ad spend → warehouse orders → dashboard tile with cited path.

Promo-season schema change

Weekend rollback during peak traffic

With Metroflow: Pre-merge impact on fct_orders and all downstream attribution models.

◇

Metadata only. Metroflow crawls schemas, job names, manifests, and dashboard definitions. Your production data rows never leave your network.

02

Your stack, one graph

Sector-specific constraints. Metroflow sits above the data path: unify compliance, velocity, and trusted metrics.

When shopify_orders_sync fails at 2am, trace: Fivetran connector → raw_shopify_orders → stg_orders → fct_orders → GMV Dashboard and board deck. One query shows every dependent DAG and explore.

03

Where are you today?

Most teams land at L1 or L2. Target L4 in 90 days.

L1Siloed docsWikis and spreadsheets disconnected from production.

L2Partial lineageSome tool lineage exists. Cross-layer gaps remain.

L3Unified graphOrchestration, warehouse, and BI in one map.

L4Certified metricsKPIs owned, enforced, and traced end-to-end.

L5Proactive opsPre-merge gates. Stale assets caught early.

Quick self-check

Answer "what breaks if X fails?" in under 15 minutes?
Cross-functional teams share one definition of core KPIs?
Incidents include downstream dashboard impact without Slack archaeology?
Changes include cross-layer impact checks before merge?
Named owners for certified metrics and critical pipelines?

0–2: Start Week 1 connect · 3–4: Certify metrics · 5: Add change gates

04

Choose your path

Every org is different. Pick the track closest to your context.

DTC brand (Shopify-native)

Shopify + Fivetran + dbt + Looker/Tableau

Priority: Certify first: GMV, orders, contribution margin

Marketplace / multi-channel

Shopify + Amazon + retail EDI + ads platforms

Priority: Certify first: cross-channel revenue attribution

Peak-season scale-up

Burst ingest, inventory sync, promo pricing models

Priority: Certify first: inventory DAG lineage + GMV freshness SLA

05

Who owns what

Assign decision rights up front. Metric fights are governance problems.

Function	Owns	On Metroflow
Analytics engineering	dbt models, fct_orders, attribution logic	Impact queries before promo-season PRs. Certified metric ownership.
Growth / marketing	ROAS, channel attribution dashboards	Use certified GMV and attribution IDs only. Brain for weekly reviews.
Finance	Recognized revenue, margin reporting	Same GMV definition as growth. Lineage proof for close.
Data platform	Fivetran, Airflow, peak-season on-call	DAG registration. Black Friday runbook with blast-radius.

06

30 · 60 · 90 day rollout

A program with gates, not just a connector checklist.

Days 1–30

Connect peak stack

Connect Fivetran + dbt + Airflow + BI
Map Shopify ingest to fct_orders path
First blast-radius on shopify_orders_sync

Gate: End-to-end lineage from Shopify to GMV dashboard

Days 31–60

Certify revenue metrics

Publish GMV and contribution margin specs
Migrate top 5 exec dashboards to certified IDs
Attribution trace from ad platforms to fct_orders

Gate: Marketing and finance align on one GMV number

Days 61–90

Peak-season readiness

Pre-merge gates for schema changes
Black Friday on-call runbook in Metroflow
Weekly freshness report on tier-1 DAGs

Gate: Zero surprise stale GMV dashboards during pilot peak window

07

Incident runbook

When shopify_orders_sync is in trouble. Follow this timeline.

T+0 · Detect

2am sync failure alert

Airflow or Fivetran stale warning. Open Metroflow, search shopify_orders_sync.

T+5 min · Blast radius

Run impact query

"What depends on fct_orders and will the 2am sync break it?"

T+10 min · Communicate

Notify growth and finance

Slack template with affected dashboards and ETA.

T+30 min · Fix

Replay sync or fix connector

Platform remediates. AE monitors dbt downstream builds.

T+60 min · Verify

Confirm GMV dashboard fresh

Re-run lineage. Hold daily revenue review if still stale.

Slack template

[INCIDENT] shopify_orders_sync failed: fct_orders stale Impact: raw_shopify_orders not updating · GMV dashboard lagging Affected: GMV Dashboard (Looker), Marketing ROAS report, Board deck slide 4 Owner: @data-platform-oncall · ETA 45m Growth: pause paid spend optimization until GMV refreshed Metroflow blast-radius: [paste link]

08

Metric certification pack

Copy into your governance doc. One definition. One owner. Full lineage.

GMV (daily)

Certify first

Formula: Sum of order_total_amount after cancellations and refunds, USD, calendar day store timezone.

Source: Shopify → stg_orders → fct_orders

Owner: Analytics Eng + Finance

Lineage: Fivetran shopify_orders_sync → fct_orders → GMV Dashboard

Contribution margin (daily)

Certify second

Formula: GMV minus COGS and variable fulfillment, per finance policy.

Exclusions: Gift cards unredeemed, internal test orders.

Owner: Finance + Analytics Eng

Attribution ROAS (weekly)

Certify second

Formula: Attributed revenue from fct_orders / ad spend by channel, 7-day click window.

Source: Ad platforms + fct_orders + dim_attribution

Owner: Growth + Analytics Eng

09

Daily workflows

Four situations you will hit every week.

🛒

Black Friday on-call

Monitor tier-1 DAGs
shopify_orders_sync, inventory_sync.
Blast radius on failure
List stale dashboards.
Comms template
Tag growth and finance before standup.

📊

Weekly revenue review

Certified GMV
All tiles on registry IDs?
Pipeline vs definition
Brain separates delay from drift.
Attribution check
ROAS trace to fct_orders.

🔀

Before promo-season PR

Impact query
fct_orders and attribution downstream.
Notify growth
If certified explores affected.
Peak-season gate
Required merge approval.

⚖️

GMV dispute

Open specs
Marketing vs finance definitions.
Trace lineage
Dashboard → dbt → Shopify source.
Certify winner
Migrate rogue explores.

10

Copy-paste queries

Company Brain or lineage search. Context included.

Peak on-call

"What depends on fct_orders and will the 2am sync break it?"

Attribution trace

"Trace ROAS on the marketing dashboard to ad spend and fct_orders."

GMV reconcile

"Why does finance GMV differ from growth by 1.2%?"

DAG debug

"What dbt models and dashboards depend on shopify_orders_sync?"

Schema change

"What breaks if we rename order_id in stg_orders before Black Friday?"

Rogue explores

"Which BI tiles do not use the certified GMV metric?"

11

Glossary

Plain English. "Why it matters" tells you when to care.

GMV

Gross merchandise value: total order value before certain adjustments.

Why: The #1 disputed metric between marketing and finance.

fct_orders

Canonical orders fact table in the analytics layer.

Why: Most revenue and attribution models depend on it.

Attribution

Mapping marketing touchpoints to converted orders.

Why: Must trace to warehouse orders, not spreadsheet logic.

Blast radius

Everything downstream that breaks when a pipeline fails.

Why: Essential during peak season when minutes cost revenue.

Certified metric

Approved KPI with owner, formula, and lineage.

Why: Stops three GMV versions in exec meetings.

Company Brain

Plain-English queries with cited metadata answers.

Why: Separates pipeline delay from definition drift in standup.

12

Outcomes checklist

Measure if the program is working.

Success metric	90-day target
Marketing and finance on certified GMV	100%
Peak-season DAG failures with proactive comms	100% tier-1
Attribution dashboards traced to fct_orders	100% certified tiles
Pre-merge impact on promo-season schema changes	100% of fct_orders PRs

Ready to put this playbook to work?

Week 1: connect your stack and run your first blast-radius query. Week 4: certify your first KPI. Week 8: operationalize the runbook.

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