Postgres destination for batch exports

Batch exports can be used to export data to a Postgres table.

Setting up Postgres access

1. Make sure PostHog can access your Postgres database.

Notes:

• Wherever your Postgres database is hosted, make sure the host is set to accept all incoming connections so that PostHog can connect to the database and insert events. PostHog does not guarantee a static list of IP addresses to whitelist. If this is not possible in your case, consider exporting data to a different destination (like S3) and then setting up your own system for getting data into your Postgres database.

• We only support connections using SSL/TLS. This provides protection against various types of attacks.

2. Create a Postgres user with table creation privileges.

When executing a batch export, if the destination table doesn't exist, it will be created. CREATE TABLE and USAGE permissions are required for this reason. The other permissions that are required on the destination table are INSERT, SELECT, and UPDATE. You can and should block PostHog from doing anything else on any other tables. In particular, we recommend creating a new schema and only granting PostHog CREATE TABLE and USAGE access limited to that schema:

CREATE USER posthog WITH PASSWORD 'insert-a-strong-password-here';
CREATE SCHEMA posthog_exports;
GRANT CREATE ON SCHEMA posthog_exports TO posthog;
GRANT USAGE ON SCHEMA posthog_exports TO posthog;

Models

Note: New fields may be added to these models over time. To maintain consistency, these fields are not automatically added to the destination tables. If a particular field is missing in your Postgres tables, you can manually add the field, and it will be populated in future exports.

Events model

This is the default model for Postgres batch exports. The schema of the model as created in Postgres is:

Persons model

The schema of the model as created in Postgres is:

The Postgres table will contain one row per (team_id, distinct_id) pair, and each pair is mapped to their corresponding person_id and latest properties.

Creating the batch export

1. Subscribe to data pipelines add-on in your billing settings if you haven't already.
2. Click Data pipelines in the navigation and go to the exports tab in your PostHog instance.
3. Click "Create export workflow".
4. Select Postgres as the batch export destination.
5. Fill in the necessary configuration details.
6. Finalize the creation by clicking on "Create".
7. Done! The batch export will schedule its first run on the start of the next period.

Postgres configuration

Configuring a batch export targeting Postgres requires the following Postgres-specific configuration values:

• User: User for your Postgres database with CREATE TABLE access used by PostHog to login to your database.
• Password: The password of the username provided.
• Host: The host name of the server on which your Postgres database is running.
• Port: The TCP port on which the Postgres database server is listening for connections.
• Table name: The name of a Postgres table where to export the data.
• Database: The name of the Postgres database where the table provided to insert data is located.
• Schema: The name of the Postgres database schema where the table provided to insert data is located.
• Does your Postgres instance have a self-signed SSL certificate?: In most cases, Heroku and RDS users should check this box.