Historical Backfill
When you connect Vendo to your Shopify store, you can choose whether to import your historical order data or start fresh with only new events.
What Is Historical Backfill?
Historical backfill imports your past Shopify server-side data into your connected destinations. This includes:
- Orders — Up to 2 years of order history (Order Received, Fulfilled, Delivered, Refunded)
- Products Purchased — Per-SKU purchase events (if enabled)
- Customer Profiles — All customer data with lifetime metrics (total spent, order count, etc.)
- Abandoned Checkouts — Checkouts from the last 30 days that were not completed
What’s NOT Included
Historical backfill only applies to server-side events. The following are not backfilled:
- Client-side browsing events — Page views, product views, collection views, search
- Client-side cart events — Add to cart, remove from cart, cart viewed
- Client-side checkout events — Checkout Started, Payment Info Submitted, Checkout Completed
These client-side events are captured in real-time as they happen and cannot be recreated from historical data.
Backfill runs as a one-time import when you first connect a destination. After the initial backfill, Vendo switches to incremental sync mode, importing only new data as it’s created.
Enabling or Disabling Backfill
During Onboarding
When you connect a new destination (e.g., Mixpanel, BigQuery), you’ll see a Historical Data toggle:
- On — Import up to 2 years of historical orders and customer data
- Off — Start fresh with only new events from this point forward
After Setup
If you need to change the backfill setting after initial setup:
- Go to Integrations in the Vendo app
- Select the destination you want to modify
- Look for the Historical Sync or Backfill option in settings
Note: Re-running a backfill after the initial import may create duplicate events in some destinations. Contact support if you need to re-import historical data.
Backfill Timing
| Data Type | Time Range | Typical Duration |
|---|---|---|
| Orders | Up to 2 years | 15 min – 2 hours |
| Customer Profiles | All customers | 15 min – 1 hour |
| Abandoned Checkouts | Last 30 days | 5 – 15 minutes |
Duration depends on your store’s data volume. Stores with 100K+ orders may take several hours to complete the backfill.
What Gets Imported
Orders
Each historical order creates these events in your destination:
| Event | Description |
|---|---|
| Order Received | One event per order |
| Products Purchased | One event per line item (if enabled) |
| Order Fulfilled | For orders that have been fulfilled |
| Order Delivered | For orders with delivery tracking |
| Order Refunded | For orders that were refunded |
Customer Profiles
Customer profiles are created or updated with:
- Email, name, phone
- Total lifetime spend
- Total order count
- First and last order dates
- Marketing consent status
- Customer tags
Abandoned Checkouts
Abandoned checkouts from the last 30 days are imported as Abandoned Checkout events with:
- Cart contents
- Customer email (if entered)
- Recovery URL
- UTM attribution data
When to Use Backfill
Enable Backfill If:
- You want historical funnel analysis in Mixpanel
- You need customer lifetime value (LTV) data from day one
- You’re migrating from another analytics tool and want continuity
- You want to analyze past order trends
Disable Backfill If:
- You’re testing the integration and don’t want test data mixed with historical data
- Your destination has event limits and you want to conserve quota
- You only care about future behavior, not past data
- You’re re-installing the app and already have historical data in your destination
Backfill and Event Limits
Some destinations (like Mixpanel) charge based on event volume. Historical backfill can generate significant event volume:
| Store Size | Estimated Events |
|---|---|
| Small (< 1K orders) | 5,000 – 20,000 events |
| Medium (1K – 10K orders) | 20,000 – 200,000 events |
| Large (10K – 100K orders) | 200,000 – 2M events |
| Enterprise (100K+ orders) | 2M+ events |
Consider your destination’s pricing tier before enabling backfill on high-volume stores.
Monitoring Backfill Progress
After enabling backfill, you can monitor progress in the Vendo app:
- Go to Integrations > Server-Side Connection
- The status card shows:
- Backfill in progress — Import is running
- Active — Backfill complete, incremental sync running
- Check Earliest Sync and Latest Sync timestamps to verify data range
Troubleshooting
Backfill seems stuck
Large stores may take several hours. Check the Server-Side Connection page for progress updates. If no progress after 4 hours, contact support.
Missing historical data
Backfill only imports data that exists in Shopify. If orders were deleted from Shopify, they won’t appear in the backfill.
Duplicate events after re-running backfill
Most destinations use deduplication based on event IDs. However, if you see duplicates after a re-run, contact support for guidance on cleanup.