Identity namespace overview
Read the following document to learn more about what you can do with identity namespaces in Adobe Experience Platform Identity Service.
Getting started
Identity namespaces requires an understanding of various Adobe Experience Platform services. Before beginning to work with namespaces, please review the documentation for the following services:
- Real-Time Customer Profile: Provides a unified, customer profile in real time based on aggregated data from multiple sources.
- Identity Service: Gain a better view of individual customers and their behavior by bridging identities across devices and systems.
- Privacy Service: Identity namespaces are used in compliance requests for legal privacy regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Each privacy request is made relative to a namespace in order to identify which consumers’ data should be affected.
Understanding identity namespaces understanding-identity-namespaces
A fully qualified identity includes two components: an identity value and an identity namespace. For example, if the value of an identity is scott@acme.com
, then a namespace provides context to this value by distinguishing it as an email address. Similarly, a namespace can distinguish 555-123-456
as a phone number, and 3126ABC
as a CRM ID. Essentially, a namespace provides context to a given identity. When matching record data across profile fragments, as when Real-Time Customer Profile merges profile data, both the identity value and the namespace must match.
For example, two profile fragments may contain different primary IDs but they share the same value for the “Email” namespace, therefore Experience Platform is able to see that these fragments are actually the same individual and brings the data together in the identity graph for the individual.
Identity namespace explained
Another way to better understand the concept of namespace is to consider real world examples such as cities and their corresponding states. For example, Portland, Maine and Portland, Oregon are two different places in the United States. While the cities share the same name, the state operates as a namespace and provides necessary context that distinguishes the two cities from each other.
Applying the same logic to Identity Service:
- At a glance, the identity value of:
1-234-567-8900
can look like a phone number. However, from a system perspective, this value could have been configured as a CRM ID. Identity Service would have no way of applying the necessary context to this identity value without a corresponding namespace. - Another example is the identity value of:
john@gmail.com
. While this identity value can be easily assumed to be an Email, it is entirely possible that it’s configured as a custom namespace CRM ID. With namespace, you can distinguishEmail:john@gmail.com
fromCRM ID:john@gmail.com
.
Components of a namespace
A namespace consists of the following components:
- Display name: The user-friendly name for a given namespace.
- Identity symbol: A code used internally by Identity Service to represent a namespace.
- Identity type: The classification of a given namespace.
- Description: (Optional) Any supplemental information that you can provide regarding a given namespace.
Identity type identity-type
One element of an identity namespace is the identity type. The identity type determines:
-
Whether an identity graph will be generated:
- Identity graphs are not generated for the following identity types: non-person identifiers and partner ID.
- Identity graphs are generated for all other identity types.
-
Which identities are removed from the identity graph when system limits are reached. For more information, read the guardrails for identity data.
The following identity types are available within Experience Platform:
- Partner IDs are identifiers used by data partners to represent people. Partner IDs are often pseudonymous so as to not reveal a person’s true identity, and may be probabilistic. In Real-Time Customer Data Platform, Partner IDs are used primarily for expanded audience activation and data enrichment, and not for building identity graph linkages.
- Identity graphs are not generated when ingesting an identity that includes an identity namespace specified as Partner ID type.
- Failure to ingest partner data using the identity type of Partner ID could result in reaching system graph limitations on Identity Service, as well as unwanted merging of profiles.
Standard namespaces standard
Experience Platform provides several identity namespaces that are available to all organizations. These are known as standard namespaces and are visible using the Identity Service API or through the Platform UI.
The following standard namespaces are provided for use by all organizations within Platform:
+
), an international country calling code, a local area code, and a phone number. For example: (+)(country code)(area code)(phone number)
.View identity namespaces view-identity-namespaces
To view identity namespaces in the UI, select Identities in the left navigation and then select Browse.
A directory of namespaces in your organization appears, displaying information on their names, identity symbols, last updated dates, corresponding identity types, and description.
Create custom namespaces create-namespaces
Depending on your organizational data and use cases, you may require custom namespaces. Custom namespaces can be created using the Identity Service API or through the UI.
To create a custom namespace, select Create identity namespace.
The Create identity namespace window appears. First, you must provide a display name and an identity symbol for the custom namespace that you want to create. You can also optionally provide a description to add more context on the custom namespace that you are creating.
Next, select the the identity type that you want to assign to the custom namespace. When finished, select Create.
-
Namespaces that you define are private to your organization and require a unique identity symbol in order to be created successfully.
-
Once a namespace has been created, it cannot be deleted and its identity symbol and type cannot be changed.
-
Duplicate namespaces are not supported. You cannot use an existing display name and identity symbol when creating a new namespace.
Namespaces in identity data
Supplying the namespace for an identity depends on the method you use for providing identity data. For details on providing data identity data, please read the Identity Service implementation guide.
Next steps
Now that you understand the key concepts of identity namespaces, you can begin to learn how to work with your identity graph using the identity graph viewer.