Party Identification in Salesforce Data Cloud

Party Identification is one of the most important Data Model Objects in Salesforce Data Cloud. It allows organizations to store customer identifiers from multiple source systems and use them during identity resolution and profile unification.

Why Party Identification Matters

Most organizations have customer data distributed across CRM systems, ecommerce platforms, loyalty applications, and marketing systems. Each platform generates its own identifier for the same customer.

Customer 360 Data Model Relationship

Individual
    │
    └── Party
          │
          ├── Party Identification
          │
          ├── Contact Point Email
          │
          └── Contact Point Phone

Real World Example

A customer named John Smith exists across multiple systems:

CRM Contact ID      = 0035g00000ABC123

Subscriber Key      = johnsmith_1001

Loyalty Member ID   = GOLD789654

Customer ID         = EC998877

Data Cloud stores these identifiers as separate Party Identification records while linking them to the same customer profile.

Party Identification Mapping Example

Customer_ID            → Identification Number

Customer Type          → Identification Type

Source System          → Source System

Party Reference        → Party ID

Identity Resolution Example

Source System A

Customer ID = EC998877
Email       = john@example.com


Source System B

Subscriber Key = johnsmith_1001
Email          = john@example.com


Unified Customer

├── EC998877
└── johnsmith_1001

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