Linking Citizens

Linking Citizens in DataGuard CPM allows you to manage multiple references that identify the same real-life individual. This functionality is especially useful when your system or integrations involve multiple data sources or identifiers for the same person.

How Linking Citizens Works

Multiple References: Linking Citizens is a method to associate different references or identifiers that represent the same person across various systems. This ensures that, despite having multiple records, the individual's data is treated as one entity within the CPM platform.
Single Customer View: If you operate a Single Customer View (SCV), integrating information from your SCV with Linked Citizens will unlock the power of Linked Citizens.
Separate Audit Trails: Each linked Citizen retains its own audit trail, preserving the history of actions and changes for each individual reference. However, their current state—such as active permissions and preferences—is automatically merged together and updated on every change, allowing for a unified view.
Reversibility: Unlike Merging Citizens, which is a permanent action, linking and unlinking Citizens is a fully reversible process. This flexibility allows you to link records together when needed and separate them if required, without losing historical data.

Implementing Linked Citizens

API-Based Linking: Citizens must be explicitly linked using the Linked Citizens endpoint. You can also import existing groups of linked Citizens via the Linked Citizens Import endpoint. This provides a streamlined way to manage links at scale.
Automatic Adjustments: When a Citizen is deleted, the platform automatically adjusts the linked records, ensuring that you don’t need to manage these events across multiple systems.

Alternative Approach: Using Email Addresses

Using Email as an Identifier: An alternative to linking Citizens is to store their email addresses in CPM and use these as identifiers. This approach can provide much of the same functionality as linking but with less work required on your side, making it a simpler solution for some use cases.

Linking Citizens provides a powerful way to unify multiple records that represent the same individual across various systems, without compromising on the integrity of each record's history. This feature is particularly valuable in environments with complex data sources, enabling a consolidated view while maintaining flexibility. By leveraging API-based linking you can ensure that your data remains consistent and easily manageable.