A data architect is building an XDM Experience Event Schema for loading event data from...

When working with theAdobe Experience Platform (AEP) Web SDK, the standard practice for handling identities is to use theIdentity Mapfield group. This field group allows for the collection of multiple identities (such as an ECID for anonymous tracking and a CRM ID for authenticated users) within a single event.

For schemas designed for the Web SDK, theIdentity Mapis the preferred method because it provides the flexibility to handle bothambiguous(anonymous) andauthenticateddata dynamically. When data is sent via the Web SDK, the primary identity is not hard-coded as a specific single field in the schema definition (like a specific "email" field marked as primary). Instead, the identity information is contained within the identityMap object of the JSON payload.

Adobe Experience Platform'sIdentity Serviceautomatically processes this identityMap. The primary identity is determined based on the contents of the map sent in the hit—for example, the Web SDK can designate the ECID as the primary identity for anonymous hits or a CRM ID as the primary identity once the user logs in. Therefore, the architect does not need to manually select a fixed field in the schema to be the primary identity; the platform relies on the dynamic identity map to resolve the profile at ingestion time. This approach is essential for supporting the transition from an anonymous visitor to a known customer without requiring separate schema configurations.