# Profile Unification



Profile Unification is how separate pieces of user data come together to form a clear and consistent picture of a person. It's a gradual process that starts when data is collected and continues as more information becomes available over time.

Everything begins with **collecting identities**. As data arrives from applications, databases, files, and events, Krenalis creates identities that reflect how users appear in each source. At this stage, a user may already be known, or may still be anonymous. To keep data reliable and traceable, each identity remains tied to the pipeline that created it.

As users interact more and reveal more about themselves, identities naturally evolve. **Strategies** define how this evolution is handled—how anonymous and known identities relate to each other, when they are combined, and how continuity is preserved as users move from being unknown to known.

With identities in place and their evolution defined, **identity resolution** brings related identities together. It connects data from different sources and turns it into unified profiles. The **profile schema** then gives structure to those profiles, shaping how values are merged and how the most relevant information is kept up to date.

<ul class="cards" data-columns="2">
  <li>
    <a href="profile-unification/schema" title="">
      <div>Schema</div>
      <p>Define how profiles are structured and how data from multiple identities come together into a single view.</p>
    </a>
  </li>
  <li>
    <a href="profile-unification/collect-identities" title="">
      <div>Collect identities</div>
      <p>Learn how user data is ingested from different sources and turned into identities, whether users are already known or still anonymous.</p>
    </a>
  </li>
  <li>
    <a href="profile-unification/strategies" title="">
      <div>Strategies</div>
      <p>Understand how identities evolve over time, and how anonymous and known users are handled as more information becomes available.</p>
    </a>
  </li>
  <li>
    <a href="profile-unification/identity-resolution" title="">
      <div>Identity resolution</div>
      <p>See how related identities are matched across sources and unified into a single profile.</p>
    </a>
  </li>
</ul>