---
title: Model
url: https://documentation.cluedin.net/model
content_type: landing
---

# Model

How do I describe my data so CluedIn understands it?
  Data architects and data modellers.

The model is how CluedIn knows that a row is a customer, that two columns mean the same thing, and that one record belongs under another. Business domains classify records, vocabularies describe their properties, identifiers make records findable across systems, and relationships connect them.

Get the model right before you master data - entity resolution is only as good as the identifiers and domains you give it.

## In this section

- [Identifiers](https://documentation.cluedin.net/model/identifiers.md) (concept): An identifier (previously known as code) is a mechanism that CluedIn uses to define the uniqueness of a golden record.
- [Business domains](https://documentation.cluedin.net/model/business-domains.md): A business domain says what kind of thing a record is - Customer, Product, Organization.
- [Global Data Model](https://documentation.cluedin.net/model/global-data-model.md) (how-to): The Global Data Model gives you a visual view of the schema represented by the data in CluedIn.
- [Vocabularies](https://documentation.cluedin.net/model/vocabularies.md): A vocabulary is the set of properties that describe records from a source or a business domain, and a vocabulary key is one of those properties.
- [Data catalog](https://documentation.cluedin.net/model/data-catalog.md): The data catalog is where every vocabulary, key and data type in your instance can be found and inspected.
- [Relationships](https://documentation.cluedin.net/model/relationships.md): Relationships - edges - connect one record to another: an employee to an organization, an order to a customer.
- [Hierarchies](https://documentation.cluedin.net/model/hierarchies.md): A hierarchy arranges golden records into a parent/child structure - a company and its subsidiaries, a product and its variants.