The Clarify data model

The basics

At their core, CRMs are just databases. And in order to understand how databases work, you need to understand the concept of a data model.

A data model is a fancy way of saying "how data is organized." It shows how connections are mapped between data, and how to visualize and organize it in a system.

We don't realize it but we create data models all the time - with folders. Often times folks will create folders (objects) and nest them or link them in different ways. You can view metadata about the folder (fields), or even put individual files in the folder (records). Last, you can visualize a list of many folders or records.

In practice this is exactly how data models work, and how Clarify works.

The unique thing about Clarify is that we combine two different data models that never before existed together - one from CRM and one from the CDP. Together, this gives us an advanced way to handle customer data.

There are four components to the Clarify data model: objects, fields, records, and lists.

Objects

Objects are intelligent containers for your data. Anything can be an object, but in practice, objects take shape around the main things we are trying to track, quantify or work with. In a spreadsheet, for example, the table is the object. The column is metadata or fields about the object, and the rows are the records.

Object orientation is a fundamental concept to how marketing and revenue technology systems work.

Here in Clarify, you're seeing an example of the Company object. Each row represents a record. The columns are fields. Collectively this is a list. you can have multiple lists. Lists can also display columns that are fields from connected objects.

By default, Clarify comes with a few essential objects:

• People: Everything about your contacts or the people you engage with
• Companies: Complete company profiles
• Deals ("Opportunities"): A way to track and manage your pipeline
• Meetings: Past and future meetings that you or your team have had
• Events: Actions people take either online or in real life
• Users: The people using Clarify
• Lists: Groups records that can transverse objects

We also have one special object called a Custom Object, which means you can make it anything you want. For our paid customers, we offer the ability to create custom objects to track anything you can imagine, from support requests, to back-end tickets, to product catalogs and more.

Fields

There are many names for fields. Attributes, properties, metadata. It's all the same. At Clarify we call it fields and we use it to describe the characteristics that make each record unique.

For example, name, email, last interaction, are all fields on the people object. You can think of these as the column headers in a spreadsheet list.

But unlike traditional CRMs where you manually fill these in, Clarify:

• Intelligently links related information from your email, calendar and calls
• Automatically enriches records with verified data from 3rd parties
• Learns which fields matter most to you, and suggests updates

In this example, domain, LinkedIn, Created at, and Primary Location are the fields. The values you see in each row are the data points.

There are two main types of fields in Clarify: custom fields, and system fields. The pencil icon with the slash through it indicates a system attribute that you cannot control or edit. Clarify is maintaining this field for you.

Fields in Clarify can also be connected and shares across objects. For example, Updated by > name is actually a one to one connection with the User object.

Records

A record is a complete profile of any entity in your CRM - whether it's a person, company, or deal. Each record automatically:

• Updates with the latest interaction data from your email, calendar and calls
• Shows a historical timeline of activities or changes on the record
• Displays relevant context across other objects

Records can be visualized in three ways: a detailed record page, a row in a list, or a card in a kanban.

Record detail page

Record table view

Record board view

Record hover cards

We also have an easy way to quickly glance at record fields and other metadata quickly, called the hover card. The hover card is triggered when you hover over a record. This can make it easy for you to access important information at a glance about a record without diving into their full detailed view.

Lists

The last, and one of the most important parts of Clarify is the concept of lists. Lists are flexible ways to organize and act on your data.

A list is just a group of records (it can be people, companies, deals or more!). In Clarify a list allows you to filter, sort, query, and organize records any way you want. Teams use lists all the time for a huge variety of go to market tasks, from creating customer prospecting lists, organizing customer events, finding people to outreach to or visit in a specific location. Lists are just ways to organize the data you want.

Pro tip: Many people start offline with a spreadsheet and then upload their data into a list inside Clarify. The benefits? We automatically enrich your rows with personal data, and allow you then to collaborate and track activities when you take action on these records.

Above is an example of a list. In this case, the object is Company. The columns are the fields. The records are the rows. The list itself is an object, however, and has its own properties that can be managed manually or programmatically.

Visualizing lists

It's important to note that in the detailed record pages Clarify shows list membership and makes it easy for you to add or enroll people, companies or deals into lists.

Lists can be both static or dynamic.

A static list is one that doesn't change without human intervention. It requires you to construct it manually or with the help of AI search on a one time basis. It doesn't change unless you change it.

A dynamic list is one that does change either due to workflows, conditional criteria you set in the list, or more. Dynamic lists operate like audiences in marketing. In fact, we designed them this way! This is just one of the many ways that Clarify can act like a CDP and allow you to federate lists of users out to a variety of tools.

Wrap up

The power of Clarify's architecture is that it's both intelligent and flexible. It automatically organizes your data while giving you the freedom to customize how you view and use it. This means less time managing your CRM and more time building relationships that matter.