What is an XDM schema?
In Meridian Data Platform, every piece of customer data lives in a schema. A schema defines the shape of one kind of record — what fields exist, what type each field holds, and how that record relates to others.
Class
The foundation of the schema. Defines what kind of record it is — a profile, an event, an account.
Field Groups
Reusable bundles of fields. Demographic details. Contact details. Loyalty details. Mix and match as needed.
Identifiers
Which fields are used to identify and stitch records together. Email is the most common.
Why this matters
Every customer interaction in MDP — a page view, a purchase, a loyalty enrollment — gets validated against a schema before it lands. Bad schema design now is expensive to undo later.
The two classes you'll use most
MDP ships with a library of standard classes. Two cover the vast majority of customer data use cases.
Meridian Individual Profile
For data that describes a person and persists across time. Name, email, loyalty tier, lifetime value. One record per person.
Meridian ExperienceEvent
For time-series data about what a person did. Page views, button clicks, purchases. Many records per person, one per event.
Quick test
If the data is "who they are" → Individual Profile. If the data is "what they did" → ExperienceEvent. Two classes, two purposes, two schemas. That's the foundation.
Field groups and reuse
Field groups are the magic of XDM. Define "Demographic Details" once and attach it to any Individual Profile schema across your tenant — every schema gets the same fields, the same types, the same governance.
- Standard field groups ship with MDP — Demographic Details, Personal Contact Details, Loyalty Details, IdentityMap, and dozens more.
- Custom field groups capture engagement-specific data — for Cordova, "Brand Affiliation" and "Trade Account Status" are custom groups not in the standard library.
- Mix freely — a single schema typically combines 4–8 field groups (standard + custom).
Coming up next
In the next tutorial, you'll build your first schema in the MDP UI — picking a class, adding field groups, and enabling it for Real-Time Customer Profile.