---
schema_version: "1"
id: 4b3ce19aaf626fb8059867c3ead08b6a22afb90ff6d57e9e7b9b9df9104f7401
title: Experience Cloud Journey Data Model
collection: admin
version: current
locale: en-us
portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/experience/264-0-0/networks_jb_data_model.md
canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=experience.networks_jb_data_model.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5
source_site: help.salesforce.com
content_type: documentation
content_hash: 9b89443691644496fdbc9eefd39e106f04cc0e398f7d61d7c748e90e408f6788
description: When you create an Experience Cloud journey, you choose whether to add user or contact data. To avoid unintentionally sending emails to people who have opted out, you must stay consistent. There are also some event trigger and tracking limitations.
products:
  - Experiences
release: "264"
---
# Experience Cloud Journey Data Model

When you create an Experience Cloud journey, you choose whether to add user or contact data. To avoid unintentionally sending emails to people who have opted out, you must stay consistent. There are also some event trigger and tracking limitations.

<table class="slds-table slds-table_bordered slds-max-medium-table_stacked slds-m-bottom_small "><colgroup><col></colgroup><tbody><tr class=""><td class="slds-cell-wrap" style="vertical-align:top;">Available in: <strong>Enterprise</strong>, <strong>Professional</strong>, <strong>Unlimited</strong>, and <strong>Developer</strong> editions.</td></tr></tbody></table>

Every external site member has both an associated user object and a contact object. Internal site users, including employee site users, typically have only the user object. The email preferences for the user and contact records aren’t linked. A person who opts out of a contact record journey still gets email from user record journeys. A best practice is to choose one data type and stick to it.

A couple of other points to consider when picking the data model:

- Some events can trigger only user-based journeys. When you create a journey for a given event, the application shows you whether you can add user, contact, or either record to the journey. For many common community objects, only the user record is available. If you plan to standardize on contacts, use audience-based journeys instead as they can use either the user or contact records.
- Emails sent by journeys that are based on contact records are logged on the contact objects in Salesforce. Logging isn’t always the case for journeys based on user records. If tracking is important, go with contacts.

#### See Also

- [Triggering Journeys Based on Audiences](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=experience.networks_jb_audience_triggers.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "You can select a set of users—an audience—and put them into a journey. Your audience can be specific and include, say, a user who purchased a certain product and posted within the last 30 days.")
- [Triggering Journeys Based on Events](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=experience.networks_jb_event_triggers.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "You can trigger journeys based on an event that happens in the site, like when members join.")