You can create associations in one of two ways:
- You can create an identifier association to indirectly define a relationship between two user identities that a single individual uses. An identifier association describes a relationship between an EIM identifier and a user identity in a user registry. Identifier associations allow you to create one-to-one mappings between an EIM identifier and each of the various user identities that are related to the user that the EIM identifier represents.
- You can create a policy association to directly define a relationship between multiple user identities in one or more registries and an individual target user identity in another registry. Policy associations use EIM mapping policy support to create many-to-one mappings between user identities without involving an EIM identifier. Policy associations allow you to quickly create a large number of mappings between related user identities in different user registries.
Whether you choose to create identifier associations, create policy associations, or use a mix of both methods depends on your EIM implementation needs.