Manage identities

September 22, 2026

Data Access automatically creates an identity for each account that it discovers in your connected data sources, and groups matching accounts under that identity based on email address. You can manage these identities to keep them accurate as your organization changes, for example, by transferring an account to a different identity when the automatic mapping no longer applies, or by editing an identity's name, email address, or type.

Transfer an account to a different identity

You typically transfer an account when the automatic email-based mapping no longer reflects reality, for example, after a user's email address changes, or when a service account is incorrectly auto-mapped to the wrong identity.

Prerequisites

You have a global role with the Data Access > Manage Settings global permission, for example, the Data Access Admin global role.

Steps

1. On the Data Access landing page, in the left pane, click RESOURCES > Identities, and then click the identity that currently owns the account that you want to transfer.
2. On the identity page, click Transfer accounts.
3. In the Transfer accounts dialog box, in the Select accounts to transfer section, select one or more accounts.
4. In the Transfer method section, select one of the following options.

   Option	Description
   Transfer to an existing identity	Transfers the account to an identity that already exists in Data Access.
   Transfer to a new identity	Creates an identity and transfers the account to the new identity.

5. If you selected the Transfer to an existing identity option, in the Target identity section, in the Identity field, select the target identity.
6. If you selected the Transfer to a new identity option, in the Target identity section, in the Name and Email fields, enter the name and email address for the new identity, respectively.
7. Click Transfer.
   The account moves from the original identity to the selected or new identity. Any access that the account has on data objects moves with it, because access is granted to the identity, not to the individual account.

Edit an identity

You typically edit an identity to correct its display name, update its email address, or reclassify it (for example, when a service account was originally created as a human identity, or vice versa).

Prerequisites

You either own the identity that you want to edit or have a global role with the Data Access > Manage Settings global permission, for example, the Data Access Admin global role.

Steps

1. On the Data Access landing page, in the left pane, click RESOURCES > Identities, and then click the identity that you want to edit.
2. On the identity page, click Edit.
3. In the Edit identity dialog box, enter the required information, and then click Save.

   Field	Description
   Name	The display name of the identity. If the identity is linked to a Collibra user, the name can be edited only through the User settings.
   Email	The email address for the identity. This is used to automatically map accounts to identities.
   Type	The type of the identity, that is, Human (an individual person) or Machine (a system or service account). This is used to enable better filtering in reporting.

   
   The identity is updated. Any accounts and access that are already associated with the identity are unaffected.

Related topics

Identities