# Laying the foundation: Data modeling, integrations, and identity mapping Before you can get the most out of Cortex, a few foundational pieces need to be in place. This article walks through planning your data model, configuring your first integrations, and mapping user identities across tools—the groundwork that makes everything else in Cortex work smoothly. ### Data modeling Your data model is the foundation of everything else in Cortex, so it's worth planning before you start importing entities. Think about which parts of your engineering ecosystem you want to represent, how they relate to one another, and how different teams will want to slice and view them. * Identify the key entities you want to represent in your catalogs. See [Managing entities](/ingesting-data-into-cortex/entities-overview/entities.md) for a rundown of the default entity types. * Create [custom entity types](/ingesting-data-into-cortex/entities-overview/entities/adding-entities/entity-types.md) if the defaults don't fit your use case. * [Set up catalogs](/ingesting-data-into-cortex/catalogs.md) to organize the entities that make up your infrastructure. ### Integrating your tools with Cortex As you integrate your tools with Cortex, it's also possible to streamline work during an incident, efficiently track issues, monitor your code for vulnerabilities, and more. See the [full list of available integrations](/ingesting-data-into-cortex/integrations.md). Cortex meets your team where they already work, with integrations across version control, project management, on-call, communication, infrastructure, security, issue tracking, code quality, and beyond. ### Configuring identity mappings and reviewing mapped services [Identity mappings](/configure/settings/managing-users/identity-mapping.md) connect accounts from your integrations to the right Cortex users by matching on name or email. This keeps integrations working correctly for each team member and ensures features like the Developer Homepage and Eng Intelligence show the right data for the right people. Cortex handles most matches automatically, but when account details differ across tools, admins can review and map users manually under **Settings > Identity mappings**. #### Reviewing mapped services Cortex recommends connections for your services. For example, if you connected PagerDuty, Slack, and Jira, then Cortex will recommend an entity's on-call service, Slack channel, and Jira project. You can change these details before confirmation. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.cortex.io/get-started/quickstart/laying-the-foundation-data-modeling-integrations-and-identity-mapping.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.