What is an Entity | Yext Hitchhikers Platform

What You’ll Learn

In this section, you will learn:

• The difference between Entity Types and Fields
• Examples of Entity Types
• What information is stored on an entity
• How to find an Entity in the Yext Platform

What is an Entity?

An entity is the primary object stored in Yext Content – like a row in a database. Entities have a type and are comprised of fields based on that type.

Examples of Entity Types:

• Location - fields like Name, Address, Phone, and more
• Event - fields like Name, Start/End Date/Time, Location, Ticket URL, and more
• Healthcare Professional - fields like Name, NPI, Education, Office Addresses, and more
• Job - fields like Name, Job Location, Department, and more
• FAQ - fields like Question, Answer, Keyword, and more
• Product - fields like Photo, Description, Stock Status
• Custom Entity Type - you define the name and fields (you’ll learn about these later)

What do Entities Look Like?

Entities are comprised of two parts:

1. Metadata, like the Entity Type, a unique identifier called Entity ID, profile language and country. These are properties of the entity itself, and not brand content stored in fields.

2. Fields, like Name, Hours, Phone Number, Photo Gallery, all of which can store values or brand content. These fields describe the entity from the brand’s perspective.

For example, the Yext headquarters in New York could be stored as a Location entity of type Location, country US, and entity ID of “NewYork”. It is made up of fields like Name, Address, Phone, Description, Website, and more.

You can find individual Entities by navigating to Content and clicking on an entity. This view is called Entity Edit.

Under the hood, the entity is just a list of field-value pairs that describe that entity. Here’s what the Yext New York HQ looks like programmatically via our Entities API endpoint:

"name": "Yext",
"address": {
  "city": "New York",
  "countryCode": "US",
  "line1": "61 Ninth Ave",
  "line2": "",
  "postalCode": "10011",
  "region": "New York",
},
"mainPhone": "+12129943900",
"featuredMessage": {
  "description": "Scan Your Business Here",
  "url": "http://www.yext.com"
},
"websiteUrl": {
  "displayUrl": "http://www.yext.com",
  "preferDisplayUrl": true,
  "url": "http://www.yext.com"
},
"yearEstablished": 2006,
.
.
.

The important thing to remember is that these are both describing the same entity, just in different ways.

Now that the Yext New York entity is in Yext Content, it can be synced across digital platforms:

• It is Listed on Publishers, like Google or Bing

• It has its own schema-optimized page on Yext.com

• It can be a Result Card in Yext’s Search

You’ll learn more about how to build all of this in upcoming tracks and modules.