A Profile is an equivalent of what you might call a 'constituent.'
It is just a set of information about a person that is stored in your database, not an actual person. Profiles are added to your database through a spreadsheet upload when we set up the platform initially.
A User, on the other hand, is someone who has actually registered on the platform.
This is an actual person. A registered user is indicated by a blue checkmark on their profile card or by a blue check on Data Studio.
When a user registers on the platform, we check if their email address matches a profile that is already on the database.
If so, we merge the information on the profile with the user's details (that they put in while registering).
When this happens, the older (duplicate) profile is Archived (removed from the directory and data studio).
The same happens when you manually merge duplicates.
To see a list of all users, you can go to All Registered Users on the Admin Panel. Also, you can check on Data Studio by using the filter option Is Registered.
Here is a glossary of a few words that you might come across on this list:
Registration Type – The mode used to sign up on the platform. It can be either Facebook, LinkedIn or Email
Registration Status – The user's status before and after signing up on the platform.
If the user has not signed up and there is a profile on the platform, then the registration status will be Account not created.
Once signed up, the status can be Pending Approval, Approved, Blocked, or Pending Email ID Verification.
Each of these statuses is explained in detail in this article, Understanding Registration Status.Email Status – It can be either Engaged, Invalid, Not available, Unknown, Verified, or Unsubscribed from all communication. Each of these statuses is explained in detail in this article, Understanding Email Status.
For a better understanding, check out this article on understanding the signup process, and to see a sample of the emails that were sent to the user in the last two cases, check out this article to understand the verification process.