# RudderStack Feature Walkthrough


This guide walks you through RudderStack features across the customer data lifecycle — from [collection](#collect) and [governance](#govern) to [unification](#unify) and [activation](#activate).

## Collect

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RudderStack’s data pipelines simplify customer data collection and integration across your entire stack, eliminating expensive data wrangling and custom pipelines.
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### Event Stream

RudderStack's [Event Stream]({{< ref "data-pipelines/event-stream/" >}}) feature helps you collect behavioral data from your websites, track user engagements from your mobile apps, and complement client-side tracking with events from your backend.

With over 200 pre-built integrations, including 16 SDKs, you can stream data directly to your warehouse and route events in real-time to all the downstream tools.

See the [Event Stream Quickstart]({{< ref "data-pipelines/event-stream/quickstart" >}}) guide to set up a Event Stream pipeline in less than 15 minutes.

### Transformations

RudderStack's [Transformations]({{< ref "transformations/overview.md" >}}) feature lets you write custom functions in JavaScript or Python to implement specific use cases on your event data.

Transformations are easy to build, debug, and reuse. RudderStack also provides some prebuilt [templates]({{< ref "transformations/templates.md" >}}) to help you write custom functions for filtering, cleaning, enriching, and removing sensitive user information from events **before** they are routed to downstream tools.

## Unify

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RudderStack lets you unify every data point across user journeys and accelerate the time to value by automating identity resolution and creating comprehensive user profiles in your data warehouse.
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### Profiles

RudderStack [Profiles]({{< ref "profiles/overview/" >}}) lets you leverage the real-time events and user traits collected in your warehouse to establish a comprehensive identity graph to create a customer 360 view.

## Activate

RudderStack helps you activate real-time data and comprehensive user profiles across every downstream tool and team.

### Reverse ETL

With RudderStack's [Reverse ETL]({{< ref "data-pipelines/reverse-etl/" >}}) feature, your teams can send the enriched warehouse data and unified customer profiles to any downstream tool for activation use cases like personalization, engagement, and more.

See the [Reverse ETL Quickstart]({{< ref "data-pipelines/reverse-etl/quickstart.md" >}}) guide to set up and activate your Reverse ETL pipeline.

### Data Apps

RudderStack's [Data Apps]({{< ref "profiles/data-apps/" >}}) are ideal for data teams looking to leverage their customer 360 data for key use cases like:

- [Attribution]({{< ref "profiles/data-apps/attribution.md" >}}): Generate attribution data sets for your paid campaigns.
- [Propensity scores]({{< ref "profiles/data-apps/propensity.md" >}}): Predict the likelihood of specific user actions (churn, purchases, etc.) by leveraging machine learning algorithms.
- [Real-time personalization]({{< ref "profiles/data-apps/real-time-personalization.md" >}}): Combine RudderStack's API and integration features to make the customer 360 data available for your personalization use cases.

## Govern

RudderStack's [Data Governance]({{< ref "data-governance/_index.md" >}}) feature helps you enforce quality and compliance before data reaches downstream tools and teams.

### Data quality and compliance

Use [Data Catalog]({{< ref "data-governance/data-catalog/" >}}) to standardize events and properties, and leverage [Tracking Plans]({{< ref "data-governance/tracking-plans/" >}}) to catch violations early and keep activation-ready data flowing through your stack.

RudderStack's client-side SDKs offer integrated [consent management]({{< ref "data-governance/consent-management/" >}}) and user deletion features so your business can comply with various data regulation laws like GDPR, CCPA, and others. You can also ensure data privacy by [enforcing custom rules]({{< ref "transformations/templates.md#pii-management-and-privacy" >}}) in your transformations to mask, encrypt, or remove sensitive PII from the events.

### Monitoring and alerting

Track event volume trends, errors, and data violations across [Event Stream]({{< ref "data-pipelines/event-stream/" >}}) and [Reverse ETL]({{< ref "data-pipelines/reverse-etl/" >}}) pipelines in the [Health dashboard]({{< ref "monitor/health-dashboard.md" >}}). 

Use [Alerts]({{< ref "monitor/alerts.md" >}}) for real-time notifications on critical issues, and [Syncs]({{< ref "dashboard-guides/_index.md#syncs" >}}) for observability into warehouse destination syncs.

For AI-assisted operations, see [AI Features]({{< ref "ai-features/" >}}).

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