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How to Prepare for the New Identity Model on WhatsApp and Blip

  • Updated

Index

  1. Overview
  2. General Preparation Checklist by Area of Impact
  3. Suggested Step-by-Step
    1. Analyze Your Flows
    2. Enrich Your PN Contact Base with the Corresponding BSUID
    3. Prepare New Implementations

  4. FAQ

     

Overview

The transition to usernames represents an evolution of WhatsApp's identity model: the phone number still exists but is no longer the only possible reference to identify users. To ensure continuity of history, integrations, and automations, we recommend reviewing the main points below.

 

General Preparation Checklist by Area of Impact

Step 1 - Analyze Your Flows

Use the automatic analysis available in Builder/Studio to find possible dependencies on the variables contact.identity, tunnel.originator and tunnel.identity.

We suggest prioritizing:

  1. Custom scripts

  2. HTTP calls

  3. External integrations

  4. Direct handling of the contact identifier
     

Step 2 - Enrich Your PN Contact Base with the Corresponding BSUID

During the transition period:

  • Preserve the existing phone numbers in your base

  • Capture the BSUID whenever available

  • Maintain relationships between different identifiers of the same user.

Avoid replacing one identifier with another by implementing support for multiple IDs.
 

Step 3 - Prepare New Implementations

For new flows and integrations:

✅ Do:

  • Treat identifiers as text

  • Query specific fields for each need

  • Consider possible absence of a phone number

❌ Avoid:

  • Extracting phone numbers from the variables contact.identity, tunnel.originator and tunnel.identity using split

  • Validating users assuming a numeric format

  • Using phone numbers as the sole permanent key


Usernames - General FAQ

Will the phone number stop existing on WhatsApp?

No. Every WhatsApp account will continue to be linked to a phone number. The change is that the number may no longer be automatically shared in some interactions.

Will all my contacts change in June?

No. Adoption will be gradual according to Meta's rollout and users adopting usernames.

What happens to old contacts?

Existing contacts will continue to work normally. During the transition, Blip will maintain compatibility strategies and associations between identifiers when possible.

What is BSUID?

It is an identifier created by Meta to represent the relationship between a user and a specific company.

The same user can have different BSUIDs when interacting with different companies.

Can I replace phone numbers with BSUID everywhere?

Not necessarily.

Each identifier has a purpose:

  • phone → contact when available;

  • BSUID → user + company relationship on WhatsApp;

  • Blip internal ID → identification of the contact within the platform.

Do I need to change all my flows immediately?

Not necessarily.

The recommendation is to review flows that depend on the phone as a fixed identifier, especially:

  • scripts;

  • external integrations;

  • CRMs;

  • conditional rules.

Does the PN → BSUID endpoint fetch information directly from Meta?

No. It only returns relationships already known and stored by Blip.

My endpoint did not return a BSUID for a phone number. Is this an error?

Not necessarily. It may simply mean that the user has not yet had an interaction where the BSUID was received and associated by the platform.

 


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