# WhatsApp BSUID: Understanding the New Identity Workflow

> Businessscoped user IDs BSUIDs are becoming a required part of WhatsApp identity handling This guide explains what changed in Kustomers workflow and custom

Source: https://help.kustomer.com/en_us/whatsapp-bsuid-identity-workflow-B18YpEJffl

Last updated: 2026-09-11T15:51:53.934Z

Business-scoped user IDs (BSUIDs) are becoming a required part of WhatsApp identity handling. This guide explains what changed in Kustomer’s workflow and customer data model, what is available now, and where to find the new BSUID details in the product.

### In this article

*   [Understanding BSUID in WhatsApp](#understanding-bsuid-in-whatsapp)
*   [Understanding workflow BSUID fields](#understanding-workflow-bsuid-fields)
*   [Updating your WhatsApp application](#updating-your-whatsapp-application)
*   [Understanding the WhatsApp BSUID workflow](#understanding-the-whatsapp-bsuid-workflow)
*   [Finding BSUID details on the customer profile.](#finding-bsuid-details-on-the-customer-profile)

### Understanding BSUID in WhatsApp

A BSUID is a WhatsApp business-scoped identifier for a user. The identifier is unique and anonymized, intended to represent a specific WhatsApp user when they interact with your business. As WhatsApp rolls out BSUID-based identity handling, phone numbers are no longer the only identifier Kustomer can rely on for WhatsApp conversations.

For Kustomer users, the two main takeaways are:

*   Customer resolution using the WhatsApp channel can no longer depend only on the phone number.
*   Workflows and customer records now need to capture and preserve BSUID data when it is available.

See our [WhatsApp BSUID implementation guide](https://help.kustomer.com/en_us/whatsapp-bsuid-implementation-guide-HJ5wFKnzGx) for more details, or dive straight into [the workflow files](https://help.kustomer.com/en_us/bsuid-workflow-files-H165tKhzzl).

### Understanding workflow BSUID fields

![](https://cdn.kustomerhostedcontent.com/media/570fad9d9001bc1000163b28/62320f1fd947634b140ff10758b951d3.png)

The workflow-related BSUID work introduces these core fields:

*   **BSUID**. The WhatsApp business-scoped identifier.
*   **Scope ID**. The identifier that scopes the BSUID to a specific provider or account context.
*   **BSUID provider**. The source of the WhatsApp identity data, such as native WhatsApp, MessageBird, or Twilio.
*   **Parent BSUID**. An optional and additional BSUID value enabled by some customers, made visible in Kustomer, but not enacted upon. Kustomer does not support indexing or sending outbound messages with parent BSUID.

![](https://cdn.kustomerhostedcontent.com/media/570fad9d9001bc1000163b28/6798b5944a90d031536ee59ff12261ec.png)

These fields support workflow lookup, customer creation, and customer updates.

### Updating your WhatsApp application

WhatsApp can be used through its own native channel, with Twilio, and with Messagebird. It is also possible to run WhatsApp using some combination of these apps.

WhatsApp BSUID detection was added as an update to each of these applications. Your version of your WhatsApp channel application of choice must match the following:

*   `WhatsApp` version to the latest
*   `Twilio` version to the latest
*   `MessageBird` version to the latest

The Kustomer application must also be updated to version 1.10.22 at minimum.

To update these apps:

1.  From the left navigation panel, click **Application Store**.
2.  Search for your WhatsApp application.
3.  Click **Upgrade** to update to the newest version.

### Understanding the WhatsApp BSUID workflow

The purpose of this workflow is to find and create an appropriate Kustomer customer record populated with the BSUID of your customer. That BSUID is then used to create a conversation message in a conversation timeline associated with your customer.

At a high level, the workflow looks like this:

WhatsApp Message Received
        │
        ▼
Find by WhatsApp Number
   ┌────┴────┐
Found     Not Found
   │           │
Update     Try to match Phone Number
Customer      ┌──┴──┐
   │       Found  Not Found
Create     │          │
Message  Update    Create
       Customer   Customer
          │           │
        Create     Create
        Message    Message

### Finding BSUID details on the customer profile

Customer profiles can now expose BSUID metadata in the WhatsApp section.

You can find the core fields:

*   BSUID
*   Scope ID
*   Provider

**Note:** WhatsApp BSUID values are non-editable and are passed from WhatsApp to Kustomer.[Understanding BSUID in WhatsApp.](#understanding-bsuid-in-whatsapp)