Alias profile management

[Sasha]

I am struggling on how to think about managing alias profiles and how we treat them. Specifically around SMS and texting in a keyword. If a phone number is not in the default phone field, a User alias user will be created. This alias profile will only have phone number and subscription group opt-in. How do you go about tying user aliases to an existing profile or figuring out an alias profile does exist as a user in our system. I would love to have a virtual coffee and learn more about how others handle alias profiles in their lifecycle/user journey flows. TIA

[JIE]

Hi Sasha
I've been considering your issue, and I believe using External_ID might be a helpful solution for identifying both the alias and the main profiles. By assigning a unique external_id (a string) to a user profile, it allows for identification across a user's devices. When you first assign an external_id to an unknown user profile, all existing user profile data will transfer to the new profile. Would it be possible for you to assign an external_id prior to capturing the phone number on your end

https://www.braze.com/docs/api/objects_filters/user_attributes_object#braze-user-profile-fields

Hope this helps!

[Sasha]

Hi @JIE sorry for the delayed response here. I think in some cases that would work, however I am not sure how we would be able to do that for the instance where a user texts a keyword to opt-in to SMS. An example would be if we put an opt-in message on a direct mail piece with a keyword to opt in, if the user exists in our system, but does not have that phone number in the default phone field then an alias profile is created. This is the case if a user doesnt exist at all - the phone number that opted-in via the keyword will be created as an alias profile. Since this process is automated between Braze and the carriers, I am not sure how we would be able to create an external id prior to an alias being created.

[AllanHeo]

Hi Sasha,

Hope you're doing well! Curious; have you found a solution to this use case? 

Best,

Allan

[Sasha]

Hi Allen, I have been off this platform for a bit, so apologies for missing this. We have not found an easy solution. It appears that it will take quite a bit of dev work to handle identity resolution from separate systems and resolving them downstream into other platforms. We have some other priorities but i am sure this will be coming in 2024!