Article summary
Clean Kenya +254 phones and domestic trunk-zero notation, then govern WS Full Format fields, range versions, mapping conflicts and Excel QA.
A Kenya WhatsApp Full Format run needs two scorecards: one for phone-structure quality and one for platform-result quality. Domestic notation commonly begins with 0; international normalization generally uses +254 without that national trunk prefix. Correct length, however, does not establish a current range, provenance or ownership.
Make the +254 rule auditable
Preserve phone_raw and country_evidence, remove presentation characters, and handle the leading 0 under a versioned Kenya rule. Store its effective date and authority. The ITU’s Kenya national numbering information provides a reference for country code, national prefix and later updates; do not freeze ranges copied from an undated blog.
| Input condition | Action | Avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Reliable Kenya phone beginning with 0 | Convert under the +254 international rule | Retaining 0 after +254 |
| Already contains +254 | Validate and remove display punctuation | Adding the country code again |
| Country unknown | Send to an exception queue | Guessing from an operator name |
A mobile phone is not evidence of mobile-money use
A Kenya mobile range, WhatsApp registration result or activity observation does not prove that the holder uses a particular payment service, owns a payment account or has spending capacity. Payment conclusions require authorized evidence from the company’s payment or order systems.
When Full Format is proportionate
WS Full Format includes phone, activity time, active days, gender, age, avatar, skin tone, avatar type, business account and mapped phone. Select it only for an approved cross-field quality review. A registration-only decision belongs in WS Registration and should not collect wider observations.
Assign an evidence class to every column
| Class | Examples | Handling |
|---|---|---|
| Input association | Phone | Reconcile TXT to contact_id |
| Task observation | Activity time, business account | Attach the observation date |
| Missing-prone profile | Age, gender, avatar, skin tone | Disclose unknown rate and restrict use |
| Relationship clue | Mapped phone | Never auto-merge a collision |
Minimize upload and reconciliation separately
The TXT contains one normalized phone per line and no name or transaction. Internally, a crosswalk retains contact_id, source, permission and normalization_version. Load the returned Excel into staging before reconnecting it by batch. Unmatched rows remain exceptions rather than disappearing.
Report two different coverage rates
Structure coverage asks how many inputs pass the +254 rule. Field coverage asks how many rows have a non-missing value in each Full Format column. Their denominators are different. Excluding format failures and then showing only profile coverage makes the workbook appear more complete than the original dataset.
A mapped-phone collision is a question, not a new truth
A mapped phone that differs from the input is a review clue. When one input produces several mappings, several customers share one mapping, or a mapping fails the expected country structure, open a conflict case. Do not replace the master phone with the newest returned value.
Permission runs on a separate track
Registration, recent activity and business-account state do not create contact permission. A record reaches a service or marketing queue only after provenance, purpose, channel permission and suppression checks. Profile fields must not support sensitive inference or unequal treatment.
Accept the batch on explainability
The Kenya handover includes the rule version, TXT hash, input and return counts, format exceptions, per-field unknown rates, mapping collisions and observation date. A high apparent “match rate” is not a quality result when nobody can explain how +254 was produced or where blanks went.
