Conversation history on the contact card

Conversation history on the contact card · Help

When a customer asks "what did you write to me last month?", or when you want to understand why an automation took the wrong branch, scrolling down the contact card is enough. The Conversation history section shows all the messaging with that person and every automation session that ran on them, in one place. This guide covers the two views, every line on a session card, and the limits of the history.

💡 This section may not be drawn on every account: it depends on your plan and your permission. And you cannot read the history of a conversation you could not open in the inbox — both screens pass through the same gate.

In this article you will find:

Switching between the two views
The full history view
The automation sessions view
The lines on a session card
How incoming messages are matched to sessions
When the section does not appear at all
Limits and known issues
Common mistakes

Switching between the two views

Two tabs sit under the section's heading:

Automation sessions — The flows that ran on this person, each as its own card.
Full history — Every message exchanged with the person in one stream.

Clicking a tab does not jump to the top of the page; it lands on the history section. The tab you chose is kept in the address bar, so you can share the address of the view you found.

If no automation has ever run for the person and you have not picked a tab yourself, the section opens Full history directly: you never land on an empty tab. If the sessions view is switched off on your account, the tab strip is not drawn at all and the full history is always shown.

The full history view

This view shows all the messaging with the person using the same bubbles as the inbox. Here the bubbles are read-only: you cannot write a reply or retry a message that failed to send. To reply, use the Open conversation button in the header.

Paging works by two rules, and the one-line note above the section says so:

The first page is the newest messages. Whoever opens the card wants to see the latest exchange first.
Within a page the order runs oldest to newest, so a page reads like a conversation.

Each page holds 40 messages. Use the page numbers to go further back.

If there is no messaging at all it says "No messages with this contact yet." That is normal for people who arrived from an ad or a comment and never exchanged a message.

The automation sessions view

A session is one run of one automation on this person. If the person triggered the same flow three times, you see three session cards.

Cards start closed and open when you tap them. Closed, each card shows:

The flow's name.
A status badge — running, waiting for a reply, waiting, paused, completed, cancelled or failed.
A one-line summary — the trigger, the flow's version and the start time.

Each page holds 10 sessions; because every card also carries its own messages and steps, the page is deliberately kept small.

If there are no sessions it says "No automation has run for this contact yet."

The lines on a session card

Opening a card reveals:

Reason — Why the session ended up in that state (when there is one). This is where you read why a flow was cancelled or why it failed.
Ended — The moment the session finished (if it has).
Messages — The messages exchanged during that session, as bubbles. If nothing was sent or received, a line says so (that is what a flow which only adds a tag looks like).
Steps — The step-by-step log: which step ran when, and what it did. The colour of the dot at the start of each line shows the outcome; warnings and errors have their own colours. On "data saved" lines you also see the value written to a field.
The Session log link — Opens the session's full log on its own screen.

If a session has very many steps, only the first part is drawn on the card and a line below says so; the whole log lives on the Session log screen. A card shows at most 200 steps.

How incoming messages are matched to sessions

Knowing this detail helps you read the messages on a card correctly:

Outgoing messages are linked to the session directly: it is recorded that this session sent that message.
Incoming messages are matched by the session's time range; an incoming message does not carry a session identifier.

The reason is the order of events: the person's message is saved first, then the automation starts. So it is normal for the message that started a session to sit slightly before it, and the matching therefore begins a little earlier. The lower bound is cut off at the end of the previous session, so two sessions never claim the same message.

The explanatory line under the cards states this on screen too.

When the section does not appear at all

The history section is not drawn when:

Your plan does not include the feature.
You do not have permission to view contacts.
The person's conversation is outside your conversation scope — the history of a conversation you cannot open in the inbox is not readable either.

The Automation sessions tab can also be switched off separately: in that case only the full history is shown.

Limits and known issues

The full history shows 40 messages per page; the session list shows 10 sessions per page.
A session card draws at most 200 steps; the rest is in the session log.
Finished sessions drop off the list after a retention period (90 days by default). The messages stay: you still see the messaging, only that old session's card is no longer listed.
The bubbles are read-only: you cannot send a reply or retry a failed message from here.
You cannot search the history; searching message text happens in the inbox.
Matching incoming messages to sessions is done by time range; at a very busy moment a message can land on a neighbouring session.
When a contact is deleted, their whole history goes too.

A worked example

A cosmetics brand resolves a "the customer got the wrong message" complaint like this:

The card of the person who complained is opened.
They switch to Conversation history → Automation sessions.
The session card from the day of the complaint is opened; the status badge says Completed.
The condition line in the Steps list is read: because the person had no vip tag, the flow went down the standard branch.
In Messages the outgoing text is visible; it really is the standard text.
The vip tag is added in the Details section of the person's card, and the next time the flow takes the right branch.

Five minutes turn a suspected broken automation into a missing tag.

Common mistakes

Trying to reply from the history. The bubbles are read-only; use the Open conversation button.
Reading a missing old session as data loss. Finished sessions drop off after the retention period; the messages are still there.
Looking for the oldest messages on page one. Page one is the newest; paging goes backwards.
Confusing a session with an automation. A session is one run of the flow; the same flow can have many sessions.
Expecting the whole step log on the card. On a long session the card is cut short; open the Session log.
Trying to search for a word in the history. There is no search here; use the inbox search.

If the history section does not appear at all, check your permission and your plan, then get in touch with our Support team.