When to Use
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When you open a conversation and want to know if that contact has spoken with us before.
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When the client seems to bring up a topic again and you need the context without leaving the screen.
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When you want to know through which channel the previous contact occurred and how long ago it was.
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When the client has returned multiple times and you want to go through their history step by step.
How it Works
The notification at the top of the conversation
When the contact has had a previous conversation, a notification appears at the top of the message list. It is not fixed: you need to scroll to the beginning of the current conversation to see it.
The notification summarizes the main details of the previous conversation:
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Channel through which it occurred (Webchat, Email, WhatsApp);
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Status of the conversation (open, pending, deferred, resolved);
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How long ago the client echoed back to us.
The status describes how the previous support was concluded, not whether the client's issue was resolved. A conversation marked as resolved means someone closed it — whether the client was satisfied remains your judgment.
Opening the previous conversation
Click on View history and the previous conversation opens right there, just above the current one.
It appears in a read-only mode: you can read the messages, with their date and time, just as in the main conversation, but you cannot reply there. To resume the previous chat, use the "Open Original" link, which takes you to it.
To close, click on Collapse.
Going deeper into the history
If the client has returned several times, each opened history offers the previous one, up to five levels. Each new conversation appears above the previous one, following the timeline: the higher on the screen, the older.
After opening a history, the next notification takes a few seconds to appear. This is intentional: it prevents an accidental click from jumping two levels at once.
Long conversations
When opening a history, you see the 20 most recent messages of that conversation — usually enough to understand how it ended.
If you need more context, click on Load more messages. The button disappears when there is nothing left to load.
Notes
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The previous conversation is always the one before the one you are reading. If you open a conversation from the middle of the history, the notification shows the one before it, not the most recent of the contact.
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The notification does not appear in inboxes configured for one conversation per contact. In these channels, the contact always maintains the same conversation, so there is no separate history to consult.
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Merged conversations do not appear as previous. Their content is already in the conversation that received them.
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If the contact only had this conversation, no notification appears.
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The history is only loaded when you click. While the notification is there idle, it consumes nothing.