Communications: New Conversation View

What has changed

The Communications section on a lead used to be a set of separate lists, one per channel. Emails lived in one list, texts in another, call activity in another. Nothing tied them together, so building a picture of the full conversation meant jumping between lists and mentally stitching the dates back into order.

Communications is now a single chronological conversation view. Every email, SMS, call, call script and campaign against the lead is collated into one timeline in date order, so you can read the whole relationship top to bottom in one place. Filtering to a single channel is still there whenever you need it, it is just no longer the only way to look at the record.

The example used through this article is a lead for a plug in hybrid SUV with two entries against it: an enquiry that arrived by email on the Thursday, and the salesperson's reply by text the following morning.

Opening the section

Communications sits in the same place it always has, in the panel list on the lead. Click the heading to expand or collapse it. It always opens on the full collated view.

Reading the timeline

Entries run in date order with a date separator above each day's activity. In the example there are two separators, Thu 30 Jul and Fri 31 Jul.

Inbound items sit on the left of the timeline with a blue accent. The email enquiry on 30 Jul is marked EMAIL and Received, and sits on the left.

Outbound items sit on the right with a green accent. The reply on 31 Jul is marked SMS and Sent, and sits on the right. At a glance you can see who was driving the conversation and where the gaps are.

Each entry shows the channel, the direction, the time, and the opening line of the message. Longer messages are truncated in the timeline so the history stays scannable.

Changing the order

The sort control at the top right of the section toggles between Oldest and Newest.

Oldest reads like a conversation, starting at first contact and working forward, so the email enquiry appears first and the reply second. Newest puts the most recent activity at the top, which is quicker when you only need to see where things were left, so the reply moves above the enquiry. The button label always tells you which order you are currently in.

Filtering to one channel

The filter row above the timeline has All, Email, SMS, Calls, Scripts and Campaigns.

All is selected by default and shows the collated view. Selecting any other option narrows the timeline to that channel only.

Each option carries a count of how many records of that type exist on the lead. In the example All shows 2, Email shows 1 and SMS shows 1. Channels with no records are dimmed. You can still select them, you will just see "No records found", which is what Calls, Scripts and Campaigns return on this lead.

On narrower screens, or if your browser is zoomed in, the filter row collapses into a single dropdown showing the channel you are currently viewing. The options are identical.

Action buttons follow the filter

The buttons under the filter row change to match the channel you have selected, so you are only ever offered the actions that make sense for what you are looking at.

With All selected you get the complete set: Add email, New SMS message, New SMS email, Call Mobile, Call Phone, Add call script, Add campaign and Forward email.

Select Email and you get Add email and Forward email.

Select SMS and you get New SMS message and New SMS email.

Select Calls and you get Call Mobile and Call Phone.

Select Scripts and you get Add call script.

Select Campaigns and you get Add campaign.

The actions themselves are unchanged. They open the same compose and logging screens you already use, and anything you send from here drops straight back into the timeline.

Opening a single entry

Click any entry in the timeline to open it in full. The detail view is read only, so you cannot accidentally alter something that has already been sent.

An email opens as an Event Summary showing the date it was received, the address it involved, the subject line, and the complete message body in a scrollable box. In the example the summary reads 30 Jul 2026 8:54 PM, alex.taylor@example.com, and a subject carrying the stock number and the listing title, with the body containing the marketplace enquiry text, the vehicle specification and the asking price.

A New Email Response action sits in the top corner if you want to reply while the message is in front of you. Close returns you to the timeline with your filter and sort still applied.

What has not moved

Messages and Automated Communications are still separate panels directly below Communications. They have not been folded into the conversation view, so anything you were doing there continues to work exactly as before.

Things worth knowing

The counts on the filter row reflect what is stored against this lead only, not the customer's entire history across every lead they appear on.

Filter and sort are view settings. They change what you are looking at and never change the underlying records.

The timeline is the same data you saw in the old per channel lists. Nothing was migrated or rewritten, it is simply presented together now.