Appearance
Contact Message Tab
Open any contact and you'll find a Message tab on their profile. It holds everything you've ever sent them on SMS and WhatsApp, and lets you write to them without going anywhere else.
NOTE
This feature requires FluentCRM Pro. See what's included →
You'd reach for the Unified Inbox when you're working through a queue of conversations. This tab is for the other moment — when you're already reading someone's profile and want to know what you last said to them, right there next to their tags and their purchase history.
Opening the Tab
Go to FluentCRM → Contacts, open a contact, and click Message in the row of tabs beneath their details.
The tab appears once the Messaging module is enabled and at least one channel is active.
Choosing a Channel
SMS and WhatsApp buttons sit at the top of the tab. Each channel has its own conversation, its own history, and its own consent status — switching between them switches everything below.
Only channels you've switched on appear here. On a WhatsApp-only site there's no SMS button to choose.
Chat View
Chat is the default: the conversation as the contact sees it, oldest to newest, split by day.
Messages you sent from a template carry a TEMPLATE badge, so you can tell a broadcast apart from something typed by hand. Each outgoing message shows its delivery state — a tick when it landed, a red icon when it didn't.
Above the conversation you'll find:
- The contact's consent status: A dropdown set to Subscribed, Unsubscribed, or Pending. Change it here when someone asks you to stop by phone or email rather than by replying — contacts who reply
STOPon WhatsApp are unsubscribed automatically, so you'll usually find this already updated for you. See how contacts opt themselves out. - Send Template: Send an approved template. See WhatsApp Templates.
- Refresh: Pull the latest messages.
- Expand: Make the conversation taller for long histories.
NOTE
A fourth status, Bounced, can appear on the badge but isn't in the dropdown. FluentCRM sets it when the number can't be reached, so it isn't yours to choose.
The Session Notice
On WhatsApp, a notice below the conversation tells you what you're allowed to send right now:
No Active Session — Only template messages can be sent
That's WhatsApp's 24-hour rule. When a contact messages you, a 24-hour window opens and you can reply with any free-form text. Once it closes, only an approved template gets through — so the composer gives way to Send Template until the contact writes again.
SMS has no such rule. You can message an SMS contact whenever you like, as long as they're subscribed.
History View
Switch to History for the same messages as a table — easier to scan when you're auditing rather than reading.
Each row shows:
- Message: The message body, with a Template tag when it came from one.
- Direction: Out for messages you sent, In for the contact's replies.
- Status:
SENT,DELIVERED,READ,FAILED, orPENDING. - Date: When it was sent.
Use the dropdown above the table to narrow the list to Campaign messages or Custom ones — a quick way to separate broadcasts from one-to-one conversations.