A record in Zoho CRM undergoes many changes over time—details get added or updated, activities are scheduled and completed, emails are sent, notes are added, documents are attached or removed, and more. Keeping track of all these events and organizing them chronologically can be challenging. That’s where the Timeline feature on the Record Detail Page comes in.

With the Timeline feature:

• You get a clear, chronological view of all events related to a record, complete with source and timestamp—perfect for troubleshooting, compliance, and audit-readiness.
  

• The timeline retains history for up to three years, providing a comprehensive record of interactions and changes over time (extended from the previous 6-month limit).

• You can set profile-based permissions for your Timeline and Interactions, ensuring that only users with the appropriate permissions have access to sensitive or unnecessary information.

A timeline gives a clear and complete picture of all the events related to a record, along with useful details like the source and time of change or interaction. This is handy for troubleshooting issues, passing audits, and maintaining compliance.

The timeline will store details related to changes going back 3 years.

To access a record's timeline

1. Click the [ Module ] Tab. The module could be Leads, Accounts, Contacts, and so on.
   
2. In the [Module] page that opens, click the record whose timeline you want to access.
   
3. Select the Timeline tab.
   

History tab

1. Filter : Use this to filter and find the entries that you want. You can filter using one or more of the following options:
   

• Modules : Use this to filter entries related to your notes, attachments, emails, tasks, meetings, and calls.
  
• Users : Use this to filter based on the user who is responsible for a change.
  
• Time : Use this to filter entries by the time of change. Besides the system-defined time periods, you can choose a specific date or a custom range.
  
• Sources : This can be used to filter by the source of change. You have multiple options here, ranging from manual to APIs.
  
  

2. The timeline : This is the chronological list to which your entries are attached. This is divided into times within those dates.
   
3. Upcoming Automated Actions : You can see the automated actions that will are scheduled to be executed in the future here.
   

Actions in History tab

View Sent Email status

Each record can contain multiple email fields, including a primary email, a secondary email, and multiple custom email addresses. When you send an email to any of these addresses, an entry is made in the timeline. However, if you send an email to multiple addresses present within a record, multiple entries will not be made. Only one consolidated entry is made in the timeline. For example, if I send emails to four email addresses linked to that record, the entry will be in the format of "Email sent to [Email ID A], [Email ID B], and 2 more". When you click View History, you will see the history of the email sent to only one email address, determined by the hierarchy of email addresses. The primary email takes precedence over the secondary and the secondary email takes precedence over the custom ones.

Add notes

Clicking on the note in the related list of the record will take you to the timeline event that it is linked with.

Configuring Profile Permissions

1. Navigate to the Admin Settings page in Zoho CRM.

2. Under Users and Control, select Profiles.

3. Either create a new custom profile or edit an existing one.

4. In the Modules and Permissions section, locate the Timeline option for each module (such as Contacts, Accounts, Deals, etc.). From here, you can enable or disable Timeline visibility based on the user’s role.

5. For Admin and Standard profiles, the Timeline permission will be locked and grayed out. This cannot be modified for these profiles.

To get a comprehensive view of events related to all the records in a CRM, please refer to the audit log.