# Tags and lifecycle stages

A tag labels a person or a single conversation. A lifecycle stage says where that person is in your funnel.

## Quick start

1. Open a conversation in **Inbox**, on the web or on the app, and find **Tags** in the contact panel.
2. Click **+**, then tick a tag or type a new name to create one.
3. Beside a conversation, do the same under **Conversation tags** for that conversation only.
4. Under **Lifecycle**, pick the stage this person is on now, or **No stage**.
5. Filter by a contact tag or a stage from **Contacts**. A new tag or stage can start a workflow.

## Watch out

- Deleting a stage never deletes contacts. They stay, with no stage.
- A tag typed into the picker is added to the workspace tag list too, with an automatic colour.

![The tag picker: vip typed in Search, with vip-customer suggested below it.](https://inchat.inseller.my/help/contacts/tags-and-lifecycle-stages-1.webp)

![Lifecycle stages: drag handles to reorder and a bin to delete each stage.](https://inchat.inseller.my/help/contacts/tags-and-lifecycle-stages-2.webp)

## Getting here

The contact panel beside a conversation, the full profile page, or the **Tags** and **Lifecycle** cells in the contacts list. Stages themselves are managed under **Settings → Lifecycle stages**. On the app: open the contact and use **Tags**, **Conversation tags** and **Lifecycle**.

## Before you start

- Owners, admins and agents can apply tags and change a stage. A **viewer** sees them and cannot change them.
- Managing the stage list — adding, renaming, reordering, deleting — is an owner, admin or agent action on the web.
- A workspace with no stages yet says **No lifecycle stages defined for this workspace yet.** on the app, and offers nothing to pick.

## Fields

| Field | What it means | Limits |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Tags | Labels on the person. They follow them into every conversation. | — |
| Conversation tags | Labels on one conversation only. The same person can carry different ones on different conversations. | — |
| Lifecycle | One stage at a time, or **No stage**. | — |
| Stage name | Up to 64 characters. | — |
| Stage emoji | Optional, shown in front of the name everywhere the stage appears. | — |
| Lost stage | Marks a stage as an ending rather than a step. | Those stages are listed separately under **Lost stages** in the contacts rail. |

## How it works

- The tag picker shows your workspace's tag list in the order an admin arranged, with the ones already on this person ticked where they sit.
- Typing a name that is not in the list offers to create it. Choosing that puts the name on the contact straight away.
- A name created that way is also added to the workspace tag list, with a colour picked from its name and no description. An admin can change both under **Settings → Tags**.
- Every add and every remove saves the whole list at once. The chips move first, and go back if the save fails.
- Adding a tag can start a workflow. Only what actually changed counts, so re-saving an unchanged list starts nothing, and a removal is reported as a removal.
- Conversation tags belong to the conversation, so they appear in the inbox rail and in inbox filters rather than in a contact filter.
- A lifecycle stage is one value on the person. Setting a new one replaces the old one, and **No stage** clears it.
- Inside an open conversation the stage picker and the header chip share one value, so changing it in one place moves the other immediately.
- In the contacts list you can change the stage from the row itself, without opening anybody.
- The left rail counts contacts per stage, and clicking a stage filters the list to it.
- **Settings → Lifecycle stages** lists the stages in their own order. Drag to reorder, click a name to rename it, tick **Lost stage** to mark it as an ending, and use the bin to delete one.
- Deleting a stage does not delete anybody. The contacts on it become unstaged, which is what the confirmation says before you agree.

## When it fails

- A stage saved with an empty name: **Stage name can't be empty.**
- A name another stage already uses: **A stage with this name already exists.**
- A stage change the server refuses: **Could not update lifecycle stage.**
- A tag change the server refuses: **Could not update tags.**, and the chips go back to what they were.
- A conversation tag that will not save says it could not be added, or could not be removed, naming the tag.
- Creating, renaming or deleting a stage can fail with **Could not create stage.**, **Could not update stage.** or **Could not delete stage.**

## Limits

- A stage change sends the customer nothing on its own. A workflow listening for a lifecycle change is what turns a stage into a message.
- A person is on one stage at a time. Use tags when somebody needs to be several things at once.
- A tag typed into the picker joins the workspace tag list with an automatic colour and no description until an admin sets them.
- Conversation tags do not roll up onto the person, and contact tags do not appear as conversation tags.
- Deleting a tag is not done from a contact. It is a **Settings → Tags** action, and it asks you to confirm how many contacts carry it.
- The app can apply both kinds of tag and set a stage, but cannot add, rename, reorder or delete a stage.

## Best practices

- Keep tags few, and spell them the same way every time. Two spellings are two filters, and a broadcast will find only one of them.
- Use stages for the path everybody walks, and tags for everything else. A stage nobody ever leaves is really a tag.
- Give a tag typed in the picker a colour and a description in **Settings → Tags**, so teammates know what it means.
- Before deleting a stage, filter the list by it and move those people somewhere else, so nobody is quietly unstaged.
- Put a tag on everything one import or one campaign brought in. It is the cheapest way to undo a mistake later.

## Use cases

- Sarah Chen asks about wholesale: tag the conversation, so the next person to open it knows what it is about.
- A customer buys: move them to your Customer stage, and let a workflow listening for that stage send the thank-you.
- You want to stop messaging a group: tag them, then build a segment that leaves anybody with that tag out.
- A stage has grown into three steps: add two more stages and drag them into order.

## FAQ and troubleshooting

### What is the difference between a tag and a stage?

A tag is a label and you can have many. A stage is where the person is in your funnel, and there is only one.

### I added a tag on the contact and it did not appear on the conversation.

Those are two lists. **Tags** follow the person; **Conversation tags** belong to one conversation.

### If I delete a stage, do I lose the contacts on it?

No. They stay and become unstaged. The confirmation says so before you agree.

### Does changing a stage message the customer?

Not by itself. It can start a workflow if one listens for that stage, and the workflow does the messaging.

### Why does my new tag have a colour I did not choose?

A tag created from the contact picker gets a colour picked from its name. Change it under **Settings → Tags**.

## Related

- [The contacts list](https://inchat.inseller.my/help/contacts/contacts-list-and-saved-views)
- [Filter contacts and save a segment](https://inchat.inseller.my/help/contacts/filter-contacts-and-save-segments)
- [Everything you know about a contact](https://inchat.inseller.my/help/contacts/the-contact-panel-and-full-profile)
- [Add, edit and merge a contact](https://inchat.inseller.my/help/contacts/add-edit-and-merge-contacts)
- [Update Lifecycle](https://inchat.inseller.my/help/workflows/update-lifecycle)
- [Tag Contact](https://inchat.inseller.my/help/workflows/tag-contact)

---

Source files: `src/components/contacts/ContactTagsEditor.tsx`, `src/components/tags/TagAssignPicker.tsx`, `src/lib/tags/assign-picker.ts`, `src/lib/tags/types.ts`, `src/components/inbox/ConversationTagsEditor.tsx`, `src/components/contacts/LifecycleSelect.tsx`, `src/components/contacts/LifecycleStagesManager.tsx`, `src/app/(app)/settings/lifecycle/page.tsx`, `src/app/(app)/contacts/actions.ts`, `src/lib/contacts/set-lifecycle.ts`, `src/lib/access/permissions.ts`, `supabase/migrations/0006_contacts_lifecycle.sql`, `supabase/migrations/20260911210000_tags_catalog.sql`, `supabase/migrations/20260913200000_review_0913_p1s.sql`, `src/components/contacts/ContactsRail.tsx`, `src/lib/i18n/messages/inbox-contact.ts`, `mobile/src/app/contact/[id].tsx`, `mobile/src/lib/i18n/en.ts`