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When you open a customer profile and notice that a contact (an email or a phone number) has quietly disappeared, it usually isn’t a bug. Maestra moves contacts between profiles automatically when it detects duplicates, and the change history is where you can see exactly what happened and why. This article walks through how to read those entries so you can trace a missing contact back to the profile that now owns it.

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Why a contact can disappear from a profile

Maestra continuously looks for duplicate customers. When two profiles share the same contact — most often the same email address or the same phone number — the platform decides which profile should keep that contact and moves it there. The other profile loses the contact, but it doesn’t lose the record of having had it: the change history keeps a full audit trail.

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How Maestra decides which customer keeps the contact

When the same contact shows up on two customers, Maestra needs to pick a winner. The rule is straightforward: the more recent registration takes priority. The customer who registered later is considered the higher-priority profile, and the shared contact moves to them.

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Worked example

Anna registers on the site first. Then Max registers. Their phone numbers are different, but they entered the same email address. Because Max registered later, his profile is the higher-priority one. Maestra moves the shared email from Anna to Max.

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What you’ll see in each profile after the move

Once the move happens, both customer profiles update at the same time. Here’s what each side looks like.

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On Anna’s profile (the customer who lost the contact)

  • The email field is empty, with the note “Contact transferred to another customer.”
  • A new entry appears in her change history describing the transfer, with a link to Max’s profile so you can jump straight to the customer who now owns the email.
  • Anna is added to Max’s list of similar profiles.

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On Max’s profile (the customer who received the contact)

  • The email field now shows the shared address.
  • A mirrored entry appears in his change history: “Contact received from another customer,” with a link back to Anna’s profile.
  • Max is added to Anna’s list of similar profiles.
The two entries are always created as a pair. If you see “Contact transferred to another customer” on one side, you will always find the matching “Contact received from another customer” on the other side. Following the link in either direction takes you to the other half of the story.

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How to read the change history when a contact is missing

When a customer tells you their email is gone, or when you spot a blank contact field that you expected to see filled in, walk through the change history in order:
1

Open the customer profile

Go to the affected customer profile and open the change history.
2

Look for a transfer entry

Scan for an entry that says “Contact transferred to another customer.” That’s the moment the contact left this profile.
3

Follow the link to the other customer

The entry includes a direct link to the customer who received the contact. Open that profile.
4

Confirm the mirrored entry

On the receiving profile, find the matching “Contact received from another customer” entry. This confirms where the contact ended up and when.
5

Check the similar profiles list

Both customers are linked through the similar profiles list. Use it to see the full set of related duplicates if more than two profiles are involved.

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Why this matters

The change history isn’t just a log — it’s the trail you follow whenever a contact, a subscription, or any identifying field looks different from what a customer or a colleague expects. Reading the transfer entries together with the receiving profile’s history tells you the complete story of where the data moved and which profile now owns it.
If the missing contact is a phone number rather than an email, the mechanism is the same. Look for the same pair of “transferred” / “received” entries — Maestra applies the rule to every shared contact, not just email addresses.