Augmenting subform capabilities

Augmenting subform capabilities

Greetings, everyone!
 
Finally, the day has come for us to announce some of the most anticipated, requested, and exciting updates to subforms in Zoho Creator.
 
As you're aware, subforms are an integral part of Creator forms, as they help in establishing proper modelling of the app, collecting rows of data, and setting up users to enter data that has a parent-child relationship. With this new set of updates, we've bought in a paradigm shift to subforms, as they'll be getting an all-new look for an improved user experience, along with new capabilities for solving challenges. This post will give you a sneak peek into these new subform enhancements.
 
Do you find it difficult to scroll subforms horizontally? Do you wish you could drag and drop subform rows? Do you want to manipulate subform fields via Deluge script? Then your wait has come to an end—continue reading to learn more on how you can now do all of this in subforms.
 

Subform list and pop-up view

As announced in the March 2023 post, the List view type of subforms will display the subform as a pop-up, and the current method of displaying subforms has been christened Grid.
 
To further understand how this can be helpful, let's put ourselves in the shoes of a supply chain manager. Their job requires them to regularly keep track of inventory lists in their warehouses.
 
Let's assume there's a form collecting warehouse details, like name, location, and stock inventory. For collecting the stock inventory details, a subform is present with these fields—Item No, Name, Manufacturer, Description, Cost Per Item, Stock Quantity, Inventory Value, Units Sold, Reorder Quantity, Reorder Date, and Person In Charge.

Now, the default view type will tire you out from scrolling back and forth horizontally, and results in a frustrating time-consuming process. We all long for a new way to avoid this and make data entry swifter.
 
To achieve this, make use of the new List option under  Subform->Field Properties->View Type.
 
List view, which looks similar to our list report, is a table-like subform without inline inputs. When you try adding or updating data in each row, a pop-up will be displayed listing out the fields with vertical scrolling, thereby ensuring a vastly superior user experience and more effective space management.



Crucially, it also helps to load subform rows quickly while editing records, by reducing the loading time.
 


While using an existing form as a subform, the form's exact structure will be replicated in the pop-up, to ensure consistency in the look and feel of the form. To understand this better, let's assume our form has a two-column layout, with Section and Note fields. Now the same customizations will be displayed in the pop-up, too! 



And that's not all—the new List view type is being extended to mobile apps, too. When it's enabled, the subform will be opened in the next screen, where users can add their data. This data will then be added as a subform row.

Custom sorting

Currently, the only sorting option in subforms is  field-based sorting, where you can choose a field based on which rows are sorted, either in ascending or descending order. Though this works well for basic cases, the need may arise in some cases to sort the subform in random order. With the new custom sorting support, you can effortlessly drag and drop subform rows to rearrange them.
 
To understand how it works, let's consider a task manager working on a To-Do List form, to plan activities for a current project. For this, they have a main form collecting project details, date-time, and milestones, and a subform for maintaining the to-do list with the following fields: Task Name, Description, Category, Status, Deliverables, Priority, and Deadline. Here, before submitting the list, they want to rearrange some tasks based on their daily routine.
 
To achieve this, they use the Custom sorting option under Subform->Field Properties->Sort type.
 
Now, with custom sorting, all they need to do to reorder the row sequence—both while adding and editing records—is simply drag and drop them in the required position.




The same order will be retained in reports or while opening the form for updating the list.  
Note: Custom sorting can be used both in List and Grid-type subforms.
 
Custom sorting will also be available on the mobile apps and you can effortlessly rearrange fields in subforms.

Deluge tasks for row-level actions

You can use a combination of workflows and Deluge scripts to help your subforms handle complex business logic. With that in mind, we formulated the idea of bringing in actions that help you take control at the row level of subforms.
 
In the past, you may have come across business scenarios which required you to hide/show or enable/disable a particular field in a specific subform row. Now, with new dedicated Deluge tasks, you can bid adieu to shortcuts and workarounds.
 
Note: Deluge tasks can be used both in List and Grid-type subforms.
 
Enable/disable
The new enable and disable subform Deluge tasks can be used to enable and disable specific fields.
 
Syntax: enable row.subform_field
             disable row.subform_field
Events: On add row, On delete row, On user input of subform field
 
Let's assume a Vehicle form has fields like Customer Name, Vehicle Model, and Date of Booking, and a subform to collect payment details with the following fields: Payment Date, Payment Method, Credit Card Number, Bank Account Number, and Transaction Ref Number.
 
Now, there are two payment options—Card and Netbanking. If Card is chosen, then the Credit Card Number field should be enabled and the Bank Account Number field should be disabled. Similarly, when Netbanking is chosen, then the Bank Account Number field should be enabled and the Credit Card Number field disabled.

Code snippet:
if(Payment_details.Payment_method == "Card")
{
 enable row.Credit_card_number;
 disable row.Bank_account_number;
}
if(Payment_details.Payment_method == "Netbanking")
{
 enable row.Bank_account_number;
 disable row.Credit_card_number;
}



Hide/show
The new show and hide subform Deluge tasks can be used to show and hide specific fields.
 
Syntax: hide row.subform_field
             show row.subform_field
Events: On add row, On delete row, On user input of subform field
 
Let's use the example of a rental property manager who needs to keep track of a list of properties that are available in every locality. For this, a form is used for collecting information like Locality and No of Vacant Properties, and a subform will be used to list property details with the following fields: Property Name, Address, Square Feet, Rent, Advance, Category, and Contact Number.
 
When the category is Brokerage, we need to hide the contact number of the landlord. We can use the new Deluge tasks to achieve this.
 
Code snippet :
if(row.Category == "Brokerage")
{
 hide row.Phone_Number;
}
else
{
 show row.Phone_Number;
}
     
     
-----

That's it from us on our subform enhancements! We expect these updates to be rolled out in the upcoming weeks. Once done, we'll pop in a comment below and also update our Release Notes page.
 
Don't forget—your feedback helps us make Creator better and stronger. We'd love to hear what you think about these updates. Please use the space below or send your feedback to support@zohocreator.com.
 
Regards,
Zoho Creator Team



    • Sticky Posts

    • Introducing Zoho Creator's 2025 Release Projection 2

      Hello Creators! I'm Prakash, from the Creator product management team, and today I'm delighted to unveil our next set of features as part of Release Projection 2 for 2025. With thoughtful analysis and planning, we've curated powerful new capabilities

    • Zoho Creator - 2023 Release Projection 1

      Hello everyone! A very Happy New Year to you and your family. Hope you're all good and having a great time using Zoho Creator to make your lives easier and your businesses prosper. 2022 was an action-packed year for us at Creator, and we hope to continue

    • Zoho Creator User Group meetups in a city near you! - Oct - Nov, 2023

      Greetings from the Zoho Creator team! We're hosting a series of Zoho Creator meetups in various cities across the globe, and we'd love to meet you there! Our meetups are a great opportunity to network with industry peers, exchange ideas and best practices,

    • Zoho Creator - 2023 Release Projection 2

      Hello everyone! Time truly flies when you're having an incredible journey, and today we mark the completion of an eventful and action-packed six months. It feels like just yesterday when we embarked on this adventure together with the launch of our new

    • Upcoming Updates - August 2022

      Hi all, Greetings from the Zoho Creator team! Today we've got news for you on some exciting updates. And rest assured— there’s more to come! In this post, we'll be going over the upcoming features and improvements for this month as mentioned below. A

    • Recent Topics

    • Zoho SignForms: Prefill parameters with spaces render as “+” in the document (even when using %20)

      Hello Zoho Sign team, we are using SignForms with prefill parameters passed via URL. Spaces in parameter values are being rendered as “+” in the finalized document—even when we URL-encode spaces as %20. This is critical for us because we prefill addresses

    • Currency selector (based on variable) usage in comparsion

      Hi, I've developed a currency selector based on the following topic, and it's working well in pivot tables and charts: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/how-can-i-allow-my-users-to-choose-a-currency-for-the-dashboard I also have a comparison

    • Customize Column in Projects - Default View for Template?

      Is there a way to have the columns you'd like to see added to a template? I want my customized columns to show up every single time I create a project from that template. It appears I can customize them in the template but when I create the project they do not transfer over.  Template: See below how the columns in order are : Task, Owner, Status, Assigned, Website URL, Blog H1..etc. When I create a project from that same template it comes out as: Task, Owner, Status, Tags, Start Date, End Date, etc

    • Ask the Experts 24: Analytics, data administration, and mobile experience with Zoho Desk

      Hello Everyone! Welcome back to the Ask the Experts(ATE) series! We were so focused on our Autumn 2025 release that we didn't host an ATE session last month. In this month's ATE, we'd like to expand our areas for discussion: we'd like to listen to your

    • Multi-Page Forms in Zoho Creator!

      Let’s make long applications easier to handle by dividing them into pages, adding a progress bar, and guiding users step by step through complex data entry. This would be a total game-changer for the user experience and could significantly boost completion

    • Email login error

      Login successfully but email page error

    • Shared Mailboxes Disappeared

      Zoho Mail users in our company haven't been able to see their Shared Mailboxes for the past few hours. I've checked with App and Web Access, but they can't access them. When I send emails to their addresses, I get no error messages. They're still visible

    • Remote Server is misconfigured

      Dear Team, I am unable to use email id as remote server is misconfigured. It would be really great if you could help on this and get this resolved. Thanks & Regard Rohit Gupta

    • why cant i access my email account. it keeps asking me for reverifiying my account by entering my password.

      I cant access my account. it keeps asking me for reverifcaton by entering my password. once its entered it asks for it over and over.

    • Free webinar alert on October 16 - Less Complexity, More Security: Workplace + Directory

      Hello Zoho Workplace Community! Security and productivity shouldn't be at odds—and with Zoho, they're not. Discover how Zoho Workplace + Directory delivers seamless collaboration with enterprise-grade security, all in one integrated ecosystem. Join our

    • Workdrive and ChatGPT Team Synced Connectors

      Hi, we want to be able to integrate Zoho Workdrive with OpenAI’s ChatGPT Team plan. Google Drive and OneDrive both offer this, zoho please catch up asap. We dont want to have to put our company files in google drive, we want to allow chatgpt Team edition

    • Alias Name (on items) use case in Zoho inventory

      Hey, Hope everyone is well. Wondering if anyone can shed some light on the use case of Alias Names on Products in Zoho Inventory? Cheers, Chris

    • Updating an Invoice Line Item's Discount Account via API Call / Deluge Custom Function

      I need help updating an invoice line item's discount account via API. Below is a screenshot of the line item field I am referring to. Now the field to the left of the highlighted field (discount account) is the sales income account. I am able to modify

    • Send e-mail with attachments

      Dear Zoho, How is that possible in Zoho Flow to send an e-mail with attachment?  Just a simple example: Zoho Flow checks my Zoho mails and if the conditions starts the trigger then I would like to send an email with the original email's attachment. Any idea? BR, Adam

    • How to I get checkboxes on a subform to update via deluge

      Hello, would someone be able to tell me what I'm doing wrong here? I am trying to take the contents of a Deals subform and add them to an invoice then update the checkbox on each row so that 'add to invoice' is unticked and 'invoiced' is ticked. The output

    • Unified customer portal login

      As I'm a Zoho One subscriber I can provide my customers with portal access to many of the Zoho apps. However, the customer must have a separate login for each app, which may be difficult for them to manage and frustrating as all they understand is that

    • Zoho Projects - Task Owner filter at Project level

      Hi Projects Team, The feature requests I would like to raise is the ability to create a custom view at the project level for projects with tasks owned by a user or users. For example "Ashley's Projects" custom view might contain a list of project in which

    • Cadences

      I have just started using Cadences for follow-up up email pipeline. Is it just me or do you find the functionality very basic? For example, it will tell me (if I go looking for it) if someone has replied to a follow-up and been unenrolled; but it won't

    • Would be really awesome to have Created Time and Modified Time showing for custom functions list

      It would be SO HELPFUL to be able to sort custom functions by created time/ modified time. Also seeing a created by/ modified by with the little profile picture would be supremely helpful as well. Just really hard sometimes to find a function you were

    • Ticket Export Does Not Include Ticket Threads

      Dear Zoho Desk Support Team, I hope you’re doing well. I would like to report an issue regarding the ticket export functionality in Zoho Desk. Currently, when exporting tickets, the ticket threads or conversation history are not included — only the ticket

    • Payments made notification

      This is a really wonderful feature but we can only use it for about 50% of payments made & have to revert to sending statements which is a real chore. Credits applied to the bills paid in the notification aren't included & this causes great confusion in the accounts receivable departments. Please, please add this required feature asap ! .....

    • ZOHO DESK link with Power BI

      HI, I am using ZOHO Desk for last two years and now my client is asking to integrate ZOHO desk data to Power BI so that they can use Data for reporting. Kindly guide in details so that i can give access to ZOHO desk export data for more visibility.

    • URLs being masked despite disabling tracking

      Hey, We had disabled click tracking from an email update we are sharing with our users. Despite this, the URL the end user is receiving is masked, and looks like "https://qksyl-cmpzourl.maillist-manage.net/click/1d8e72714515cda6/1d8e72714515ca70" instead

    • Dashboard Autorefesh

      Good day, I am a dashboard that displays the number of tickets based on "Product Name". This dashboard is displayed on a big TV for the team to monitor. Can the dashboard auto-refresh every few minutes to display the new values? Currently, we have closed

    • Deferred/ Unearned revenue

      Dear Zoho Team, Just in case you have missed out my query posted few days ago: We issue invoices relating to 12-month web hosting service. When we issue the invoice, we should record the entire amount of the invoice as DEFERRED/UNEARNED REVENUE (ie. $10

    • Bigin Android app update: Zoho Books integration

      Hello everyone! We’re excited to introduce Zoho Books integration on the latest version(v1.8.5) Bigin Android app. Once the integration is completed in the web(bigin.zoho.com), the Zoho Books tab will be visible in detail View of Contacts, Companies,

    • Audit Log enhancements: Increased retention period, better user visibility, and more

      Hello everyone, The Audit Log brings in the following enhancements which improve the overall ability to manage data. Why did we make these updates? Extended Data Retention: Audit data can now be filtered and exported for a 60-day period, doubling the

    • Question Regarding Managing Sale Items in Zoho Books

      Good day, I was wondering about something. Right now, Zoho Books doesn’t seem to have a way to flag certain items as being on sale. For example, if I want a list of specific items to be on sale from October 1 to October 12, the user would have to export

    • System flaws and lack of response from Zoho

      I have had to go on here as no-one is replying to my emails regarding my problem (been 10 days and no email reply) and your chat facility online through your Zoho Books software opens and closes immediately, so not functioning properly. I actually called

    • Customer Grouping

      Hi, how can I group multiple customers into single group. So that I can have idea of accounts receivables of all the customers in single group. Like if there are multiple subsidiaries of same company we have having a business with, and want to view the

    • Two currencies

      More and more I am finding that internattional payments' fees are unpredictable. I would like, on my invoices that are in a foreign currency (eg. USD$ or EUR€) for there to be a GBP£ TOTAL display alongside the invoice's currency total. This would make

    • GST Slabs Redefined: Stay Compliant Using Zoho Books!

      Hello Everyone! The Government of India is rolling out new GST rates, a major reform aimed at simplifying the current tax structure starting 22 September 2025. GST will move from four slabs (5%, 12%, 18%, 28%) to two main slabs (5% and 18%), plus a special

    • Edit item custom fields

      Getting this error : Transactions have been created with the custom field. Hence it cannot be deleted. Not trying to delete it, just trying to change which modules to show in or to not show at all in transactions !

    • Use Zoho Books to bill for work done in Zoho Desk??

      I'm trying to see if something is possible (and if yes, how). We use Zoho One to manage our business. We have a lot of clients that will put in a ticket (via portal) to have work done. Out techs will pick up the ticket, do the work, and then log the time

    • Zoho Finance Suite - Customer Custom Tabs - Dynamic Link

      Hi Finance Suite team, When creating a Custom Tab for a Client Portal, there is no option to add dynamic parameters. This would be very helpful for adding Zoho Analytics dashboards which can be dynamically filtered through the URL to only show information

    • Bank Receipt Catagorization

      Hi, how can I match a bank deposit to multiple customer's invoices ? For e.g. A single person paid to us on behalf of different five customers. I need to keep the separated invoices for each customer

    • Payment on a past due balance

      Scenario: Customer is past due on their account for 4 months. We suspend their billing in Zoho books. Customer finally logs into the portal and enters a new credit card. We associate that cardwith their subscription, which will permit the card to be used

    • How to export all line-item descriptions for a specific item in Zoho Books?

      I am trying to audit a specific item (“Item X”) that has been invoiced multiple times with different line-level descriptions. Here’s the situation: I am using Zoho Books (Professional). Each invoice may contain the same item but with different descriptions

    • List of hidden features

      Hi Friends, I had another support chat today and low and behold the feature that I wanted just simply needed to be "enabled". I thought I'd share, and maybe see if others had some similar experiences. 1. This one is from 5 ish years ago. I asked if there

    • How to change a BAS that has been filed

      I have discovered that a group of expense transactions were accidentally placed in a asset account rather than an expense account. As a result I need to adjust the transaction and consequently most of my BAS to correct the error. Because the BAS have

    • Next Page