Introducing group by, aggregation, and repeating regions in mail merge templates

Display data exactly the way you want and highlight key insights with Zoho Writer's enhanced merge templates.

We've supercharged Zoho Writer's merge templates with the capability to dynamically group, aggregate, and repeat data as blocks. You can now fetch data from any data source, including Zoho CRM, Bigin, and Creator, and present them in an easily understandable form in just a few clicks.

Here's how you can enhance data presentation using group by, aggregation, repeating regions, and data transformation.

Let's understand these new capabilities and how to use them in detail. To make this easier, let's take a look at how Zylker Automobiles, an imaginary car manufacturer, uses the new group and loop options to easily present their data in different ways.

1. Visualize data with group by for easy and quick understanding.

Business case: Generate a master pricelist with the state-wise price of all car models.

Zylker Automobiles' sales admin uses group by and repeating regions to display the price list for all car models separately for each state whenever the prices of their cars are changed.

Group by helps you to group data based on a specific field or value. With repeating regions, you can configure the layout/table/row only once and dynamically expand it based on the volume of data, instead of manually expanding it. Click here for the detailed steps to use the group by function.

Watch this video to learn how to use the group by, aggregation, and data transformation capabilities in your mail merge templates.

2. Summarize data to highlight key aspects and insights.

Business case: Generate the monthly revenue report with country-wide and region-specific revenue summaries and breakdowns.

You can use the aggregation functions to summarize a large chunk of data to glean important insights like maximum, minimum, count, average, and sum.

Zylker Automobiles' sales admin combines the power of the built-in group by, aggregation, and repeating regions to highlight the:

• Total revenue generated in a month.
  
• State-wise total revenue with a breakdown of revenue from each category.
  
• Granular, item-wise breakdown of revenue for each category for every state.
  

Click here to learn how to use the aggregation functions.

3. Transform data to create and populate sub-forms.

Business case: Generate and save the detailed revenue report of each state as a separate file in a specific folder.

Zylker Automobiles uses data transformation to map the desired fields in the data source as main and sub-form fields. This allows them to extract and process the raw, unordered transactional data to generate the revenue report for each state separately. Click here to know how to use the Transform Data Source option.

4. Format data with the new number-formatting options.

Business case: Send an email to each SDR at the beginning of every month with their total revenue from the previous month in words, along with a summary of their performance.

​

Zoho Writer has added new formatting options exclusively for numbers. With these, you can now convert a number to text, ordinal number, ordinal text, and ordinal year.

The Zylker Automobiles sales admin uses the new Number to Text formatting option to convert and display numbers as texts in email that they send to their SDR every month.

Try the group by and aggregation functions in Writer's mail merge templates, and let us know your feedback. You can also watch this video to understand how to use these features to elevate your documents.

If you need any assistance or have any questions in configuring the group by, aggregation, or data transformation operations, please write to us at support@zohowriter.com or add a comment below.

Happy merging and data visualizing!

• Topic Participants

• Varadarajan AR

  

• Marcus Longone

• Sticky Posts

• Easily perform calculations using dates with the new DATEDIF function

  Hey Zoho Writer users! We've enhanced Zoho Writer's formula capabilities with the new DATEDIF function. This allows you to calculate the difference between dates in days, months, and years. Function syntax: =DATEDIF(start_date, end_date, unit) Inputs:

• Date-based conditions and filters

  Configure conditions with date  Hi everyone! We are excited to announce that you can now compare and filter data with date-based conditions. This update lets you compare date fields in a document to a reference date and display a text or value if the

• Introducing group by, aggregation, and repeating regions in mail merge templates

  Display data exactly the way you want and highlight key insights with Zoho Writer's enhanced merge templates. We've supercharged Zoho Writer's merge templates with the capability to dynamically group, aggregate, and repeat data as blocks. You can now

• Say hello to an improved way to merge documents!

  Automating all your documents from start to finish is now easier than ever with Writer's new merge tools.   If you haven't seen it yet, you can read the main announcement here. Here is the full list of the features we've rolled out: 1. Dynamic Table Headers

• Introducing Org Fonts in Zoho Writer

  Hey Zoho Writer users! We're excited to share that you can now add custom fonts (from web fonts with publicly accessible URLs) using Zoho Writer's Org Fonts. This option allows all users across your organization to use the custom font without the hassle

• Recent Topics

• Auto Update Event Field Value on Create/Edit

  Hi there, I know this question has been posted multiple times and I've been trying many of the proposed similar scripts for a while now but nothing seems to work... what might I do wrong? The error I receive is this: Value given for the variable 'meetingId'

• Pre-orders at Zoho Commerce

  We plan to have regular producs that are avaliable for purchase now and we plan to have products that will be avaliable in 2-4 weeks. How we can take the pre-orders for these products? We need to take the money for the product now, but the delivery will

• Constant color of a legend value

  It would be nice if we can set a constant color/pattern to a value when creating a chart. We would often use the same value in different graph options and I always have to copy the color that we've set to a certain value from a previous graph to make

• Zoho Pagesense really this slow??? 5s delay...

  I put the pagesense on my website (hosted by webflow and fast) and it caused a 5s delay to load. do other people face similar delays?

• Payroll and BAS ( Australian tax report format )

  Hello , I am evaluating Zoho Books and I find the interface very intuitive and straight forward. My company is currently using Quickbooks Premier the Australian version. Before we can consider moving the service we would need to have the following addressed : 1.Payroll 2.BAS ( business activity statement ) for tax purposes 3.Some form of local backup and possible export of data to a widely accepted format. Regards Codrin Mitin

• Problem with Email an invoice with multiple attachments using API

  I have an invoice with 3 attachments. When I send an email manually using the UI, everything works correctly. I receive an email with three attachments. The problem occurs when I try to initiate sending an email using the API. The email comes with only

• Page Layouts for Standard Modules like CRM

  For standard modules like quotes, invoices, purchase orders, etc, it would be a great feature to be able to create custom page layouts with custom fields in Zoho Books similar to how you can in Zoho CRM. For example, and my current use case, I have a

• Non-depreciating fixed asset

  Hi! There are non-depreciable fixed assets (e.g. land). It would be very useful to be able to create a new type of fixed asset (within the fixed assets module) with a ‘No depreciation’ depreciation method. There is always the option of recording land

• Fixed asset management

  I want to know if there is any individual module for fixed assets management

• One time sale item in billing automatically detects as service

  if i have some items which i don't want to add in my "item" list because its sold only for one time. but when i type item name in invoice, it (system) automatically takes it as a service and despite of HSN , it shows SAC code to be entered. if its selectable i.e. either item or service , it would be very helpful and a must have feature.

• Project template after project creation

  How can I apply a project template AFTER the project has been created?

• convert the project to templet

  i have some deployment ME product for different customer , i need to create a fixed template for use it rather then keeping creating this template every time

• Is there a notification API when a new note is addeding

  Trying to push to Cliq, or email notification when there's a new note added in module. How to implement this?

• Seriously - Create multiple contacts for leads, (With Company as lead) Zoho CRM

  In Zoho CRM, considering a comapny as a lead, you need us to allow addition of more than one contact. Currently the Lead Section is missing "Add contact" feature which is available in "Accounts". When you know that a particular lead can have multiple

• Related Module in Sharing Rules

  Zoho CRM team recently added the feature to filter records by Related Records It will be really beneficial if we can have this feature for Sharing Rules as well

• Assignment Thresholds Resetting After Lead Conversion

  Hello everyone, We're facing an issue with Zoho CRM's lead assignment thresholds that makes them unsuitable for our workflow. I'm hoping to find a potential workaround or solution from the community. Here’s our current process: A new lead is created automatically

• Vendor Signatures Needed for Purchase Orders

  Hello everyone, We have a unique requirement that necessitates that Vendors & Suppliers formally acknowledge our Purchase Orders upon receipt. I was hoping that there would be an option to do so in Zoho Books, but that does not appear to be the case.

• Zoho CRM Analytics - Allow To Reorder Dashboards

  I would like to suggest that you add the ability to reorder dashboards in the Analytics Module. I can see that this has been requested some time ago, the latest 9 years ago. I am not sure if this is a big or small endeavor, but such a small fix can go

• Territory view for custom modules?

  I have recently activated territories however I can't seem to find how to use territories for custom modules? These modules have territories:  Contacts /  Accounts / Opportunities These modules don't have territories:   Buildings (custom module) and 

• Zoho Books - How to Invoke a Custom Function in Schedulers

  We have multiple schedulers that send emails to customers in batches. Currently, we are maintaining the same code across several schedulers. Is it possible to use a custom function inside a scheduler script? If yes, how can we invoke the custom function

• Approval Process Comments

  Is it possible to view the comments entered during the approval or rejection of a record in the approval process? If not, is there a way to require a field to be completed upon approval or rejection?

• Login for test case

  Had a few questions regarding authentication test cases and couldn't find an answer in the the docs. 1. If an app like Zoho Creator requires authentication before providing access, do I need to create a login function and add it to each test case? 2.

• Zoho / Outlook Calendar sync

  The current Marketplace -> Microsoft -> Meetings integration needs 2 changes. 1. The current language for the Two-Way sync option should be changed. It currently states, "Sync both your Zoho CRM Calendar and Office 365 Calendar meetings with each other."

• 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

• Form Rules for Suburb Categories to alternate landing pages or Making a Fields Contents ALL CAPS

  I need to send differentform submissions to two to three different thank-you URLs (for Meta/Google pixels) depending on which suburb a user selects in a form. I have ~400 suburbs split into two categories (A and B, based on business value). Current challenges:

• Please make it easier to Pause syncing

  right now it takes 3 clicks to get there. sounds silly, but can you make it just 2 clicks to get it done instead? thats how dropbox does it, 2 clicks to pause instead of 3.

• Customer members area

  Does FSM support a customer members area? If not what do you propose we use if we want the data used in FSM for customers to give them an area / login to see past orders, create new orders and general announcements.

• Zoho Books-Accounting on the Go Series!

  Dear users, Continuing in the spirit of our 'Function Fridays' series, where we've been sharing custom function scripts to automate your back office operations, we're thrilled to introduce our latest initiative – the 'Zoho Books-Accounting on the Go Series'.

• Record Logged in User while using CRM lookup field

  Is it possible, while using the Zoho CRM lookup field, to automatically use the user account logged into Zoho CRM in a hidden field? I was hoping to add employee accounts to my current plan. But would like a record on the Form submission of who submitted

• Desktop app doesn't support notecards created on Android

  Hi, Does anybody have same problem? Some of last notecards created on Android app (v. 6.6) doesn't show in desktop app (v. 3.5.5). I see these note cards but whith they appear with exclamation mark in yellow triangle (see screenshot) and when I try to

• Notes created in mobile can no longer be accessed in desktop

  Working with a 2013 Mac running OS 10.14.6; Desktop Notebook version 4.5.3. Using Motorola Moto G Power 5G - 2024; Android app version 6.7 I have been using Notebook for some years. Starting several weeks ago, the notes newly created ion the phone can

• Function #49: Manage varying installment payments using Zoho Books

  . Hello everyone, and welcome back to our series! Last week, we discussed automating the collection of fixed installment payments in Zoho Books. But what if your payment structure involves charging varying percentages of the invoice total as installments?

• Open Sans Font in Zoho Books is not Open Sans.

  Font choice in customising PDF Templates is very limited, we cannot upload custom fonts, and to make things worse, the font names are not accurate. I selected Open Sans, and thought the system was bugging, but no, Open Sans is not Open Sans. The real

• Zoho Writer - Option to Export as .zdoc format

  I've noticed that it's not possible to export a Zoho Writer Document in the .zdoc format. Isn't zdoc, Zoho Writer's own format? My use case is that I sometimes need to create quite complex documents with floating elements, which sometimes need to become

• Is it possible for contacts to "Re-enter" a workflow in Zoho Campaign?

  We are currently working on a way to automatically add users to from one list to other lists based on specific criteria, but can't seem to find a native way of doing this so we are trying to use Workflows to do this. So, for example, if a user's status is set to "Active," then they should be added to the list "Active Users." If the same user's status is then set to "Paused," they should be added to the list "Paused Users" and removed from the list "Active Users." This works fine for the first go

• Bulk upload images and specifications to products

  Hi, Many users have asked this over the years and I am also asking the same. Is there any way in which we can bulk upload product (variant) images and product specifications. The current way to upload/select image for every variant is too cumbersome.

• Out of Office for Just One of My Alias Email

  Can I set up the Out of Office Reply for Just One of my Alias Email Addresses?

• Can I map multiple Surveys into the CRM using the same fields?

  Hello, We are a healthcare practice that offers two distinct services (Nutrition and Primary Care). We use Zoho Survey for our lead generation form (Get Started Survey), which allows people to express interest in one of the two services and even allows

• Dealing with API responses where integers have more than 16 digits

  Hi there How do I deal with an api response contaning an int or float with more than 16 digits (before any decimal places for a float). I constantly receive the response "Unable to cast the 'BigInteger' value into a 'BIGINT' value because the input is

• Can not add fields to a Section

  I feel like I'm missing something obvious: I can add new Sections to my form but I can not add fields to the Sections. I've tried fields already on the form as well as dragging and dropping new fields into the Section but nothing will go into it. What

• Next Page