Start smart, end strong.
From knowing who’s coming to celebrating who showed up, July’s updates help you run events that feel organized from the first invite to the final thank you.
Planning an event used to be like writing a choose-your-own-adventure book where half the pages were missing. You'd start with the eternal question mark of RSVPs, stumble through the middle hoping everything holds together, and end wondering if anyone would remember your event existed.
Not anymore. This month, we’re rolling out features that bookend your entire event experience, starting from the very first “maybe” to the final moment of recognition. Because every great event deserves a beginning that makes sense and an ending that lasts.
RSVP for events
No more guessing who’s coming.
Event planning has a dirty little secret that no one talks about. You send out invites, hold your breath, and hope you’re not overcatering for ghosts or scrambling at the last minute because twice as many people arrived. It’s like planning a dinner for 50 and ending up with a buffet for 12, or walking into a packed room with no chairs.
Sound familiar? You’re not alone.
Welcome to the end of that chaos. With the new RSVP feature in Zoho Backstage, you can stop planning on hunches and start organizing with clarity.
Why RSVP changes everything
Unlike traditional event management where attendance is a coin flip, RSVP gives you crystal-clear visibility into three simple categories, ensuring that preparation and resourcing decisions are based on real data, not guesswork:
- Attending — Your confirmed guests (the heroes of your story)
- Not Attending — Honest folks who save you money
- Maybe — For those who want to say yes, but life’s a little full right now
This means you can finally plan seating, food, swag kits, and logistics based on actual responses instead of relying on educated guesses.
How it works:
- Navigate to Registrations > RSVP. To activate this feature, the organizer must create at least one ticket class—either free or paid.
For paid events, the flow gets even smoother. When guests click Attending, they’re redirected to your event website with all their details pre-filled. There’s no friction or abandoned carts. Just smooth transactions that convert intentions into actual ticket sales. Fewer clicks, fewer drop-offs, more show-ups.
Once RSVP is enabled:
- Invite-only, automatically: Once RSVP is enabled, your event becomes exclusive. Only invited guests can respond, keeping crashers and confusion at bay.
- Plus-one, not plus-chaos: Let guests bring their plus-ones without losing track of headcount. Set limits, track companions, and maintain control over your guest list.
- Response deadlines: Set a cutoff date for responses. Because someone needs to make the final catering call, and it might as well be you.
- Automated everything: From invitation emails to response tracking, the system handles the heavy lifting while you focus on making your event amazing
Response management
The RSVP dashboard organizes your guests by response status so you always know where things stand. From sending reminders to bulk editing responses, everything is built to save you time and sanity.
And when someone finally clicks Attending, they receive a ticket immediately—just like a regular registrant. Companion info is tracked in the Orders tab, so your count stays accurate.
Most importantly, you can plan your space with confidence. Goodbye awkward standing corners. Goodbye over-ordered food. Hello intentional, data-backed design.
RSVP is now live in Zoho Backstage. Because the only surprise at your event should be how perfectly everything runs when you actually know who's coming.
Plan availability: Included in the Free, Essentials, Premium, and Ultimate plans.
The Certificate Builder
Turn recognition into a moment that lasts
As your event wraps up, recognition takes center stage. Whether it’s a workshop, training session, competition, or conference, handing out a certificate transforms an experience into something lasting. It becomes something people are proud to showcase. But designing and managing certificates has always been tedious. Until now.
Say hello to the Certificate Builder, your all-in-one solution to create and deliver beautiful, professional certificates at scale. No design skills, no complicated workflows.
Drag. Drop. Done.
Design certificates that match your event’s identity, whether you prefer a classic look or a bold, modern feel. The drag-and-drop editor lets you add everything from participant names and event details to logos, images, and signature fields.
You can customize fonts, positioning, background styles (solid, gradient, or image-based), and even insert QR codes that link to secure verification URLs. You can choose between A4 and US Letter formats and set the layout to portrait or landscape. Everything you create can be previewed before it’s sent, so you know exactly what your participants will receive.
Dynamic fields and smart placeholders help you generate thousands of certificates in just a few clicks. Whether you’re awarding attendees, speakers, sponsors, exhibitors, organizers, or staff, the builder supports role-specific templates for each participant group. For attendees, you can create a common certificate for all or tailor it by ticket class to recognize different levels of participation.
You can clone templates across events and manage all certificates from a centralized panel. Easily create new designs or update existing ones.
Certificates are sent directly from your event workspace, either individually or in bulk. Use the Download Certificate link option within Scheduled Emails to deliver them automatically based on roles or attendance status, such as checked-in or no show.
You can send certificates in bulk or download them if you prefer handing them out in person. No exporting. No extra tools. Just click, send, and move on.
Every certificate can include a QR code that links to a custom URL of your choice. You can use this to direct recipients to a relevant page, such as your website, portfolio, or resource hub. This adds a professional touch and extends the value of each certificate.
More than just a gesture, certificates reinforce your event’s value and brand identity. They increase engagement, strengthen participant loyalty, and leave a lasting impression that lives beyond the event.
Recognition shouldn’t be hard. Now it isn’t.
Try the Certificate Builder today and deliver achievements that people remember.
Plan availability: Included in the Ultimate plans
Canceled requests and action history in registration approvals
See the full picture. No request goes unnoticed.
Ever had an approval request vanish into thin air? We thought disappearing acts should stay in magic shows, not event management. The enhanced Registration Approval workflow in Zoho Backstage gives event organizers better visibility into canceled approval requests, along with a full history of who took action.
Previously, if an order pending approval was canceled, it would disappear from the approval tab. This made it difficult for organizers to track the request or know who canceled it. With this update, all canceled registration approval requests are now retained and shown within the Registration Approval section of your event dashboard.
This change helps maintain a clear audit trail of registration activity. Whether an order was approved, rejected, or canceled, the full record remains accessible, including the user who performed the action.
To view this information:
- Navigate to Registrations > Registration Approval.
- You’ll now see five status types listed: Pending, Approved, Rejected, Canceled, and Completed.
Canceled requests appear alongside the others and can be filtered like any other status. For each request, you’ll also see who approved, rejected, or canceled it, giving you full transparency throughout the registration process.
This update improves accountability and helps organizers understand how many requests were withdrawn or canceled, which is especially helpful when analyzing attendee behavior or refining approval criteria.
Exhibitor enhancements
Booth member listing preferences
Speaking of visibility (because we're on a roll), let's talk about your exhibitors. You can now control who sees exhibitor booth member details on your event website. These profiles, which were previously visible only to logged-in users, can now be made public using a simple toggle. This is ideal for trade shows, public expos, or hybrid events.
To show/hide booth member profiles:
- Navigate to Exhibitors > Exhibitor Settings and enable/disable the Public Visibility of Booth Member Details toggle.
- When enabled, anyone can view booth members without logging in. When disabled (default), visibility remains limited to signed-in users.
This update gives organizers more flexibility over exhibitor visibility, helping tailor the experience for both open and closed event formats.
Plan availability: Included in the Premium and Ultimate plans
Exhibitor tags
Easily group and showcase your exhibitors with the new exhibitor tags in Zoho Backstage’s Exhibitor module. Tags help organizers manage exhibitors more effectively and make it easier for attendees to find relevant companies.
You can now assign multiple tags, such as FinTech, Startup, or Europe, to each exhibitor while creating or editing their profile. These tags appear across key touchpoints, including exhibitor listings and profile pages on both the website and the mobile app.
Attendees can filter exhibitors by tags to discover booths that match their interests. Organizers can use the same filters in the editor for faster management. Only active tags (those assigned to at least one exhibitor) are shown to attendees, ensuring a focused browsing experience.
Organizers also have control over tag visibility. Exhibitors can choose to hide certain tags from public view. These hidden tags remain visible to organizers in the editor but won't appear to attendees.
Manage tags from the Exhibitor tab or directly within an exhibitor’s profile. Tag-based filtering is already available on the web and mobile app.
Plan availability: Included in the Premium and Ultimate plans
TikTok links in exhibitor profiles
Exhibitors can now showcase their brand’s TikTok presence directly on their profile page. This new social link appears alongside existing options like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
Other enhancements
We also have a few more touches to make your backstage run even smoother.
Attachment support for demo emails
You can now attach files to your scheduled test emails, allowing you to preview the full email experience and ensure all documents are ready for your attendees.
Session restarting
We’ve simplified the session engagement flow by removing the Re-Present Session option. Instead, presenters can now Restart sessions, and each restart is tracked separately for engagement metrics like chat, poll responses, and Q&A.
Every great event tells a story
From that first tentative “maybe” response to the final certificate download, your event now has a story that actually makes sense. No more planning in the dark. No more anticlimactic endings. Just clear beginnings, smooth middles, and memorable conclusions.
Because the best events aren’t just well attended. They're well remembered. And now you have the tools to make both happen.
Onward and upward
We’ve been rolling out a steady stream of updates, each one bringing us closer to the platform we’re working hard to build for you. While some features are still evolving, they’re all meaningful steps forward. Each update is designed with care, built to meet real needs, and shaped by your feedback.
Now that we’re in the second half of the year, we’re picking up even more momentum. There’s plenty more on the way, and we can’t wait to show you what’s next.
Thank you for growing with us and being part of the journey. We’re building something great, and we’re glad you’re here for it.
All the features and enhancements mentioned in this article are available across all Zoho Backstage-supported data centers.Recent Topics
Manage monthly tasks with projectsf
Hi All I run a finance and operations team where we need both teams to complete monthly tasks to ensure we hit our deadlines. Can Zoho projects be used for this. There many finance focused tools but we have Zoho one so want to explore Thanks Will
Zoho Suite is very slow
Since today Zoho is incredibly slow over all applications! What's going on?
How can I track which zoho users are actively using Zoho CRM
I have several licenses of Zoho CRM. We now need to add a new user. I could purchase a new license, but before I do, I would like to see if any of our existing users are not actively using the license assigned to them. How can I determine the activity
Is anyone else having trouble saving a custom image in their email signature, or is it just me?
When I try to save the image I get an error that says "Operation Failed" I opened a support ticket two weeks ago and received a response that it would be debugged, but it still isn’t working
Combine and hide invoice lines
In quickbooks we are able to create a invoice line that combines and hides invoices lines below. eg. Brochure design $1000 (total of lines below, the client can see this line) Graphic Design $600 (hidden but entered to reporting and
Option to Disable Knowledge Base Section in Feedback Widget Popup Hello Zoho Desk Team
Hello Zoho Desk Team, How are you? We are actively using Zoho Desk and would like to make more use of the Feedback Widget. One of the ways we implement it is through the popup option. At the moment, the popup always displays the Knowledge Base section,
The Social Wall: August 2025
Hello everyone, As summer ends, Zoho Social is gearing up for some exciting, bigger updates lined up for the months ahead. While those are in the works, we rolled out a few handy feature updates in August to keep your social media management running smoothly.
Change scheduling emails time
When sending an individual email there is a great feature to schedule them to send later. I could only use the one time that is suggested. Is there a way to select another time? Regards, Glenn
Transaction Locking with the dynamic date
Is it possible to dynamically update dates on transaction locking. We want to lock transaction x days from today
Zoho Devops
We have a Zoho one account which we have integrated with an SAS educational product, sold on a subscription model, using webhooks and API calls. We make some use of custom fields and cross module lookups and relationships. We utilize CRM, Books and billing
Fuel up your sales with the Zoho SalesIQ + Bigin integration
Hi everyone! We’re happy to bring you the all-new Zoho SalesIQ + Bigin integration. With this, every prospect from your website instantly becomes a contact in Bigin, complete with transcripts and follow-up tasks, so you never lose a lead again. Let's
Add a 'Log a Call' link to three dot icon in Canvas
Hi, There's a three dot element when creating a canvas called 'More'. I would like to modify this to add a link that says 'Log a Call' in order to quickly record the details of a cellphone call. I'd also like this to be a simple 'contact' selection and
Introducing AI-powered Assessments & Zoho's native LLM, Zia
We’ve shipped a cleaner, faster way to create assessments in Zoho Recruit. 🚀 Instead of manually building question banks or copying old templates, you can now generate ready-to-use assessments in just a few clicks, all tailored to the role you’re hiring
Ability to Reset Visitor Fields During an Active Chat Flow
Hello Zoho SalesIQ Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to propose a feature enhancement to Zoho SalesIQ regarding the management of visitor fields within Zobot flows. Use Case: Our bot asks the visitor to provide information about a 3rd person
External ID in Zoho CRM
Hello everyone! We know that Zoho CRM allows you to integrate third-party apps and manipulate data through APIs. While you integrate a third-party application, you may want to store the third-party reference IDs in Zoho CRM's records. To meet this need
Some emails are not being delivered
I have this problem where some of my mail just seems to disappear. When I send it, it appears as sent with no mention of any problem, but my recipient never gets it, not even in the Spam folder. Same for receiving, I have a secondary e-mail address, and
New in Zoho Chat : Search for contacts, files, links & conversations with the all new powerful 'Smart Search' bar.
With the newly revamped 'Smart Search' bar in Zoho Chat, we have made your search for contacts, chats, files and links super quick and easy using Search Quantifiers. Search for a contact or specific conversations using quantifiers, such as, from: @user_name - to find chats or channel conversations received from a specific user. to: @user_name - to find chats or channel conversations sent to a specific user. in: #channel_name - to find a particular instance in a channel. in: #chat_name - to find
Template modifiactions
Hello, I am struggling with the templates in ZOHO Books. Especially with the placement of some items, like company address, ship to, bill to etc. For example: One item I like from template X (placement of ship to and bill to next to each other in the
Aggregating the First Value in the Group By of a dataset
Hi I am trying to get the following Aggregate Formula to work in my chart, but cannot seem to get the right format. I have a series of data that I am running an include_groupby and want to SUM only a column in the first row of each group. So for example.
Admin Control Over Profile Picture Visibility in Zoho One
Hello Zoho Team, We hope you are doing well. Currently, as per Zoho’s design, each user can manage the visibility of their profile picture from their own Zoho Accounts page: accounts.zoho.com → Personal Information → Profile Picture → Profile Picture
Track Zoho Campaign and Workflow sales impact
I am attempting to measure the performance of our marketing workflows and campaigns by comparing the date each campaign was sent to a contact with the purchase date of the contact. For example, if Contact A was sent Email A on 9/1 and made a purchase
Tables for Europe Datacenter customers?
It's been over a year now for the launch of Zoho Tables - and still not available für EU DC customers. When will it be available?
What is a line break code for zoho?
Hi, I am archiving data by adding values from a single line field from one form to a multi-line field in another form. So I need a code/function that starts a new line on that multi-line field so it does not just keep adding it on the same line. Example, doing something like this means that it will be on a same line. archive.field1 = archive.field1 + input.Field1 I need a code so the input.Field1 can just start on the next line. Instead of "value 1, 2,3,4,5" It will be: "1 2 3 4 etc.". something
Automatic Project Owner change
Is there a way to change Project Owner automatically once a specific Milestone in a project is marked as completed. Different Teams are working on projects in our Org, they have their own Milestones to complete and so we transfer the project from team
Button to add product to cart
Is there a way to have a button on a page, that when clicked, will add Qty 1 of a product to the cart?
Problem with Submit Button Design
I have made a template to apply to my forms and under the button controls, I have it set to "standard" and yet it's still filling the container. This is super frustrating and looks weird. Why do we not have full control over button size? How can I fix
Zoho CRM- Authorize your Microsoft Teams account issue
Hi, I tried to link Zoho CRM with Teams and I got the following message: Clicking "Authorize now" sent me to the following page, Microsoft tried to start a session but, after 3 seconds the page closed and nothing happened. I get the same message each
Passing the CRM
Hi, I am hoping someone can help. I have a zoho form that has a CRM lookup field. I was hoping to send this to my publicly to clients via a text message and the form then attaches the signed form back to the custom module. This work absolutely fine when
Is there a way to associate an email in ZOHO Main to a Vendor record in ZOHO CRM
My situation is as below, I have a vendor in ZOHO CRM lets say "Vend A" and an associated contact, "Cont A" If Cont A sends me an email using the email I've registered in the contact record the standard OOTB email sync will work. But the vendor has some
Bank charges are applied. Please select a bank account.
Hello, I'm trying to add bank charges to a customer payment, but I get the error message "Bank charges are applied. Please select a bank account." I found this old thread, where it says that I need to "select a Bank account for the 'Deposit To' dropdown
Kaizen #207 - Answering your Questions | Advanced Queries using COQL API
Hi everyone, and welcome to another Kaizen week! As part of Kaizen #200 milestone, many of you shared topics you would like us to cover, and we have been addressing them one by one over the past few weeks. Today, we are picking up one of those requests
Présentation de SecureForms dans Zoho Vault
Soyons francs : demander à quelqu’un de transmettre un mot de passe ou des informations sensibles n’est jamais une tâche facile. On attend, on relance, parfois de nombreuses fois. Et quand l’information arrive, elle se retrouve souvent dispersée dans
Introducing Connected Records to bring business context to every aspect of your work in Zoho CRM for Everyone
Hello Everyone, We are excited to unveil phase one of a powerful enhancement to CRM for Everyone - Connected Records, available only in CRM's Nextgen UI. With CRM for Everyone, businesses can onboard all customer-facing teams onto the CRM platform to
Granular Email Forwarding Controls in Zoho Mail (Admin Console and Zoho One)
Hello Zoho Mail Team, How are you? At present, the Zoho Mail Admin Console allows administrators to configure email forwarding for an entire mailbox, forwarding all incoming emails to another address. This is helpful for delegation or backup purposes,
Sales order & purchase order item links for item details
This is fantastic for checking lots of things, I use it a lot. It would be great to see it extended to invoices & bills On another note, may as well throw in my favourite whinge ..... Wish you guys would get the PO receive differences sorted urgently,
Custom Fonts in Zoho CRM Template Builder
Hi, I am currently creating a new template for our quotes using the Zoho CRM template builder. However, I noticed that there is no option to add custom fonts to the template builder. It would greatly enhance the flexibility and branding capabilities if
Zoho Workdrive - Communication / Chat Bar
Hi Team, Please consider adding an option to allow admins to turn on or off the Zoho Communication Bar. Example of what I mean by Communication Bar: It's such a pain sometimes when I'm in WorkDrive and I want to share a link to a file with a colleague
Introducing Profile Summary: Faster Candidate Insights with Zia
We’re excited to launch Profile Summary, a powerful new feature in Zoho Recruit that transforms how you review candidate profiles. What used to take minutes of resume scanning can now be assessed in seconds—thanks to Zia. A Quick Example Say you’re hiring
Kaizen #190 - Queries in Custom Related Lists
Hello everyone! Welcome back to another week of Kaizen! This week, we will discuss yet another interesting enhancement to Queries. As you all know, Queries allow you to dynamically retrieve data from CRM as well as third-party services directly within
Need the ability to have read only fields on a form.
There needs to be functionality in Creator that allows a field on a form to be read only. Most screen building software applications have this capability. I know you can hide certain fields from specific users and that you can also make the whole form read only but that's not the functionality I need. I want to be able to create a form where certain fields are editable and other are for display purposes only (read only). For example if the form was displaying information on an item that the user
Next Page