Zoho CRM Community Digest - May 2024

This May, we shipped several features and enhancements requested by the Community. Dive in to learn more about them and explore the engaging conversations awaiting you in the Zoho CRM Community. 

Product Updates:

New Capabilities for Custom Buttons:

Buttons in Zoho CRM got an upgrade! You can now tailor buttons to specific layouts, adding more context and reducing clutter. Even better, buttons are now available for Zoho CRM portals. This extended functionality allows your customers to launch a pre-configured Kiosk from within the portal with a single click, taking customisation to a whole new level. Check out the announcement post for more details, complete with use cases to help you understand this update better. 

Zoho CRM timeline: New look, new features! 

Zoho CRM's timeline has received a major makeover with some exciting new capabilities. We've extended the timeline view to three years, replacing the previous six-month limit, allowing you to see more of the record's history at a glance. This highly requested enhancement from our community doesn't stop there. You can now add notes directly to timeline entries for quick updates, filter events to zoom in on specific information, and even see email statuses — all within the timeline view. Check out this post to learn all about these enhancements.

Introducing Custom Email Field Support in Zoho CRM:

Zoho CRM now lets you send emails and sync conversations with email addresses added to custom email fields in Zoho CRM. This feature, in addition to the existing support for primary and secondary email fields, provides a more comprehensive email history across multiple email addresses within the CRM record. Supported for Leads, Contacts, Vendors, and custom modules, this feature is optional. Follow the steps in this announcement post to enable it for your CRM account. 

Introducing Lead History for Converted Leads: 

The timeline view stores the historical changes made to records, helping with the audit trail. Previously, lead history became unavailable once leads were converted to contact records, a major pain-point expressed by many of our community members. With the revamped timeline view, we have addressed this gap by making the lead history of converted leads accessible within the timeline view of the corresponding Contact, Account, or Deal record. This update is tied to the revamped timeline feature, which is being rolled out in a phased manner. For more details and updates on the availability of this feature, follow this announcement post. 

Column customization of Contact Roles in Deals:

You can now customize the columns displayed in the Contact Roles section inside the Deals module of Zoho CRM. This update allows you to rearrange the information and choose which details are most important for your team to see quickly. Check the latest comment by @Anonymous User in this post for the specifics.

Enhancements in Zoho Projects and Zoho CRM Integration:

We've enhanced the integration capabilities of Zoho CRM and Zoho Projects. A new Client Configuration section has been added in the setup to ensure you're aware of how your project clients are mapped to CRM Contacts and Accounts. Alongside the previously supported modules (Contacts, Accounts, and Deals), we've now included support for additional Zoho CRM modules like Products, Cases, Quotes, Invoices and Campaigns. This enables seamless access to all project-related information across related CRM modules. Automatic field mapping ensures that relevant details from the source module are populated when you create a project, eliminating the need for manual data entry. Additionally, the permission management of this integration is now simpler. Check out the post for more details!

Enhanced Validation Rules: 

The recent enhancements to validation rules introduce much-needed flexibility, allowing for quick validation of data at the individual field level. You can choose to prevent saving or allow it with a prompt when a validation fails, and decide where error messages appear —either at the field level or at the top of the page. Additionally, validation rules now extended to lookup fields. Dive into the post to learn more in detail. 

Useful discussions:

Moving Mail Merge Templates Between Modules:
@Caroline wanted to change the module associated with existing Mail Merge templates in Zoho CRM. Check out @838536863@zohoclosedAccount.com's suggested workaround in this post: download the original template, import it to the required module and re-map the merged fields. 

Mailchimp Extension for Zoho CRM:
Use this extension to seamlessly sync your campaigns and subscribers in Mailchimp with Zoho CRM. Send personalised emails based on your customers' interests and trigger email Campaigns with automated workflows based on CRM actions. To learn more about this extension, check out this post!

Enabling Clients to Update Data and Track Progress in Zoho CRM: 
@Salmaswco wants their clients to fill out a form in Zoho CRM, fetch previously filled data, review and update details, and track their progress over time. Depending on the depth of the requirement, this can be done natively in CRM using customer portals or by integrating with Zoho Forms or Survey. Check out this post for suggestions from @Anonymous User and @Amy on how to make this work. 

Auto-Send Emails to Deal Contacts on a Monthly Basis: 
@Pam wants to send recurring emails every month to Deal contacts based on specific criteria. They figured out that Workflow rules are the way to go for this but needed some reassurances on whether they are doing it the right way. @Anonymous User and @Anonymous User provided some pointers to reassure them and added more details to it in this post.

Automating VAT Calculations for Quotes:
@Coen | Heative was struggling with manually setting the VAT on quotes each time. which lead to sending incorrect quotes to their customers when missed. Check out @Ishwarya SG's suggested solution in this post to add an aggregate field that automatically rolls up the VAT values from individual products to the quote. 

Functions: 

Automatic Field Updates Between Contacts and Deals Module:
@Tyler Christie sought a way to automatically update select fields in deal records whenever related fields are updated in the Contact module. In the discussion thread, @Hugh Marshall provided a Deluge script function to achieve this. Tyler even shared an enhanced version of the code that allows mirroring multiple fields at once. Check out the post to learn more!

Chain Workflows in Zoho CRM: 
@Oscar brought up an interesting use-case that involves two workflows working in tandem. The first workflow triggers a field update in the Contacts module whenever a Deal is marked as "Closed Won". This in turn triggers the second workflow from the Contacts module to send an email to Deal Contact. They got it all right except for a parameter that needs to be added in the Function code to make the output of the first workflow trigger for the next one. Check out the solution, shared by @Vigneshwaran K and @Ishwarya SG in this post.

Dev's Corner: 

Connect Your Website with Zoho CRM: 

@Reynald needed help integrating their website with Zoho CRM. They were unsure of specific API details such as the URL, API Key, client ID, etc., as well as how to integrate them. @Ishwarya SG suggested using Zoho APIs to push website information to the CRM and shared the API documentation. Meanwhile, @Bhoomi Joshi explained the steps to generate the required credentials. Join the discussion to learn the process. 

Automatically Count Emails Open for Lead Engagement Tracking:
@Antonio wanted to track lead engagement with emails sent through mass emails. He needed a way to increment a numeric field each time an email is opened. Check out @Vigneshwaran K's response in this post, which provides an API-based solution to achieve this. 

Prevent Editing In Lookup Fields: 
@kparikh44444 wants to make a lookup field in a subform with the Deals module as read-only once the deal reached specific stage. They had successfully made other fields read-only using client scripts but were stuck with the lookup field. Check out this post for the script provided by @Hugh Marshall to achieve this requirement.

Auto-fill Time Zones Based on Postal Codes:
@K-CRM wants to populate the Time Zone field for Contacts automatically and Leads. Their goal is to send bulk emails to these Contacts/Leads at the beginning of their local day, and wanted to know if this can be done using their client's Postal Code. Check the solutions shared by @Vigneshawaran K and @Haiku Technical Support in this post.

Hiding Custom Based on Lead Stage: 
Revisiting an old discussion on hiding/disabling the convert button unless the lead reached a specific stage, @Dan had a similar requirement with a custom button but wanted it to work without reloading the page. @Hugh stepped in with a solution, prompting @Dan to post a glowing tribute for Hugh, quoted below! 

Check out this post for an interesting discussion.

Kaizen: 

Kaizen#136 - Zoho CRM Widgets using ReactJS:
Learn how to create custom widgets for Zoho CRM using frameworks like ReactJS. check this post for step-by-step instructions on setting up the project, including installing, creating, building and packaging the widget for Zoho CRM. 

Kaizen #137 - Lead Conversion using Zoho CRM APIs: 
Learn how to leverage Zoho CRM APIs to convert Leads into Contacts, Accounts, and Deals while avoiding duplicate records in this post. 

Kaizen #138 - How are Widgets used in Zoho CRM Settings?Interested in learning more about Widgets in Zoho CRM? Check out this Kaizen post for an interesting use-case on how to leverage Widgets to make your Knowledge Base resources accessible right within CRM. Don't forget to explore the recommended reads section at the end of this post to learn more about Zoho CRM Widgets. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this month's round-up. Keep tabs on the digest every month for the latest ideas and discussions. Stay tuned and engage in the forums to be included in the next month's digest. Have a wonderful month ahead!

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