Zoho CRM Digest - April 2024

Zoho CRM Digest - April 2024



Welcome to April, the season of blooming trees and blossoming flowers! As nature comes alive, so does our community. Dive into this month's digest to explore vibrant discussions and exciting announcements. 

Zoho CRM product updates:

Email-related enhancements in Accounts and Deals modules in CRM:

  • We're excited to unveil a highly anticipated feature in Zoho CRM: the ability to send emails directly from the accounts module. The email composer in Accounts module now offers quick suggestions for related contacts' email addresses, and makes it possible to access attachments and email templates specific to the Accounts module. Additionally, in the Deals module, email addresses of "contact roles" linked to the deal record will now be provided as quick suggestions. Explore the announcement for more details.

Resolve Conflicts during Deployment in Sandbox:

  • This announcement introduces notable upgrades to Zoho CRM's Sandbox, specifically targeting conflict resolution and some UI enhancements. Users can now swiftly access comprehensive conflict details right from the "Check Dependency page" and resolve issues directly from there. These updates aim to streamline the deployment of sandbox changes to production accounts, tackling common pain points such as missing associated items, duplicate name conflicts, and developer-user association conflicts. For more details, refer to the announcement post.

Introducing Zia Notes Summary: 

  • Introducing Zia Notes Summary, a new feature in Zoho CRM that offers users quick summaries of their CRM notes. This feature is particularly beneficial when navigating through numerous notes or requiring a concise overview of details captured in the notes section. This update provides two summaries: "Overall Summary" for a bird's-eye view of all notes on a record, and "Last Note Summary" for the most recent update. For a deeper dive into the new feature, check this announcement.

Multiple Kanban Views per Module: 

  • Previously, users were limited to one Kanban view per module, necessitating edits for different categorisations. Now, with the latest update, multiple Kanban views are supported, enabling effortless switching between views. The ability to expand and collapse stages in the card view enhances its compactness. Deal stages can be updated swiftly via drag-and-drop functionality, and stage-specific records can be created directly from the Kanban view. Moreover, access permissions can be set to control viewing and editing privileges for each Kanban view. Additionally, pipeline selection will be persisted until the user changes it, an option that was requested by many community members previously[Ref]. Check out this announcement for full details.

Add Tasks to Zoho CRM Calendar: 

  • We're excited to announce that the option to add tasks to the CRM calendar, a much-awaited feature requested by the community, has now been implemented. With this, you get daily and weekly views of CRM tasks in the Calendar, allowing you to easily keep track of your tasks right alongside your meetings and calls. Additionally, you can switch between single and multi-user views to manage tasks effectively and, create tasks directly from the calendar. For more details and resources related to this release, check out this Idea post.

Useful Discussions: 

  • @Felipe Salomão de Sousa Vale wanted to auto-format the phone numbers by removing special characters and spaces, including the country code if not present, and prefixing phone numbers with only 11 digits with the  "+" symbol. @Bhoomi Joshi and @Rodger Brehau provided the required suggestions for formatting the phone numbers using Functions. Check the post to learn more. 

Sales duo performance tracking:

  • @Bas van den Berk brought up an interesting sales report requirement. Every prospect is assigned to a pair of consultants. They wanted to add a matrix-like component to their dashboard to track the performance of sales duos based on the number of clients they have successfully closed, and to visualize the data to quickly identify the most successful duos. @Anonymous User suggested using a "Heat map" chart as it makes it easy to identify the top performing sales-duos at a glance. Discover the details in this post.

Multi-product purchase tracking at the Account level: 

  • @Ashley was reviewing an old post on tracking multiple product purchases by the same Account. While a Subform based solution was already suggested, @Max Tyack proposed an alternative approach using a custom module and lookup fields, which Ashley welcomed. Max also confirmed that Ashely's additional requirement for auto-updating prices across records can be achieved with either approaches using Workflows and Functions. Check out @Max Tyack's response in this post for further details.

Functions:

  • @Alejandro wanted to automatically capitalize the first letter of each word in a contact's information for all fields, regardless of how users enter it. @Rodger Brehaut shared the Deluge code to be associated with a workflow, which runs when the record is edited. Check this post for the code.

Execute Function only for select deal stages:

  • @Chris wanted to run a Function based on a deal's stage and needed to know how to best exclude select deals stages. @Hugh Marshall and @Bhoomi Joshi came up with different approaches to solve the same need, each, creating a list of stages to avoid and validating if the active deal is is not on that stage list. Check the code they shared in this post.

Automating Quote Management: 

  • @Coen | Heative mentioned that their sales process involves sending multiple quotes to customers, with only one being accepted. Once a quote is marked as "Won", they would like the other related quotes for the contact record to be automatically updated to "Lost". Check the solution proposed by @Ishwarya in this post, which includes a code snippet to be associated with a workflow to meet this requirement.

UpdateRecord Success: 

  • @David Shaw uses an updateRecord call in a Function, triggered by a clicking a button, and wanted to check whether the response indicates a success or failure. They provided a simple code for this requirement, with @Bhoomi Joshi and @Anonymous User making the necessary tweaks to get it to work. Check this post for the working code.

Auto-updation of deal stage:

  • @Benjamin wanted to update the deal stage to "Scheduled" automatically whenever a new meeting is added to a deal record in Zoho CRM. @Anonymous User shared theFunction code to achieve this. Check this post for the code.

Optimize CRM storage by automatically moving or deleting attachments:

  • @Anthony observed that their users were adding multiple attachments to a custom module, which significantly increased the CRM storage usage. They were looking for a way to automatically delete attachments or move them to Zoho WorkDrive when a field's status is set to certain criteria. Check out the solution posted by @Hugh Marshall, complete with code, in this post to achieve this.

Calling Functions linked to a Workflow: 

  • @David wanted to know if there's an efficient way to call a Function running within a Workflow from another similar Function without exposing the first Function via API. @Nicolas Donoso provided the solution: call the first Function using the automation namespace in the code. Check this post for the solution and sample code.

Dev's Corner:

  • @Felipe wanted to show an alert during the deal creation stage if a specific field is duplicated, without blocking the deal creation process. @Hugh Marshall suggested using Client Script, and @Anonymous User provided a detailed explanation including sample Client Script code, to prompt users about duplicates while allowing them to proceed and save if needed. Check this post for the solution. 

Real-time Dropdown popup for CRM field update during deal Creation: 

  • @Javier Molina wanted to open a popup with a dropdown list for users to select an option and pass it to a CRM field in real-time during deal creation. Check this post for Subash Kumar's Client Script code that fulfils this requirement.

Best practices for handling large record sets:

  • @David sought best practices for handling large record sets, especially when iterating over more than 200 records at once. Multiple community members shared their solutions, with @Kiruthiga recommending the use of the COQL API to determine the total record count. Additionally, she provided helpful tips and sample code for effectively handling large data sets. Jump into the post for detailed answers. 

Filtering recent calls by date and time: 

  • @Paul de Geode encountered difficulties retrieving calls made in the last week, particularly in filtering records by date and time using the V2 API. @Christoph Wenzel and others offered workarounds, recommending either the use of V6 API or COQL to address the issue. For more details, check out this post.

Naming variables in Deluge scripting:

  • Big shout out to @Rodger Brehaut for sharing invaluable insights on naming conventions for variables in Deluge scripting based on their type! Rodger suggests opting for descriptive names over generic ones like "response," making future code easier to understand and work with. Read this post to learn more. 

Kaizen: 

  • This post discusses self-client and server-based clients in Zoho CRM. Check out this post for videos and detailed explanations, along with suggestions for further reading to see how they're applied using Java SDKs.

Kaizen #134 - Manipulating Rich Text Field (RTF) using Zoho CRM APIs: 

  • Want to understand the ins and outs of working with Rich Text Field (RTF) and how to manipulate RTF using Zoho CRM APIs? Look no further than this post.


Thanks 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 upcoming month's digest. Have a wonderful month ahead!


    • Sticky Posts

    • How to reach the official Zoho Support channels and avoid fake ones.

      Dear Customers, Thanks a lot for choosing Zoho! Our applications are built to help achieve your day-to-day business goals. We are committed to engaging with you, to understand and develop solutions that enhance your productivity.  We are happy and ready to help you use our services effectively. Understanding and avoiding fake support Just like using popular bank names and financial applications for phishing purposes, using Zoho and claiming to be providing Zoho Support or services with false numbers

    • Function #35: Close all tasks associated with a lead and create a new task.

      Welcome back everyone! Last week, we learnt how to close all tasks of a deal depending upon the deal stage. This week, let's look at a custom function that lets you close all of the tasks associated with a lead while simultaneously creating a new task, like when you need to halt all progress towards a lead while the lead is not available at the moment but create a reminder task. Business scenario: The success of a company, in one way or another, is determined by the leads it gets. Each lead is just

    • Zoho CRM Webinar - Redesigning Daily User Experiences with Canvas

      <br> Your users across roles use the CRM for day-to-day tasks that are necessary. Whether they perform their tasks on time, the right way, or at all depends on a lot of factors, including User Experience. Many businesses struggle with rigid layouts,

    • Join us at the Canada ZUG Meetup: What’s New in Zoho CRM

      Hello Zoho Community! Start your year with fresh insights into Zoho CRM’s latest updates and tools. Whether you're a CRM beginner or a experienced user, this meetup is crafted to help you optimise your processes and leverage new features. Explore practical

    • CRM Hack #2: Automate sending of birthday greetings to your customers.

        Hello everyone! What sets you apart as a sales person is your ability to add that personal touch to your business relationship with your customers. Sending a gift on a special day, or leaving a note wishing them on their birthdays, are small, yet significant actions that show your customers that you care. And these are actions done without any expectations :) You must be engaging with a lot of customers and it is highly unlikely that they all are your friends on Facebook or some social channel,

    • Recent Topics

    • CRM limit reached: only 2 subforms can be created

      we recently stumbled upon a limit of 2 subforms per module. while we found a workaround on this occasion, only 2 subforms can be quite limiting in an enterprise setting. @Ishwarya SG I've read about imminent increase of other components (e.

    • LESS_THAN_MIN_OCCURANCE - code 2945

      Hi I'm trying to post a customer record to creator API and getting this error message. So cryptic. Can someone please help? Thanks Varun

    • Analytics for notes created

      Is there a way I can see how many notes were created per day? Via reporting or analytics?

    • No TDS Deduction

      In some of our case, where we are reselling items at the same rate we purchased. In this scenario, Indian IT Law has a provision to request customer not to deduct TDS if the transaction value is same. TDS is paid by us (intermediary reseller) before we

    • Cannot update Recurring_Activity on Tasks – RRULE not accepted

      Hello, I am trying to update Tasks in Zoho CRM to make them recurring yearly, but I cannot find the correct recurrence pattern or way to update the Recurring_Activity field via API or Deluge. I have tried: Sending a string like "RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;INTERVAL=1"

    • Add image to report...

      Greetings, I send a weekly color coded report via Creator email. I would like to add the legend somewhere in the report. Header, footer where ever. I have the legend saved on Google Drive and can access it via shared link. Sure someone has wanted to add

    • More controls for User Fields in CRM

      Dear All, We are here with a minor but crucial enhancement to the user fields—now set accessibility permissions to the records for user field. User field allows you to extend co-ownership of records to your peers. You can collaborate with them for certain

    • Calls to accounts rather than leads or contacts?

      So..... We have a dilemma and I'm hoping someone has encountered this before and figured out a fix. We have just migrated to Zoho. It's great.....expect for how "Calls" are handled.... We are B2B. We do not use the leads module. A "Lead/Prospect" for

    • Image Upload Field | Zoho Canvas

      I'm working on making a custom view for one of our team's modules. It's an image upload field (Placement Photo) that would allow our sales reps to upload a picture of the house their working on. However, I don't see that field as a opinion when building

    • Power of Automation :: Automated 'Delayed & Closed' Status Update Based on Due Date

      Hello Everyone, A custom function is a software code that can be used to automate a process and this allows you to automate a notification, call a webhook, or perform logic immediately after a workflow rule is triggered. This feature helps to automate

    • Lead Blueprint transition in custom list view

      Hi, Is It possible to insert the Blueprint transition label in a custom Canvas list view? I am using Lead module. I see the status, but it would be great if our users could execute the Blueprint right from the list view without having to enter the detailed

    • Range names in Zoho Sheet are BROKEN!

      Hi - you've pushed an update that has broken range names. A previously working spreadsheet now returns errors because the range names are not updating the values correctly. I've shared a video with the support desk to illustrate the problem. This spreadsheet

    • populate email address and name in zoho desk?

      Is it possible to populate the email address and name in the zoho desk widget? We only use it in the context of an authenticated user, so we already know the user's name and email. Thanks,

    • Are there default/pre-built dashboards in Zoho Desk?

      Hi, I am looking for some pre-built dashboard templates in Zoho Desk, similar to what we can find in CRM/Projects, etc Thank you

    • SAP S/4 HANA to CRM Integration - change the SAP Client ID

      Hi I am trying to push the business partners from SAP S/4 HANA to ZOHO CRM module. The SAP Client ID is 421 in my case....kindly let me know how do I specify the sap client because it's a dropdown with specific values as of now. Thanks Ravi Aswani

    • Staff rules

      Hi! Do you people know what are the default staff rules when a new booking is created? We have two staff members in my team (me as the admin, and my employee). As we share the same services, I'm wondering how Zoho will pick the staff for new apointments.

    • Adding branded signature to tickets reply

      Hi, i am unable to figure out how to add signatures with logo to tickets reply. please advice .

    • Zoho Marketing Automation 2.0 - Landing Page function not working

      Dear Zoho Team, I am working on implementing Zoho Marketing Automation 2.0, and am now looking into the section "Lead Generation". If I open the "Landing Pages" section, I immediately get an Error code: Error: internal error occurred. Can you help me

    • Zoho Mail Android app update: Manage folders

      Hello everyone! In the latest version(v2.9) of the Zoho Mail Android app update, we have brought in support for an option to manage folders. You can now create, edit, and delete folders from within the mobile app. You can also manage folders for the POP

    • How to share ticket numbers across different ticket types

      I'm running an event and have three different ticket types. Add on Event + Main Event - Early bird Main Event only - Early bird Add on Event only - Early bird And Standard class - shown but not available until early bird finishes Add on Event + Main Event

    • Adding Social Media Buttons to Basic Campaigns

      Hi, I'm quote new to using Zoho Campaigns and I can't work out how to add Social Media Buttons into my basic campaign? In MailChimp there's a button that brings the icons into your campaign for you. I've tried adding the social media icons as 'buttons' in Zoho but it's not looking great. Can anyone help? Thanks!

    • Hide Inactive Social Sign-In Providers from Login Screen

      Hello Zoho Team, We hope you are doing well. Currently, Zoho One allows admins to configure security policies and enable or disable Social Sign-In options for third-party providers such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook,

    • [Free Webinar] AI Agents in Zoho Creator - Creator Tech Connect

      Hello Everyone! We welcome you all to the upcoming free webinar on the Creator Tech Connect Series. The Creator Tech Connect series is a free monthly webinar that runs for around 45 minutes. It comprises technical sessions in which we delve deep into

    • Download All Attached Files

      It would be extremely useful to have "download-all" functionality for downloading files attached to a task, subtask, comment, forum post or hosted in the "Documents" section etc. We've instructed our users to zip multiple files prior to uploading, but of course they forget all the time. Having to download lots of files one-at-a-time off a comment or task wastes a lot of time.

    • unable to send message reason 554 5.1.8 Email outgoing blocked

      unable to send message reason 554 5.1.8 Email outgoing blocked

    • Ship via Carrier Not Working Since Commerce Update

      Since the recent update to the Commerce platform, I can no longer use the ship via carrier function. It will take me to the address screen and let me verify them but when I go to save and move tot he next screen it will not do anything. This is happening

    • automations: Can I execute a step on a specific date?

      I have created a form in Zoho forms, and created a contacts list. I have also begun setting up an automation with the intention of sending the form to the contact list on a specific date every month (via email) for the entire year (essentially sending

    • Zoho Expense - The ability to add detail to a Trip during booking

      As an admin, I would like the ability to add more detail to the approved Trips. At present a requestor can add flights, accommodation details and suggest their preferences. It would be great if the exact details of the trip could be added either by the

    • Adding Folders in Android App

      Is it possible to create a new email folder within the Zoho Mail Android app?  Or can this only be done from the desktop version of Zoho Mail? Cheers!

    • Schedule Exports for Regular Project Updates

      Tracking project data often means exporting data at regular intervals. Instead of manually exporting data every time, users can schedule exports for Phases, Tasks, and Tasks in Zoho Projects. These exports can be set to run once, daily, weekly, or monthly

    • Question about custom fields using Pivot Tables.

      I have created a pivot table showing annual revenue of a client and how much payment that client is paying my company. Is there a way using pivot table to add an additional field that subtracts those to fields / shows me a percentage of that difference?

    • Request for Light/Dark Mode

      Would love the ability to switch between Light and Dark mode similar to Zoho CRM. https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/introducing-dark-mode-light-mode-a-new-look-for-your-crm

    • Journey Email - Ignored Contacts

      I have a journey setup which simply sends a string of emails over time. For some reason I am getting large amounts of the contacts who enter the first email being ignored and I can't find anywhere in reports or audit logs why these contacts are not

    • Involved account types are not applicable when create journals

      { "journal_date": "2016-01-31", "reference_number": "20160131", "notes": "SimplePay Payroll", "line_items": [{ "account_id": "538624000000035003", "description": "Net Pay", "amount": 26690.09, "debit_or_credit": "credit" }, { "account_id": "538624000000000403", "description": "Gross", "amount": 32000, "debit_or_credit": "debit" }, { "account_id": "538624000000000427", "description": "CPP", "amount": 1295.64, "debit_or_credit": "debit" }, { "account_id": "538624000000000376", "description":

    • Zoho Books - Include Payment Terms as a Custom View filter

      It would be great if you could created a custom view based on Payment Terms. This would be really handy for seeing a list of customers who have credit terms. A workaround is not required. I could do something with a creditor checkbox, but it would be

    • How to update changed purchase account of item in invoice

      I have selected the wrong purchase account for various articles and created invoices. I had to adjust the purchase account in the article afterwards, but the old purchase account is still posted in the transaction-journal of the invoice. To adjust the

    • Help - Zoho CRM notification on mobile (IOS/Android)

      Hello Community! Can I get the IOS/Andoid CRM app to notify me of events, calls, etc. due as I can with MANY other apps?   I am running the free Zoho I would like this to be native to the Zoho CRM app. I do not want to write a sep. mobile app

    • Zoho Books Idea - Include another field in Bank Details for Address

      Hi Books team, Currently use the Description field in the Bank Details to store the bank's address. This works fine but it would be great if you could add another field for Bank Address, so that other notes about the bank account could be stored in the

    • a question about the COQL API v8

      When I specify eight or more values in a WHERE IN clause and execute it, an error occurs. Is there a limit to the number of values that can be specified in a WHERE IN clause? ↓Error select * FROM Vendors WHERE (id in (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)) ↓Success

    • Zoho Books Idea - Bank Details Button on Banking

      Hi Books team, Sometimes I'm asked to share bank details with a customer or a colleague. So I go to the Banking Module, find the correct bank account, click Setting > Edit, then copy and paste the bank details. Wouldn't it be great if there was a button

    • Next Page