Tips and Tricks #19: The 3 C's of Data in Zoho Subscriptions

Tips and Tricks #19: The 3 C's of Data in Zoho Subscriptions

With Zoho Subscriptions, your customers can sign up for a plan by entering their details in the hosted payment pages. By default, customers will be required to enter certain basic contact information like their name and billing details. This information will be used to create new customers and subscriptions automatically in Zoho Subscriptions.

However, your business requirements may vary, and you might need additional information from your customers when they sign up. This can easily be achieved using custom fields. But, what if you had created a custom field just for internal use? Who'd be able to view these fields?

In this post, we'll help you understand how the custom fields you create can be viewed by you, your customers and your application. 

1. How you see your data

Let's say you create a custom field called "Customer Rating" and your business process hinges on this custom field. In this case, it's important that you have easy access to this field. Fortunately, with Zoho Subscriptions' column customization options, you can choose to display custom fields in a module's list view, thereby letting you view your custom fields without having to perform additional clicks. Column customization is available for the Customers , Subscriptions , Invoices and Credit Notes modules.


To do this, click the column customization icon in the list view of supported modules.

Apart from column customization, you can also tailor-make views for particular needs by creating custom view filters. These filters can be based on custom fields. The filters that you create can be shared with everyone in your staff or only with certain users and roles, based on your preferences.


Click the view filters dropdown, above the list view of a module and click + New Custom View. 

2. How your customers see your data

The custom fields that you create should only be shared with your customers on a need-to-know basis. For example, if you have a custom field called "Loyal Customer", you might not want to display it to your customers on their invoices.

In this section, we'll take a look at how and when you can show/hide custom fields for your customers in various places like hosted payment pages, the customer portal and your invoice templates. 

Hosted Payment Pages

Using custom fields in hosted payment pages is a great way to collect additional data from customers, right when they sign up to your service. To do this, go to Settings > Preferences > Customer > Custom Fields > + New Custom Field. Make sure to enable the Show in Customer Portal/Hosted Page option.



Now, the custom field will be visible to your customers in the hosted payment pages. 

Customer Portal

It's important to note that enabling a custom field in the hosted payment pages will also display the custom field in the customer portal. Your customers will be able to edit custom fields in their customer portal, if you allow them to do so.

While you cannot restrict access to editing custom fields alone, you can configure whether your customers can edit their contact details, which includes custom fields, from the client portal. To do this, go to Settings > Preferences > Branding > Portal Settings. Here, check/uncheck the Allow customers to edit their information option, based on your preferences. 

Email Notifications

The email notifications that are sent to your customers from Zoho Subscriptions will not include any custom fields by default. So, if there's a custom field that's essential for your customer to see in an email, it can be done by editing the email template and adding a placeholder for the custom field.

To do this, go to Settings > Email Notifications. Here, click on a template name to edit the template and select a placeholder for the custom field from the Insert Placeholder dropdown.

Now, when the email is sent, the placeholder will be replaced with the custom field's value. 

Invoices and Credit Notes

For the same reasons that you'd include a custom field in an email notification, you can also include custom fields in invoice and credit note templates.

To do this, ensure that the Show in all PDF option is enabled while creating or editing a custom field.



You can learn more about customizing invoice templates from our help document. 

3. How your application sees your data

This section is especially for third party applications like Zapier or your own SaaS application that works with Zoho Subscriptions primarily through the powerful REST APIs.

Zoho Subscriptions can be tightly integrated with your web application by sending and receiving data through API calls, Webhooks and Custom Functions.

For example, if your customer's subscription status changes from Live to Cancelled, you can configure a webhook to deliver this information to your web application's database. This webhook will contain a payload with the Status identifier. However, your web application's status identifier may be named differently, or in a different format. This is where modifying the payload comes in handy.

In Zoho Subscriptions you can modify a webhook's payload in a format that works best with your application. To do this, go to Settings > Automation > + New Webhook. Here, you can modify the payload of your webhook in the Body section.


That's it folks, we hope you've found this post helpful. We're always looking for feedback and suggestions, so feel free to rattle off in the comments below. Until next time!

Cheers,
Varun Steven
The Zoho Subscriptions Team


    Access your files securely from anywhere







                            Zoho Developer Community




                                                  • Desk Community Learning Series


                                                  • Digest


                                                  • Functions


                                                  • Meetups


                                                  • Kbase


                                                  • Resources


                                                  • Glossary


                                                  • Desk Marketplace


                                                  • MVP Corner


                                                  • Word of the Day


                                                  • Ask the Experts



                                                            • Sticky Posts

                                                            • Tip #4 : Refer and Earn Workflow system for your Subscription Business

                                                              Hello everyone, We've been coming up with a tip every week to address specific business scenarios which can be implemented for your business. In continuation to the previous post, this week we will be seeing about how you can implement the Refer and Earn Workflow system to acquire more customers. Why are Referrals important? Customer Acquisition is crucial for any business to sustain itself in a constantly evolving market. It involves persuading new consumers to purchase your products. Customers
                                                            • Tip #2 - Cancellation of Offline Subscriptions based on the Expected Payment Date

                                                              Hello everyone, As you all know, we are coming up with a custom function workflow every week to address specific business scenarios. In continuation of this previous blog, this week we will be seeing about Cancellation of Offline Subscriptions based on the Expected Payment Date. Business Scenario: In general, for any business, the customers make payments via online as well as offline. In case of subscription where the automatic collection of charge is enabled (aka online subscription), the customer's
                                                            • Tip #3 : Send SMS Reminders for your Subscription Business

                                                              Hello everyone, As you all know, we are coming up with a tip every week to address specific business scenarios. In continuation to the previous blog, this week we will be seeing how you can use SMS reminders for your Subscription Business. Using SMS messages for your Subscription Business: While managing your subscription business, more often than not, you need to keep your customers informed about upcoming renewals, payment reminders and cancellations. By keeping them informed in advance, you can
                                                            • Tips And Tricks - Announcement

                                                              Hello everyone, Every business is unique and each of them follows a specific workflow. While managing your customers' subscriptions with Zoho, you might have some needs unique to your business. Custom Functions helps you address such needs. This is a start to a series of posts, where we will be coming up with a custom function workflow every week that addresses specific business scenarios. Watch this space for further updates! Also, if you have any specific business scenario which needs to be addressed,
                                                            • Tip #6 : Accessing external URLs from Zoho Subscriptions

                                                              Hello everyone, We have been sharing a tip every week to address specific business scenarios which you can implement for your subscription business. Last week, we shared a tip about implementing the Approval Workflow system. This week, let's look at how you can access external URLs with the help of Custom Link. Business Scenario: Every business functions differently and has its unique requirements. At times, businesses might want to access other websites or applications by appending specific information


                                                            Manage your brands on social media



                                                                  Zoho TeamInbox Resources



                                                                      Zoho CRM Plus Resources

                                                                        Zoho Books Resources


                                                                          Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                                                                            Zoho Projects Resources


                                                                              Zoho Sprints Resources


                                                                                Qntrl Resources


                                                                                  Zoho Creator Resources



                                                                                      Zoho CRM Resources

                                                                                      • CRM Community Learning Series

                                                                                        CRM Community Learning Series


                                                                                      • Kaizen

                                                                                        Kaizen

                                                                                      • Functions

                                                                                        Functions

                                                                                      • Meetups

                                                                                        Meetups

                                                                                      • Kbase

                                                                                        Kbase

                                                                                      • Resources

                                                                                        Resources

                                                                                      • Digest

                                                                                        Digest

                                                                                      • CRM Marketplace

                                                                                        CRM Marketplace

                                                                                      • MVP Corner

                                                                                        MVP Corner









                                                                                          Design. Discuss. Deliver.

                                                                                          Create visually engaging stories with Zoho Show.

                                                                                          Get Started Now


                                                                                            Zoho Show Resources

                                                                                              Zoho Writer

                                                                                              Get Started. Write Away!

                                                                                              Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                                                                                                Zoho CRM コンテンツ



                                                                                                  Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


                                                                                                      ご検討中の方




                                                                                                              • Recent Topics

                                                                                                              • Desk DMARC forwarding failure for some senders

                                                                                                                I am not receiving important emails into Desk, because of DMARC errors. Here's what's happening: 1. email is sent from customer e.g. john@doe.com, to my email address, e.g info@acme.com 2. email is delivered successfully to info@acme.com (a shared inbox
                                                                                                              • "Spreadsheet Mode" for Fast Bulk Edits

                                                                                                                One of the challenges with using Zoho Inventory is when bulk edits need to be done via the UI, and each value that needs to be changed is different. A very common use case here is price changes. Often, a price increase will need to be implemented, and
                                                                                                              • Email Notifications not pushing through

                                                                                                                Hi, Notifications from CRM are not reaching my users as they trigger.  We have several workflow triggers set up that send emails to staff as well as the notifications users get when a task is created for them or a user is tagged in the notes.  For the past 6 days these haven't been coming through in real time, instead users are receiving 30-40 notifications in one push several hours later.  This is beginning to impact our daily usage of CRM and is having a negative effect on our productivity because
                                                                                                              • Ticket layout based on field or contact

                                                                                                                Hi! I want to support the following use-case: we are delivering custom IT solutions to different accounts we have, thus our ticket layouts, fields and languages (priority, status field values should be Hungarian) will be different. How should I setup
                                                                                                              • Add specific field value to URL

                                                                                                                Hi Everyone. I have the following code which is set to run from a subform when the user selects a value from a lookup field "Plant_Key" the URL opens a report but i want the report to be filtered on the matching field/value. so in the report there is
                                                                                                              • Syncing Bills in Zoho Books to Zoho CRM

                                                                                                                Is there any way to sync the Bills in Zoho Books in Zoho CRM
                                                                                                              • SAML in Zoho One vs Zoho Accounts

                                                                                                                What is the difference between setting up SAML in Zoho Accounts: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/accounts/manage-your-organization/saml/articles/configure-saml-in-zoho-accounts ... vs SAML in Zoho One?: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/one/admin-guide/custom-authentication/setting-up-custom-authentication-with-popular-idps/articles/zohoone-customauthentication-azure
                                                                                                              • How do I change the order of fields in the new Task screen?

                                                                                                                I have gone into the Task module layout, and moving the fields around does not seem to move them in the Create Task screen. Screenshot below. I have a field (Description) that we want to use frequently, but it is inconveniently placed within the More
                                                                                                              • Zoho Inventory. Preventing Negative Stock in Sales Orders – Best Practices?

                                                                                                                Dear Zoho Inventory Community, We’re a small business using Zoho Inventory with a team of sales managers. Unfortunately, some employees occasionally overlook stock levels during order processing, leading to negative inventory issues. Is there a way to
                                                                                                              • CRM gets location smart with the all new Map View: visualize records, locate records within any radius, and more

                                                                                                                Hello all, We've introduced a new way to work with location data in Zoho CRM: the Map View. Instead of scrolling through endless lists, your records now appear as pins on a map. Built on top of the all-new address field and powered by Mappls (MapMyIndia),
                                                                                                              • Deactivated Zoho One account can sign in

                                                                                                                I am concerned by the fact that deactivated users in Zoho One have the ability to sign in even after their account has been deactivated (not deleted). these inactive identities have no access to individual Zoho apps or data. based on my experience they
                                                                                                              • How can I reset the password for a user in Zoho Projects

                                                                                                                We need to reset the password for a user in Zoho Projects. I am the admin portal owner and there was nothing to be found to do this. very confusing.
                                                                                                              • No funcionan correctamente el calculo de las horas laborales para informe de tickets

                                                                                                                Hola, estoy intentando sacar estadísticas de tiempo de primera respuesta y resolución en horario laboral de mis tickets, pero el calculo de horas en horario laboral no funciona correctamente cree los horarios con los feriados : Ajusté los acuerdos de
                                                                                                              • How can I add a comment to an existing ticket via API?

                                                                                                                I need to add comments/notes to the history of an existing ticket using the API without overwriting the original ticket description. Thanks!
                                                                                                              • Notification to customers when I use a Zoho function

                                                                                                                Hi all, I tried searching the community but couldn't find anything about it. I noticed that the customer receives the notification of reopening the old ticket but does not receive the notification of opening a new ticket when I use the function: "separate
                                                                                                              • Internal Error When Accessing Team Inbox.

                                                                                                                All our users are seeing this error in teaminbox. Because its a critical tool kindly resolve this issue ASAP.
                                                                                                              • Marketer's Space: Proven tips to improve open rates – Part III

                                                                                                                Hello Marketers! Welcome back to another post in Marketer's Space! This is the final post in the "open rate series". In the first and second parts, we discussed topics ranging from sender domains to pre-headers—but we're not done yet. A few more important
                                                                                                              • MCP no longer works with Claude

                                                                                                                Anyone else notice Zoho MCP no longer works with Claude? I'm unable to turn this on in the claude chat. When I try to toggle it on, it just does nothing at all. I've tried in incognito, new browsers, etc. - nothing seems to work.
                                                                                                              • Change Number Field to Decimal Field

                                                                                                                Hi, It would be nice to be able to change the field type without having to delete it and create a new one, messing up the database and history. Thanks Dan
                                                                                                              • Allow Text within a Formula

                                                                                                                Hi, I would like to be able to use this for others things like taking an existing Date Field and copying its value, so by entering getDay(Date)&"-"&getMonth(Date)&"-"&getYear(Date) it results in 01-02-2026. And then when the Date is changed so is this
                                                                                                              • Zoho Social - Feature Request - Reviewer Role

                                                                                                                Hi Social Team, I've come across this with a couple of clients, where they need a role which can review and comment on posts but who has no access to create content. This is a kind of reviewer role. They just need to be able to see what content is scheduled
                                                                                                              • Zoho Books/Inventory - Update Marketplace Sales Order via API

                                                                                                                Hi everyone, Does anyone know if there is a way to update Sales Orders created from a marketplace intigration (Shopify in this case) via API? I'm trying to cover a scenario where an order is changed on the Shopify end and the changes must be reflected
                                                                                                              • Zoho Inventory / Finance Suite - Add feature to prevent duplicate values in Item Unit field

                                                                                                                I've noticed that a client has 2 values the same in the Unit field on edit/create Items. This surprised me as why would you have 2 units with the same name. Please consider adding a feature which prevents this as it seems to serve no purpose.
                                                                                                              • Zoho CRM for Everyone's NextGen UI Gets an Upgrade

                                                                                                                Hello Everyone We've made improvements to Zoho CRM for Everyone's Nextgen UI. These changes are the result of valuable feedback from you where we’ve focused on improving usability, providing wider screen space, and making navigation smoother so everything
                                                                                                              • Kaizen #224 - Quote-driven Deal Reconciliation Using Zoho CRM Functions and Automation

                                                                                                                Hello everyone! Welcome back to another instalment in the Kaizen series. This post covers quote-driven deal reconciliation, emphasizing Functions and Automation to address practical sales challenges. Business Challenge Sales organizations often mark deals
                                                                                                              • Dependent / Dynamic DropDown in ZohoSheets

                                                                                                                Has anyone figured out a way to create a Dropdown, the values of which is dependent on Values entered in the other cell ?
                                                                                                              • Zoho Inventory - Composite Items - Assembly - Single Line Item Quantity of One

                                                                                                                Hi Zoho Inventory Team, Please consider relaxing the system rules which prevent an assembly items from consisting of a single line item and outputting a quantity of 1. A client I'm currently working with sells cosmetics and offers testers of their products
                                                                                                              • Directly Edit, Filter, and Sort Subforms on the Details Page

                                                                                                                Hello everyone, As you know, subforms allow you to associate multiple line items with a single record, greatly enhancing your data organization. For example, a sales order subform neatly lists all products, their quantities, amounts, and other relevant
                                                                                                              • BARCODE PICKLIST

                                                                                                                Hello! Does anyone know how the Picklist module works? I tried scanning the barcode using the UPC and EAN codes I added to the item, but it doesn’t work. Which barcode format does this module use for scanning?
                                                                                                              • Zoho Inventory - Allow Update of Marketplace Generated Sales Orders via API

                                                                                                                Hi Inventory Team, I was recently asked by a client to create an automation which updated a Zoho Inventory Sales Order if a Shopify Order was updated. I have created the script but I found that the request is blocked as the Sales Order was generated by
                                                                                                              • How do I create an update to the Cost Price from landed costs?

                                                                                                                Hi fellow Zoho Inventory battlers, I am new to Zoho inventory and was completely baffled to find that the cost price of products does not update when a new purchase order is received. The cost price is just made up numbers I start with when the product
                                                                                                              • Manage control over Microsoft Office 365 integrations with profile-based sync permissions

                                                                                                                Greetings all, Previously, all users in Zoho CRM had access to enable Microsoft integrations (Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks) in their accounts, regardless of their profile type. Users with administrator profiles can now manage profile-based permissions
                                                                                                              • Zoho OAuth Connector Deprecation and Its Impact on Zoho Desk

                                                                                                                Hello everyone, Zoho believes in continuously refining its integrations to uphold the highest standards of security, reliability, and compliance. As part of this ongoing improvement, the Zoho OAuth default connector will be deprecated for all Zoho services
                                                                                                              • VoC in Zoho CRM is now data savvy: Explore response drilldown, summary components and participation in CRM criteria

                                                                                                                VoC has all the goods when it comes to customer intelligence—which is why we're constantly enhancing it. We recently added the following: A customer drilldown component that shows you the list of prospects and customers behind a chart's attribute Expanded
                                                                                                              • How do I bulk archive my projects in ZOHO projects

                                                                                                                Hi, I want to archive 50 Projects in one go. Can you please help me out , How can I do this? Thanks kapil
                                                                                                              • Error 0x800CCC0F Outlook

                                                                                                                Hello, i cannot send or receive email in outlook. can you please help. 'Sending' reported error (0x800CCC0F) : 'The connection to the server was interrupted. If this problem continues, contact your server administrator or Internet service provider (ISP).'
                                                                                                              • 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
                                                                                                              • Can I add Conditional merge tags on my Templates?

                                                                                                                Hi I was wondering if I can use Conditional Mail Merge tags inside my Email templates/Quotes etc within the CRM? In spanish and in our business we use gender and academic degree salutations , ie: Dr., Dra., Sr., Srta., so the beginning of an email / letter
                                                                                                              • Zoho vault instal on windows

                                                                                                                I am trying to use Zoho Vault Desktop for Windows, but I am unable to complete the sign-in process. Problem description After logging in to my Zoho account and clicking Accept on the authorization page, nothing happens. The application does not proceed
                                                                                                              • Zoho Browser??

                                                                                                                hai guys, this sounds awkward but can v get a ZOHO BROWSER same as zoho writer, etc. where i can browse websites @ home and continue browsing the same websites @ my office, as v have the option in Firefox, once i save and close the browser and again when i open it i will be getting the same sites. If u people r not clear with my explanation, plz let me know. Thanks, Sandeep  
                                                                                                              • Next Page