Create Your Own Issue Management System

Effective issue management is a cornerstone of project success. Every bug or issue, no matter how small, needs to be tracked and resolved in time to maintain project momentum. In this post, we’ll explore how an issue management system in Zoho Projects is used to manage issues in our own product management process.

Real-time Example:

During the software testing process, when the tester identifies an issue impacting the Global Web Tab feature task where the alignment breaks in certain browsers, it follows a predefined process for resolution. Here’s how the issue management system handles this end-to-end.

Submit Issues using Custom Fields

Custom fields are created within the Issue Layout, allowing testers to submit issues with key details like severity, module, browser type, and font family. In the case of the Global Web Tab alignment issue, the browser type field helps pinpoint which environment is affected.

How Other Industries Can Use Issue Layouts In This Process:  

Construction: Track issues like material defects or design flaws using custom fields such as location, material type, grade, etc.

Manufacturing: Track production line breakdowns or machine malfunctions issues with custom fields like product phase, machine type, location, etc.

SLAs Based on Issue Type

SLAs are configured based on the issue type, such as Support, Security, Privacy, or Performance, to set resolution deadlines. If the issue is categorized as one of these types, the SLA triggers a resolution within 24 hours. If the issue remains unresolved, it escalates through Levels 1–4.

How Other Industries Can Use SLAs In This Process:

Construction: Set SLAs to resolve critical issues like safety violations or structural failures quickly.

Manufacturing: Set SLAs for issues like production line stoppages to minimize downtime.

Automate Assigning Issues

A tag is created using the feature name and is associated with the issue when it is submitted. Business rules are created using the tags as criteria to automatically assign the issue to the relevant developers, designers, managers, and project managers (PMs).

How Other Industries Can Use Tags In This Process:

Construction: Automatically assign issues using the issue type as tags, such as plumbing or electrical, to the appropriate contractors or subcontractors.

Manufacturing: Use tags like machinery or production to assign issues to maintenance teams or shift managers automatically.

Bulk Update Issues

A custom view is created to track and bulk update all issues related to the feature using the tag as a criteria.

How Other Industries Can Use Custom Views In This Process:

Construction: Create custom views to track and update issues related to electrical work.

Manufacturing: Create custom views to track and update production-related issues.

Manage Duplicate Issues

If a duplicate issue is submitted, the developer can link it to the original issue using the is duplicate of link type for identification. A custom function is created to ensure that duplicate issues are closed only when the original issue is closed ensuring no redundancy in the issue tracking process.

How Other Industries Can Use Link Issues In This Process:

Construction: Link duplicate issues like multiple reports of the same electrical fault.

Manufacturing: Link duplicate maintenance issues to the original issue to ensure a single resolution.

Associate Tasks to Issues

The Global Web Tab task is associated with the issue, allowing both the development and QA teams to monitor the progress of the work item from a single place. When a tester opens the task, they can view all associated issues, and when opening an issue, they can easily track the associated task.

How Other Industries Can Use Task Association In This Process:

Construction: Associate tasks like Foundation to issues like Cracked Foundation for easy tracking.

Manufacturing: Associate maintenance tasks to machinery issues to track progress.

Automating Status Updates

A custom function is created to automate the update of issue statuses. when the tester updates the task status to Started Testing, the associated issue status is automatically updated to In QA Process. Similarly, when a developer resolves the issue and updates the task status to Resubmit for QA, the associated issue status is updated to To be tested. Issue Tracker Notifications are used to send notifications to all team members to keep everyone informed about such status updates.

How Other Industries Can Use Custom Functions In This Process:

Construction: When the Electrical Safety Check issue status is updated to Passed, the associated task, such as Wiring Installation, will automatically update its status to Inspection Complete.

Manufacturing: When the Material Shortage issue is updated to Resolved, the task status for Electrical Installation will automatically update to Work Completed.

Automate Adding Followers

Sometimes issues need further validation before they are resolved. Developers can update the issue status, such as Intentionally Done or Discuss with the PM. Business rules are created to automatically add relevant product managers (PMs) and other team members as followers with such statuses as criteria. This ensures that decisions are validated and any necessary inputs are added through comments before moving forward.

How Other Industries Can Use Business Rules In This Process:

Construction: Automate adding followers to validate electrical safety checks or structural issues before moving forward.

Manufacturing: Automate adding followers to validate machine repair statuses before completing maintenance tasks.

Checklist for Testers

Once the feature is reviewed and tested, the Checklist Extension is used for the associated task. The tester is required to complete a predefined checklist within the task to verify that all relevant testing scenarios have been covered. This checklist ensures that no critical testing aspects are missed.

How Other Industries Can Use Checklist Extension In This Process:

Construction: Use checklist to create a punch list to ensure all inspections, tests, and final verifications are completed before a task  issue is marked as completed.

Manufacturing: Create a compliance checklist to ensure product assembly and quality control steps are completed before a task  issue is marked as completed.

Note: Checklist extension can be used for both tasks and issues.

Resolve Issues

Upon resolving the issue, the developer can resolve the issue from the issue details page with the context.

Custom Notifications

Custom email templates in Issue Tracker Notifications are used to automate communication. Developers and the relevant team members are automatically notified about reopened issues. This helps prevent delays in the project.

How Other Industries Can Use Email Templates In This Process:

Construction: Create customized email template and use it in issue tracker notifications for critical issues like safety violation when reopened.

Manufacturing: Create customized email template and use it in issue tracker notifications for maintenance issues when reopened.

Features used in the process: Issue Layouts, SLAs, Tags, Business Rules, Issue Tracker Notifications, Link Issues, Custom Function, Checklist Extension, and Email Templates.

If you have any questions, do leave a comment below or mail to us at: support@zohoprojects.com.

• Topic Participants

• Navya Nune

  

• frankn66

  

• François

• Monica P

  

• Sticky Posts

• Introducing the Zoho Projects Learning Space

  Every product has its learning curve, and sometimes having a guided path makes the learning experience smoother. With that goal, we introduce a dedicated learning space for Zoho Projects, a platform where you can explore lessons, learn at your own pace,

• Update on V2 API End-of-Life Timeline

  Dear Users, Earlier this year, we shared the launch of the V3 APIs and requested users to migrate from the older V2 APIs by December 2025. We have received valuable feedback from our users and partners regarding their migration timelines. We are happy

• Automation Series: Auto-update Phase Status

  Hello Folks! You can auto-update your phase's status based on status of underlying tasks using custom functions. In this series, we will showcase how to create and run custom functions, using Deluge, with ease. Follow the steps below and automate your

• Automate Timesheet Approvals with Multi-level Approval Rules

  Introducing Approval Rules for Timesheets in Zoho Projects. With this automation, teams can manage how timesheets are reviewed and approved by setting up rules with criteria and assigning approvers to handle submissions. Timesheet, when associated to

• Accessibility Spotlight Series - 1

  Every user interacts with products differently, what feels intuitive to one may be challenging for another. Addressing this, accessibility is built into Zoho Project's design philosophy. This helps users navigate and perform actions with ease irrespective

• Recent Topics

• Customer Address Not on Standard Invoice when Address is on Contact Record

  Hi,  I entered the customer billing and shipping address in Zoho CRM. I created an invoice in Zoho Books with the same customer contact. The contact is correctly in Zoho Books with the billing and shipping address. The invoice for the customer does not

• Apply partial payments to invoices from the Banking Module

  We need this! Why is this not possible?

• Welcome to the Zoho Show Community Forums page!

  Hello everyone, The Zoho Show community is a place for you to discuss and share anything and everything related to Zoho Show Presentations, our online presentation software. It includes users from all over the globe and all walks of life. Our community helps answer your Zoho Show questions with responses from other knowledgeable community members to give you the best experience creating and designing exciting presentations. Along the way, you'll meet recognized experts from our software team and

• How can I convert an existing contact into a lead?

  I imported many contacts into ZOHO CRM. In order to select a few of them as leads, I want to mark or convert a few hundred as Leads. Who can I do that?

• Price book functionality enhancement

  A common use of price books is to create a price book for a given customer level or contract with a specific company. Given that this is done at a company/customer level it would be great to see a way to associate a price book to a given customer and

• Contact data removes Account data when creating a quote

  Hi, Our customer has address fields in their quote layout which should be the address of the Account. They prefill the information, adding the account name - the address data is populated as per what is in the account - great. However when they then add

• Can we have 24x7 live support for Zohobooks ?

  Can we have 24x7 live support for Zohobooks ?

• Important update about notification security in Business Messaging SDK

  As part of our ongoing effort to strengthen the security of notification data, we have enhanced how notifications are processed and protected in our applications. These improvements ensure that all notification related data follows the most up-to-date

• Sync Zoho Marketing Automation with Zoho Forms

  I can't find a section where the integration between Zoho Marketing Automation and Zoho form is explained. And how form subscription works with opt-in and consents.

• What is the difference between Zoho Campaigns and marketing hub?

  Zoho Campaigns is a permission-based email marketing tool for sending marketing emails and mass emails. Marketing Automation is a multichannel marketing automation tool that caters to organizations looking for tools to engage their users across multiple

• Webhook not firing.

  I created a webhook using the Web UI, it looks very nice and the testing worked without an issue, but when i save/ update a ticket, the webhook is not firing. Here are the details of the web-hook i get from using the API "modifiedTime": "2019-10-22T09:23:37.380Z",

• Duplicate customers being created in Desk

  Hi I've trying to work out why I've getting duplicated customers being created in my desk. I have an external booking system that generates an email when I get a customer booking a job. A booking email gets sent to Desk where I manage the booking and

• Creating a custom CSV file using deluge script/

  I have an application I have developed and the client wants us to place an export file in csv onto an ftp server daily. Now I don't see au options in creator to change the separator to anything else. The client wants the separator to be the pipe symbol "|"  I think i would be able to create schedule with some code to create the appropriate data in a string using deluge script but I haven't seen any functionality that would allow me to deposit that data as a file anywhere or attach it to an email

• Can we add custom fields to portal community profiles?

  How do we add custom fields to our profile pages in our portal community? If we have the ability to add custom fields, will we be able to access those fields via API? We want to use our Desk community in our help portal as our primary community and would

• E-Invoicing in Belgium with Zoho Billing

  Starting January 1, 2026, Belgium is introducing mandatory electronic invoices (e-invoicing) for all B2B transactions between VAT-registered businesses. Invoices and credits notes must be exchanged in a prescribed digital format. How E-Invoicing works

• delayed: host mx2.zoho.com (136.143.183.44): Network error: Unexpectedly disconnected (STARTTLS)

  Hi Team, I'm not receiving any email. Seems to be an issue. Sender sent me the error message they received: "delayed: host mx2.zoho.com (136.143.183.44): Network error: Unexpectedly disconnected (STARTTLS)" Please advise.

• Additional Address - Company Name

  It would be very helpful to have a "Company Name" field in the Additional Address shipping section.  In a situation where you drop-ship orders to a different address or different company entirely, it may be necessary to list the company name of the receiver. I understand that the Attention field can be used for that purpose, but that's not really the intended purpose of that field.

• Incorrect Email Notifications for Product Reviews

  Dear Zoho Commerce Support Team, I am writing to report a technical issue that occurs frequently on our platform. Problem Description: We regularly receive email notifications informing us of new product reviews awaiting approval. However, when we access

• In App Auto Refresh/Update Features

  Hi,    I am trying to use Zoho Creator for Restaurant management. While using the android apps, I reliased the apps would not auto refresh if there is new entries i.e new kitchen order ticket (KOT) from other users.   The apps does received notification but would not auto refresh, users required to refresh the apps manually in order to see the new KOT in the apps.    I am wondering why this features is not implemented? Or is this feature being considered to be implemented in the future? With the

• How to Rank Tables by Row Count in Descending Order

  I am trying to understand the consume of lines that grow up so fast in the last week. Is there any way to create a pivot table or query to get TABLE NAME LINES in descending order?

• Can we do Image swatches for color variants?

  We want to do something like the attached screenshot on our new zoho store. We need image swatches instead of normal text selection. We want to user to select an image as color option. Is this doable? I don't see any option on zoho backend. Please h

• annualy customer report

  we need a report per customer that looks like this invoic number cleaning laundry repair management 01 january xxx euro xx euro xx euro xxx euro 02 february xxx euro xxx euro x euro xxxx euro and so on the years 12 months is that possible to make and

• Export your notes from Notebook!

  Dear users, The long awaited feature is now live. Yes, you can now export your notes from Notebook app in bulk. But the feature has just started with web app alone for now. You can try the export feature as mentioned below: Go to our web app, https://notebook.zoho.com Go to 'Settings' > 'Export' Now, select the format: You can select either ZNote or HTML Once done, you can use the same to import or can have this a local backup of your notes. Note: Export for other platforms are in development and

• our customers have difficult to understand the Statements

  our costumers have big problems to understand Zohos Statements. we need a text box after the payment number to explain what the payments are for. Is it possible to develop a version of the Statement with that kind of box and if so whu can do it

• Canva Integration

  Hello! As many marketing departments are streamlining their teams, many have begun utilizing Canva for all design mockups and approvals prior to its integration into Marketing automation software. While Zoho Social has this integration already accomplished,

• Prepopulating Fields

  Hello, I have a form (Assets) with 2 lookup fields: Client (from Clients) Site (from Client Sites) I modified the code (highlighted in red below), so the Site dropdown shows the list of sites related to the Client. must have Client_Site ( type = picklist

• REPORT THAT SHOWS SOH FOR ITEMS THAT HAVE ZERO SALES

  When we started Zoho we imported a lot of inventory lines directly off our suppliers price list and have never ordered / sold. I want to clean up our data base and remove all these lines. What reeport will show me what lines have zero sales as well as

• Automation series : Close all tasks once the project is completed

  When a project is marked as Completed, it might still have open tasks such as recurring tasks that were not marked as complete, tasks that are no longer relevant, or tasks that no longer need attention after closure. To ensure the project reflects its

• Direct Feed (Bank)

  Is Direct feed integration for AlRajhi and ADCB bank supported by Zoho Books in GCC/Saudi

• Converting Sales Order to Purchase Order

  Hi All, Firstly, this code works to convert a sales order(SO) to a purchase order (PO) via a button, however I am running into an issue when I convert the SO where the values from the line items are not pulled across from the SO to the PO. The ones in

• Horrible Connectivity!

  I have used Meetings several times, but most of the time the connection is horrible. The video freezes, the audio freezes, and we end up cancelling the meeting. I am on a high speed internet connection, and Zoom works fine, so I know it's not a problem

• Is it really true that I can't set the default 'deposit to' account in 2025?

  I've been using Books for 7 years and the default account has never been a problem. I usually manually reconcile invoices and have never had a thought about which account. It has always been my account. However, I recently noticed that for the past 4

• Zoho DataPrep switching Date Format

  When using a pipeline that is importing Zoho Analytics data into Zoho DataPrep, the month and day of date fields are switched for some columns. For example, a Zoho Analytics record of "Nov. 8, 2025" will appear in Zoho DataPrep as "2025/08/11" in "yyyy/MM/dd"

• Using Another Field Value for Workflow Field Update

  I'm trying to setup a Workflow with a "Field Update" action on the Lead module, but I would like the new value to actually be taken from a DIFFERENT Field's on the Lead record (vs just defining some static value..) Is this possible? Could I simply use

• Tax information

  Hello, I need help/guidance on how to add my organization's Tax/VAT information. Thank you Pavly

• Build smarter Guided Conversations with Fork Blocks

  When your customers arrive on your support channel, they're not there to explore. They are usually confused and stuck while trying to fix something important. We understand how stressful that moment can feel and we want your bot to make things easier,

• Custom item field won't allow decimal.

  Hello, I have a custom item field that needs to be able to have a value with a decimal place such as 6.7 or 6.18. I have tried custom formatting the input format but can not get the correct syntax to allow this. Is this possible in Zoho?

• Free webinar: Zoho Sign unwrapped – 2025 in review

  Hey there! 2025 is coming to an end, and this year has been all about AI. Join our exclusive year-end webinar, where we'll walk you through the features that went live in 2025, provide answers to your questions, and give you a sneak peek on what to expect

• HubSpot CRM to Zoho Creator Integration

  I'm trying to create an integration between HubSpot CRM and Zoho Creator with HubSpot being the push source (if a contact is created or updated in HubSpot, it pushes the information to Zoho Creator). I have two questions: 1- Is it best to use Zoho Flow

• Custom Fields

  There is no way to add a custom field in the "Timesheet" module. Honestly, the ability to add a custom field should be available in every module.

• Next Page