Kaizen #156 - Enhancing Mass Communication in Zoho CRM with a Custom Button Widget

Kaizen #156 - Enhancing Mass Communication in Zoho CRM with a Custom Button Widget




Hello code enthusiasts! 

Welcome to a fresh week of Kaizen! In this post, you will learn how to build a custom button widget to boost mass communication of your business using SMS notifications and pre-recorded calls within Zoho CRM. 

Business Scenario

Timely communication with customers is crucial in any business to send important updates, reminders, and promotional messages. 

Imagine you are managing a sales team, and your business regularly sends promotional offers to hundreds of customers. Typically, you would need to export customer details to a separate broadcasting system, create the messages, and send them manually. 

Instead of manually making individual calls and messages about the offer, you can now leverage this custom button widget placed in the mass menu within Zoho CRM to send personalized SMS notifications or even recorded voice calls to your customers. 

Creating a Custom Button Widget

Let us look at the steps to create a widget for the above-mentioned functionality. 

1. Log in to your Zoho CRM, go to Setup>Customization>Modules and Fields and select your desired Module. For this demo, we will choose the Leads module.
2. In the Leads module, switch to the Buttons tab and click Create New Button.
3. Follow the steps outlined in this help page and create a new button in the Mass Action Menu with its action defined by a widget. 



4. A pop-up appears for you to choose either from the available local widgets or create a new widget. 
5. Follow the steps provided in this kaizen to create a new widget for this use case.


Code Logic for Mass Communication

6. Here is the code logic to send broadcast SMS notifications and pre-recorded calls to the selected leads. 
  • Build the widget HTML page with the following elements shown in the GIF for obtaining user input like phone fields, sms/voice call preference, and the message content.


For voice calls, the entered text message will be converted to speech using Twilio's services.
  • The current module (Leads) and the selected record IDs are passed to the widget through the on PageLoad callback function.
  • For the current module, we used the Zoho CRM Meta JS SDK to get fields that have phone data type in it. These fields are listed in the Phone Fields dropdown, allowing the user to select the desired phone numbers that Twilio should use to send SMS or make calls. 
  • The COQL API SDK helps fetch values from the selected Phone fields in the dropdown for the selected record IDs. 
  • Depending on the selected action SMS or Voice Call tab, the corresponding Twilio Message or Call API will be triggered for communication. 
For this demo, we used the Twilio APIs for sending SMS and making pre-recorded calls, but you can use any cloud communication platform of your choice.

    const context = { };
    async function getPhoneNumbers() {
const phoneFieldsDropdown = document.getElementById('phone-fields-dropdown');
const selectedValues = Array.from(phoneFieldsDropdown.options).filter(option => option.selected).map(option => option.value);
    if (!selectedValues.length) {
return showAlert('error', 'Please select atleast one phone field');
}
const ids = context.recordIds.map(x => `'${x}'`).join(', ');
    const select_query = `SELECT ${selectedValues.join(', ')} FROM ${context.module} WHERE id in (${ids})`;
    const {data} = await ZOHO.CRM.API.coql({select_query});
    const phoneNumbers = [];
data.forEach(x => {
        Object.keys(x).forEach(key => {
            if (key !== 'id' && x[key]) {
                phoneNumbers.push(x[key]);
            }
        });
});
    return phoneNumbers;
}
    ZOHO.embeddedApp.on("PageLoad", function (data) {
// Get the current module name and selected record ids
const {Entity, EntityId} = data;
    context.module = Entity;
    context.recordIds = EntityId;
    // Get the phone fields for current module
    ZOHO.CRM.META.getFields({Entity}).then(
    function (response) {
const {fields} = response;
const phoneFields = fields.filter(x => x.data_type === 'phone').map(x => ({value: x.api_name, label: x.display_label }));
    new Choices('#phone-fields-dropdown', {
        removeItemButton: true,
    choices: phoneFields,
    placeholder: true,
    placeholderValue: 'Select Phone Fields to be used'
});
    ZOHO.CRM.UI.Resize({height:"400", width:"700"});
});
    // Initialize twilio credentials
    twilio.init("$YOUR_ACCOUNT_SID", "$YOUR_AUTH_TOKEN", "+YOUR_TWILIO_NUMBER");
})
    ZOHO.embeddedApp.init();

Try It Out!

To try this out, a fully functional code sample is attached to this post. All you have to do is replace your Twilio credentials on line 185 and everything else is already setup for you.

Widget in Action
  1. Select multiple records in the Leads module. 
  2. Click Broadcast (custom widget button) to open a streamlined interface (we have used Twilio for this demo).
  3. Select the Phone Fields to which you need to send the message / pre-recorded call. 
  4. Choose SMS or Voice Call in the tab based on your requirement.
  5. Enter your message and hit Send. 




                                    


Ta-daa! The messages go out to all the selected records immediately. You can also use any other third-party cloud communication platform of your choice instead of Twilio. 

Caution!

Since the Twilio Message and Call APIs are triggered from the UI, the Twilio authentication will be accessible to anyone with access to the Zoho CRM organization where this widget is deployed.

Similar Scenarios

  • Sales Teams can send follow-up reminders in bulk to multiple leads after an event. 
  • Support Teams can inform customers about system maintenance or updates by sending bulk notifications. 
  • Operation Teams can send updates on deliveries or service schedules to relevant contacts.  
We hope you found this post useful and engaging!

If you have any queries reach out to us at support@zohocrm.com or let us know in the comments section. 

Cheers! 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Additional Reading

  1. Zoho CRM Widget - An Overview, Installation and Creation, Mobile Compatibility, other Kaizens
  2. Zoho CRM - Custom Button, COQL API, Fields Metadata API, JS SDK for Widgets
  3. Twilio - Message API, Call API, Twiml(Twilio Markup Language)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



    • Sticky Posts

    • Kaizen #197: Frequently Asked Questions on GraphQL APIs

      🎊 Nearing 200th Kaizen Post – We want to hear from you! Do you have any questions, suggestions, or topics you would like us to cover in future posts? Your insights and suggestions help us shape future content and make this series better for everyone.

    • Kaizen #198: Using Client Script for Custom Validation in Blueprint

      Nearing 200th Kaizen Post – 1 More to the Big Two-Oh-Oh! Do you have any questions, suggestions, or topics you would like us to cover in future posts? Your insights and suggestions help us shape future content and make this series better for everyone.

    • Celebrating 200 posts of Kaizen! Share your ideas for the milestone post

      Hello Developers, We launched the Kaizen series in 2019 to share helpful content to support your Zoho CRM development journey. Staying true to its spirit—Kaizen Series: Continuous Improvement for Developer Experience—we've shared everything from FAQs

    • Kaizen #193: Creating different fields in Zoho CRM through API

      🎊 Nearing 200th Kaizen Post – We want to hear from you! Do you have any questions, suggestions, or topics you would like us to cover in future posts? Your insights and suggestions help us shape future content and make this series better for everyone.

    • Client Script | Update - Introducing Commands in Client Script!

      Have you ever wished you could trigger Client Script from contexts other than just the supported pages and events? Have you ever wanted to leverage the advantage of Client Script at your finger tip? Discover the power of Client Script - Commands! Commands

    • Recent Topics

    • when the record is created the tag want to Show as Opportunity how i achive this using Deluge Script

      In the quotation i have the work flow schedule for create opportunity record in the module , on that time the quotation tag select as opportunity created. How i achive this using Deluge Script . this like i want to Do tag1 = Map(); tag1.put("name","Nurturing

    • Delete a channel

      I need delete a channel in tickets.

    • Copy / Duplicate Workflow

      I have workflows setup that are very similar to each other. We have a monitoring system watching servers, and all notifications - no matter what client it is about - will come from a  noreply@ address which is not very helpful in having it auto assigned to the right account. I have setup a workflow that will change the contact name of the ticket (currently it would say noreply@) to the correct customer which is based on the subject line, as that mentions which server the alert it is about. I need

    • Subtasks don't update parent task's times

      Hi there: I've recently upgraded to premium and check that subtasks completion % don't update the proportional completion of the parent tasks related to it.  We've been challenging with the problem of having to update twice or sometimes 3 times the completion of the related tasks. I've seen posts similar to this, of 3 years old.  Is there any roadmap for making this happen in a future release? Thanx César Ratto Lima, Perú.

    • Should I Use DMARC?

      When I configure Zoho Mail's DMARC settings, it's mandatory to fill in the RUA and RUF (Aggregate notification email address*, Forensic notification email address*) addresses. When we enter an email address in these fields, we receive reports from the

    • Mail ToDo & Tasks Webhooks

      Our company uses Zoho ToDo inside Mail to manage our tasks. When I create a task and assign it to a team member it does not notify them unless I add a reminder via mail. I'm trying to create a webhook for when a task is created to send a cliq message

    • Can't upload attachments.

      I can't upload attachment in Zoho Mail.

    • Tip #44 – Get Deeper Insights with Zoho Assist’s Custom Reports – ‘Insider Insights’

      In today’s fast-paced IT environment, having a clear view of your remote support activities is more important than ever. Zoho Assist’s Custom Reports feature gives IT teams the ability to generate tailored reports that provide actionable insights and

    • Message "...does not support more than 100 distinct values..." WHY????

      I get this message on one of my reports: Sorry, Zoho Reports currently does not support more than 100 distinct values in columns. 'Account Name * Sum(Amount),Count(Amount Tier)' contains more than 100 distinct values.  Possibly, you can apply filter to reduce the number of distinct values in 'Account Name' or drop the 'Account Name' field in Rows. I want to list all ACCOUNT NAMES (about 500) with SALES BY ACCOUNT.  What is blocking this?

    • Need Easy Way to Update Item Prices in Bulk

      Hello Everyone, In Zoho Books, updating selling prices is taking too much time. Right now we have to either edit items one by one or do Excel export/import. It will be very useful if Zoho gives a simple option to: Select multiple items and update prices

    • Let's Talk Recruit: Super-charge hiring with Zoho Recruit add-ons

      Welcome back to our Let’s Talk Recruit series! This time, we’re diving into something that might seem like a small upgrade but has a huge impact on recruiter productivity: Zoho Recruit add-ons. Think about how much of your day is spent in your inbox or

    • Vendor Signatures Needed for Purchase Orders

      Hello everyone, We have a unique requirement that necessitates that Vendors & Suppliers formally acknowledge our Purchase Orders upon receipt. I was hoping that there would be an option to do so in Zoho Books, but that does not appear to be the case.

    • Is there an API to "File a Ticket" in Desk

      Hi, Is there an API to "File a Ticket" in Desk to zoho projects?

    • Store "Sign in with Google/Microsoft/GitHub etc." details

      Quite often now, users are using a sign-in provider like Google or Microsoft to sign into various apps and services. It would be great if Vault could remember which providers you use for each website and sign you in with that provider instead of a username

    • Critical Issue: Tickets Opened for Zoho Support via the Zoho Help Portal Were Not Processed

      Hi everyone, We want to bring to your attention a serious issue we’ve experienced with the Zoho support Help Portal. For more than a week, tickets submitted directly via the Help Portal were not being handled at all. At the same time no alert was posted

    • Tip of the Week #72– Assign thread ownership to avoid confusion.

      When teams handle a large volume of emails, managing threads becomes important to stay organized. Without a clear system, duplicate replies, missed follow-ups, or confusion over responsibilities can happen. Thread assignment solves this by designating

    • Unarchive tickets

      How can I manually unarchive tickets?

    • Optimize your Knowledge Base for enhanced accessibility by adding alt tags for images

      Let's learn why alt tags are crucial for your articles. You can add alternative tags (alt tags) and alternative text (alt text) to the images you share on your community forums or when embedding them in articles. Alt tags refer to the HTML attribute,

    • FSM trying again

      have not linked FSM yet to the rest of out Zoho suit. It certainly looks like the apointment and service part is more manageable for our staff. The question is that our engineers multi task examples 1. deliver products to customers not fitted 2. Service

    • Feature Request: Conditional Field Mandatoriness Based on Display Status

      Hello Zoho Creator Team, I would like to suggest an enhancement to improve the flexibility of form validations. Currently, when we need a field to be mandatory only if it's displayed on the form, the only option is to: Set the field as not mandatory in

    • Data Migration Strategies for Moving to a Cloud Solution

      Hi everyone, I’ve been working on moving some of our critical systems, including CRM and project data, to a Zoho cloud solution, and one of the biggest challenges I’ve encountered is data migration. Transferring large volumes of data while keeping it

    • Commerce Order as Invoice instead of Sales Order?

      I need a purchase made on my Commerce Site to result in an Invoice for services instead of a Sales Order that will be pushed to Books. My customers don't pay until I after I add some details to their transaction. Can I change the settings to make this

    • How to set different item selling prices for Zoho Commerce and Zoho Books

      Item selling prices for Zoho Commerce and Zoho Books are in sync. If we update the Item selling price in Books, the same will happen in commerce and vice versa. I need a separate commerce selling price for online users and a separate books selling price

    • Time Entry Notifications

      Hi All - I have support staff who place notes of their work in the time entry section of Zoho Desk. Is there a specific workflow or setting I need to enable to have the ticket holder updated via email when an entry is saved?

    • How to report 'Response violation' OR 'Resolution violation'

      Hi, I want to report on SLA Violation Type. I grouped my tickets on this column. It seems I only get 'Response and Resolution Violation' or 'Not Violated'. The former seems to be given to a ticket if only the Response Time was violated. I would expect

    • [Webinar] Automate sales and presales workflows with Writer

      Sales involves sharing a wide range of documents with customers across the presales, sales, and post-sales stages: NDAs, quotes, invoices, sales orders, and delivery paperwork. Generating and managing these documents manually slows down the overall sales

    • Power of Automation :: Quick way to associate your Projects with Zoho CRM

      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 complex tasks and

    • Date triggering Workflow rule

      I have a function triggered by a workflow rule. The function takes a date and creates a task for that date and fills in a field with the name of the day for that date. It also updates the status field of the record. The workflow rule is set to run whenever

    • Restricting contact creation

      Hi all! I am looking to use Zoho Desk in a part of the business that takes end user enquiries. These are generally single interactions, and not linked to an account name. As Desk is Account centric, has anyone designed a way to manage these incoming emails

    • Import Holiday Calendars

      HI Zoho Is there anyway of importing an online calendar like https://www.calendarlabs.com into the business hours calendars, to speed up setup of holiday calendars. Also could we also request a feature where you can specify a Holiday as hours, i.e it could be that the company is on a 1/2 day due to a holiday or when it is Eid in the UAE and they are only allowed to work restricted hours so we need the calendar to be flexible to allow for this. Regards Jamie

    • Filtering Tickets based on Email headers

      We're starting to get a lot more junk coming into our Zoho Desk, which is then triggering unnecessary email alerts to agents. Once thing we could do to cut this junk in half, is to filter tickets based on email headers. Any email containing the `List-Unsubscribe`

    • Error 550 5.4.1

      I’ve tried sending an email to someone but keep receiving this back. Any help would be greatly appreciated 

    • Billing Management: #2 Fair way of Billing- Prorated Billing

      Hello, From speaking about the traditional ways of billing in the previous post, we are moving into the deep sea of billing. We are now in a zone to break out the most complex yet, I would call it the fairest way of billing, the Prorated Billing. Prorated

    • Has Anyone successfully integrated Zoho and Sage Intact?

      Hey all, We’re evaluating Zoho One + Sage Intacct and I’m trying to connect with anyone who has actually implemented the two together.Specifically, I’d love to know: -- Which functions you kept in Zoho vs. Intacct (e.g., Product Catalog, AR/AP, invoicing,

    • How can I filter a field integration?

      Hi,  I have a field integration from CRM "Products" in a form, and I have three product Categories in CRM. I only need to see Products of a category. Thanks for you answers.

    • Adding image in HTML report page

      Hi, I want to know two things: 1. Can anyone advise how to add an image in HTML report. The tagged used is <img> but what path do I mention for the image to be added in the HTML report. 2. Also, I want to know if I am creating an application for the market

    • How to change view of HTML report based on device but always print in A4

      Hello everyone, I am aware that HTML report view can be configured to adjust according to the screen size like Laptop, Tablet and mobile using media queries. But my concern is no matter on which device the reports is opened when printed should always

    • Age Calculation

      I've attempted to calculate the age of someone based on their birthday input by using the formula field. It works but I don't want all those decimals on there. I then tried to use "set variable" after birthday input but I get a field type mismatch, long vs. floating. Any ideas would be wonderful.

    • Search on Custom Field

      We're working on an integration with the Zoho FSM API and are trying to retrieve companies based on a custom field we added to the Companies module. However, we can't find a way to filter or query records using custom fields through the API. We have a

    • Sendmail function / custom action?

      I've setup a function hoping to email various business departments the details of a record once all work in that record is complete so gone about setting up a custom action in such way that each record line on the report has a button to click. Question is how do I actually include data from that record in the email that is sent when the button is clicked? I had thought that since this were being sent per record the email would include the data which had been entered

    • Next Page