What's New - June 2025 | Zoho Backstage

What's New - June 2025 | Zoho Backstage

Plans change. People cancel. Tickets get handed off. It happens, and we understand. As an organizer, you need tools that offer flexibility for attendees while protecting your event’s integrity. That’s why we’ve built features to help you manage these situations with clarity and control.

This month’s updates may not be the flashiest, but they have a clear purpose. They are designed to give you quiet confidence, helping you say "yes" when it matters and "not this time" when it doesn’t. With that balance, your events become more than just efficient. They become intentional and genuinely human.

Let's take a look at what's new and enhanced. 

Cancellation Approval 

Make cancellations work for you and your attendees.

Managing cancellations is now more flexible and organizer-friendly with the new cancellation approval workflow in Zoho Backstage. Instead of canceling tickets immediately, organizers can now receive formal requests from ticket holders, review them, and choose to approve or deny them. This extra layer of control helps you stick to your event policies, handle refunds more accurately, and keep communication clear, especially for complex or high-value requests.

To turn this on: 


  • Navigate to Registrations > Registration Settings from the Dock, and switch on the Cancellation Approval toggle. 
  • Once active, any attempt by an attendee to cancel a main ticket, companion ticket, or session will create a request instead of an instant cancellation. The request will show up as Pending in the attendee’s event portal, so they can see what’s happening at any time.
On your side, these requests appear under a new Cancellation Approval tab in the Registrations module. You can check each request in detail. If it includes multiple items, such as a ticket and sessions, you can approve or deny each item separately. For example, you might approve a ticket cancellation but keep the session registrations active.



When you approve a request:
  • You’ll see the attendee’s reason, the items involved, the cancellation fee (which you can still edit), the refund amount, and an optional comment box. 
  • Once you confirm, the request status changes to Approved on the attendee’s side.
When you deny a request:
  • You’ll see the same details and can add a reason for the denial. 
  • The status will then update to Denied for the attendee. 
  • If only some items are approved, the status will show Partially Approved, and any denied items will be removed from further processing.
To help you stay on top of things, the Cancellation Approval tab has filters to see all requests or only those that are pending, approved, denied, or partially approved. This makes sorting and managing large volumes of requests easy.
Notes
  • If the primary ticket is selected for cancellation, any linked sessions or companion tickets will be automatically included. 
  • Also, once a request has been denied, it can't be submitted again.
Plan availability: Included in the Free, Essentials, Premium, and Ultimate plans

Restriction of ticket transfers

Stronger control over how tickets change hands.

A new enhancement has been introduced to give event organizers greater control over how ticket transfers are handled. You can now decide whether to allow or restrict transfers, depending on your event’s needs. This helps prevent unauthorized resale, reduce misuse, and maintain operational clarity, which is especially important for tightly managed or high-value events.

In the past, many organizers offered attendees the flexibility to transfer tickets to others after registration, which worked well for most events. However, as some events grew more complex, organizers began to see new challenges where tighter control became necessary. For example, some reported cases where tickets purchased at the standard price were resold at higher rates, creating potential policy conflicts. In other cases, especially when attendee badges are preprinted, last-minute transfers can lead to mismatches and confusion at the venue.

To address these concerns, organizers can now enable or disable ticket transfers at any point, based on their event’s operational requirements. 



To turn off ticket transfers: 
  • Navigate to Registrations > Registration Settings from the Dock, and switch of the Allow Ticket Transfers toggle. 
  • Here, the ticket transfer policy can be defined for all ticket classes or tailored to specific ticket classes. This ensures that organizers can enforce different transfer rules for different tiers or categories of tickets.
By default, when the Allow Ticket Transfers option is enabled, transfers are permitted. However, organizers also have the option to define a time window during which transfers are allowed. They can choose to allow transfers until the event start date, the event end date, or set a custom date and time. Once this defined period has passed, ticket transfers will be automatically restricted for attendees.
Notes
While attendees are subject to these restrictions, event organizers themselves will retain the ability to transfer tickets on behalf of attendees at any time, regardless of the transfer settings in place.
This is designed to help organizers prevent unauthorized resale, maintain data consistency, and ensure smooth operations on event day.  

Plan availability: Included in the Free, Essentials, Premium, and Ultimate plans

Simplified refunds with automatic cancellation fee application

Spend less time on fee calculations and more time running your event smoothly.

Managing cancellations is now faster and more consistent with our new automatic cancellation fee application. When you use the Cancel and Refund option, the cancellation fee you defined during ticket setup is automatically applied to the refund amount. This removes the need for manual adjustments and helps you maintain fairness and consistency across all refunds.

Full control when you need it:
  • You still have the flexibility to adjust the cancellation fee percentage before finalizing the refund. This means you can easily handle special cases, such as emergencies or loyal attendees, while protecting your revenue and saving valuable time.
If you issue a refund without canceling the ticket, such as for a goodwill gesture or a partial adjustment, no cancellation fee will be applied. In these cases, the ticket remains valid, and you can manually adjust the refund amount to suit the situation.
Notes
Automatic cancellation fees are only applied if you’ve set a cancellation fee for the ticket class during ticket setup.
This update makes your refund process quicker, clearer, and more reliable, allowing you to focus on delivering great event experiences instead of double-checking fee calculations.

Plan availability: Included in the Essentials, Premium, and Ultimate plans

Alt Text support for all website images

Make your event website more accessible and search-friendly.

Alt Text support has officially arrived in Zoho Backstage, helping you build more inclusive and discoverable event websites. Whether you are aiming for WCAG compliance or looking to improve your site's SEO performance, this feature ensures your visuals are both beautiful and meaningful.

Every time you upload an image in the website builder, you will now see an Alt Text field in the right-side panel. It comes with a default value of “image,” but you can and should replace this with a custom, descriptive phrase that accurately represents the image. This allows screen readers to convey the content to visually impaired users and gives search engines better context to index your site.



For bulk management:
  • Navigate to Settings > Customize Text > Alt Text (available on all paid plans). You’ll see a preview of each image, making it easy to update values at scale. Multilingual sites are fully supported—you can switch languages and refer to the source-language Alt Text while entering translations.
For a spreadsheet-based workflow:
  • The Event Website - Alt Text sheet is now part of the language export file. Update it in bulk and import it back into Backstage to instantly reflect the changes across your website.
Whether you're optimizing for discoverability or inclusivity, this update ensures your event content is both meaningful and compliant.

Plan availability: Included in the Free, Essentials, Prem​ium, and Ultimate plans

Register companion tickets anytime (Early access)

Give attendees more flexibility for their guests.

Attendees can now register companion tickets anytime after they purchase their main ticket, as long as their ticket includes the companion benefit. They simply log in to your event website and add companion tickets from either Your Orders or Your Tickets.

From Your Orders:
  • Navigate to Your Orders > Event Tickets > Register Companions. This takes them to the ticket selection page to complete the registration.
From Your Tickets:
  • Navigate to Your Tickets > Register Companions. This also directs them to select and confirm companion tickets.
Each companion ticket will appear as a separate order on the website, linked to the main ticket ID. On your end, the companion registration is also tracked as its own order, keeping everything clear and organized.

We’re just getting started.

The updates you see today are only part of our bigger vision to make Zoho Backstage more flexible, reliable, and rewarding for every organizer. In the second half of 2025, we’ll roll out more practical enhancements and thoughtful tools to help you handle change smoothly, deliver better experiences, and run every event with more confidence.

Thank you for being with us on this journey. Stay tuned, because there is more to come.

Note: All the features and enhancements mentioned in this article are available across all Zoho Backstage-supported data centers.

If you have any questions or would like to try out our early access features, feel free to contact us at support@zohobackstage.com.

    • Recent Topics

    • No Response from Zoho Support in 8 Days - Typical?

      I have a couple of issues I'm trying to work through. Initially, I was getting support from support@zohofsm.com, but I have not received a response in 8 days (11 on another question). Is this typical? Can I pay for support? For context, I am not spamming

    • Cliq iOS can't see shared screen

      Hello, I had this morning a video call with a colleague. She is using Cliq Desktop MacOS and wanted to share her screen with me. I'm on iPad. I noticed, while she shared her screen, I could only see her video, but not the shared screen... Does Cliq iOS is able to display shared screen, or is it somewhere else to be found ? Regards

    • 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.

    • Access Denied

      I am iOS Developer and updating our clients project and shifted ZohoDeskPortalCore SDKs from cocoapods to SPM and changed few lines of code but now i am get access denied, the help center app is unavailable. please contact administrator.

    • Using Zoho Desk to support ISMS process

      Hi, I am evaluating using Zoho Desk for security incident management. This seems to be aligned with Zoho Desk purpose as its just another type of incident. However in security incident management, ideally I can link incidents (tickets) with a risk from

    • 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`

    • Field Dependency Not Working on Detail Page in Zoho Desk

      Hi Support Team, I’ve created field dependencies between two fields in Zoho Desk, and they are working correctly on the Create and Edit layouts. However, on the Detail page, the fields are not displaying according to the dependencies I’ve set — they appear

    • TaxJar vs Avalara

      Hi, I'm evaluating adoption of a sales-tax service for US based business. Anyone else have experience with TaxJar and Zoho Books? I am a Zoho One subscriber so anticipate needing to use Flow to make this work. It seems like Avalara are simply too expensive

    • How to check Leads with no Task (open activity)

      Hi everyone, I was wondering if there’s a way to view leads that don’t have any tasks assigned or open activities linked to them.

    • What can we do on our end to improve the Answer bot answers?

      Hi, I'm using the Answer bot card in the Codeless bot builder. I've input several questions and their answers in the FAQ section to feed the Answer bot. The text is all in French, as this is the language our customers communicate in. I've tried testing

    • Zoho Books Sandbox environment

      Hello. Is there a free sandbox environment for the developers using Zoho Books API? I am working on the Zoho Books add-on and currently not ready to buy a premium service - maybe later when my add-on will start to bring money. Right now I just need a

    • Taxes for EU B2B Transactions

      Currently, ZC doesn't seem to have a procedure for validating VAT numbers of businesses purchasing in another EU state, and removing local VAT is valid.  This is essential for all inter EU B2B trade.

    • Zoho Down

      I have a drop in my Zoho One services.

    • Customer Parent Account or Sub-Customer Account

      Some of clients as they have 50 to 300 branches, they required separate account statement with outlet name and number; which means we have to open new account for each branch individually. However, the main issue is that, when they make a payment, they

    • Issue with Inline Images in Email Reply via Zoho Desk API

      Hi, I am attempting to send inline images in an email reply using the Zoho Desk API, but the images are not being displayed inline for the recipient. I have followed this documentation: https://desk.zoho.com/DeskAPIDocument#Uploads https://desk.zoho.com/DeskAPIDocument#Threads#Threads_SendEmailReply

    • How to upload file to Connect using API?

      Hi there. I looked at the API documentation and nowhere did it mention how to use the API method to upload a file even though it is mentioned that it is possible to be done so. Please help.

    • Problem for EU users connecting Zoho CRM through Google Ads for Enhanced conversions

      Has anyone else experienced this problem when trying to connect Zoho CRM through Google Ads interface to setup enhanced conversions? Did you guys get it fixed somehow? The Problem: The current Google Ads integration is hardcoded to use Zoho's US authentication

    • How can I setup Zoho MCP with Chat GPT

      I can set up custom connections with Chat GPT but I cat an error when I try to set it up. The error is: "This MCP server can't be used by ChatGPT to search information because it doesn't implement our specification: search action not found" Thoughts?

    • Group Tax in Service Line Items

      Hi FSM Team! I noticed that when you update a tax in the service line item the group tax is not showing up as an option. Let me know what can be done thank you!

    • Zoho Campaigns - Why do contacts have owners?

      When searching for contacts in Zoho Campaigns I am sometimes caught out when I don't select the filter option "Inactive users". So it appears that I have some contacts missing, until I realise that I need to select that option. Campaigns Support have

    • FSM Improvement Idea - Show an Import button when there is no data

      I am setting up FSM for a client and I noticed that there is no option to import data, see screenshot below. Even when you click Create Contact there is only an option to Import from Zoho Invoice. It is only after you add at lease 1 record that the Import

    • Whatsapp Limitation Questions

      Good day, I would like to find out about the functionality or possibility of all the below points within the Zoho/WhatsApp integration. Will WhatsApp buttons ever be possible in the future? Will WhatsApp Re-directs to different users be possible based

    • Zoho FSM API Delete Record

      Hi FSM Team, It would be great if you could delete a record via API. Thank you,

    • Transition from Sole Proprietorship to GmbH (Limited Liability Company) – Best Approach in Zoho Books / Zoho One

      Hello everyone, I am currently operating under a Zoho One plan with a sole proprietorship in Switzerland. As of January 1st, 2026, I will be incorporating a new legal entity – a GmbH (Swiss equivalent of a Limited Liability Company). While the business

    • Insert auto number from main form into subform rows

      Hello. I'm trying to take from my main form "order number" which i have setup as an auto generated number into every line created in my subform. So when a row is created in my subform i want the "order number " from the main form to be inserted automatically.

    • Adding a developer for editing the client application with a single user license

      Hi, I want to know that I as a developer I developed one application and handed over to the customer who is using the application on a single user license. Now after6 months customer came back to me and needs some changes in the application. Can a customer

    • Function #4: Schedule Customer Statements

      Regularly sending statements to customers is an imperative part of many business processes as it helps foster strong customer relationships and provides timely guidance on payments. While you can generate the statement of accounts and have it sent over

    • Limiting search or dependencies with an asterisk "*".

      I have a form with several dependency fields with options still developing for each field. Since these options were developing and not yet ready to be a selection in the field, I placed a filter for the dropdown field. In this filter, I selected fields

    • Collaps Notes

      There are times when long/large notes are added to a record i.e. Accounts or Deals etc. Currently, the full note is displayed in the notes related list section. It would be great if by default only 5 to 10 rows of the note are displayed when the note

    • Improved RingCentral Integration

      We’d like to request an enhancement to the current RingCentral integration with Zoho. RingCentral now automatically generates call transcripts and AI-based call summaries (AI Notes) for each call, which are extremely helpful for support and sales teams.

    • How to overcome limitations in meetings

      As a company, one of our deliverables is a meeting between two other companies, where we act as facilitators. So, if we recorded this meeting  in Zoho CRM, it should be connected to 2 accounts, 2 contacts, and 1 campaign (a campaign, in our use, is the

    • Cross Data Center Support for 1:1 Chats with External Users

      Hello Zoho Cliq Team, We hope you're doing well. We appreciate the recent enhancement that enables cross data center collaboration in external channels, which has already improved communication across distributed teams. However, we’ve noticed that this

    • Support Bots and Automations in External Channels

      Hello Zoho Cliq Team, How are you? We actively use Zoho Cliq for collaboration, including with our external developers. For this purpose, external channels are a key tool since they work seamlessly within the same interface as all of our other channels

    • Answer Bot and Personalized Questions

      Hi there, I have the same problem using the SalesIQ Answer Bot and the Zoho Desk Answer Bot (which really need different names, to be honest, in order to avoid confusion...) Customers that visit our website ask questions in the form of "What do you do?"

    • Handling Greetings/Small Talk at the Beginning of a Zobot Conversation

      Hello everyone, I’m currently configuring a **Zobot** in Zoho SalesIQ and everything is working as expected, except for one specific scenario at the very beginning of the conversation. My target audience has the habit of starting with a **greeting or

    • Regex in Zoho Mail custom filters is not supported - but it works!

      I recently asked Zoho for help using regex in Zoho Mail custom filters and was told it was NOT supported. This was surprising (and frustrating) as regex in Zoho Mail certainly works, although it does have some quirks* To encourage others, here are 3 regex

    • Importing a new list into campaigns

      I'm in the middle of switching my email platform to campaigns. I have a list that I want to import, and it overlaps with my existing Zoho CRM list. The fields in my Zoho CTM are more robust. Will this new list that I upload into my campaigns overwrite

    • Client Script Payload Size Bug

      var createParams = { "data": [{ "Name": "PS for PR 4050082000024714556", "Price_Request": { "id": "4050082000024714556" }, "Account": { "id": "4050082000021345001" }, "Deal": { "id": "4050082000023972001" }, "Owner": { "id": "4050082000007223004" }, "Approval_Status":

    • Webform & spam

      Hi, We set up 2 webform on our website, fowarding the content to Zoho CRM. Since it has been opened up, we are getting lot of spam message (for now about 20 a day). To lower the  amount of false new leads we added the captcha field and new enquieries are send to the Approval Leads list. However we still get some spam. Is there any "anti spam" mechanism built in Zoho CRM, or how is the best way to avoid these kind of spam ? Thanks

    • when I email a invoice how can i see it was sent and also were i can go to see all emails sent

      when I email a invoice how can i see it was sent and also were i can go to see all emails sent?

    • Next Page