Tip #7 : Integrating online forms with Zoho Subscriptions

Tip #7 : Integrating online forms with Zoho Subscriptions

Hello everyone,

We have been sharing a tip every week to address specific business scenarios which can be implemented for your subscription business. Last week, we shared a tip about accessing external URLs from Zoho Subscriptions. This week, we will be looking at how you can integrate online forms with Zoho Subscriptions.

Business Scenario:

In many subscription box businesses, their primary need is to personalize the subscription box according to their customer's preferences. In such cases, businesses will collect their customers' preferences before they check out.

Usually, businesses use online form building applications to collect customers' preferences. These applications offer customization options which helps businesses to design the form so that it's easier for customers to select their preferences. The forms usually contain a series of questions with multiple choices.

Typically, when customers want to subscribe to a box, they select the box, choose their preferences and the business will redirect them to the payment page. Here, they pay and a subscription will be initiated for them.

In Zoho Subscriptions, we provide the Hosted Payment Page to collect the customer's payment information securely which can be used as the checkout page. However, in this scenario we're looking at today, the business would ideally want to integrate the form building application with Zoho Subscriptions to save customers' preferences along with the subscription details.

Let's consider the following scenario to understand this better. Zylker Beauty runs a subscription box business that ships personalized makeup and beauty products every month. They use a third-party online form builder to collect the customers' preferences like the color of their eyes, hair etc. This helps the business to find the right products for their customers.

After the customers select their preferences, Zylker Beauty uses Zoho Subscriptions' Hosted Page to check them out and start their subscription. However, they need their customers' preferences to be saved along with the corresponding subscription details in Zoho Subscriptions.

To implement this process, we use the API Hosted Page which saves customers' preferences and generates a customized payment URL. The customized payment URL will reflect the customer's preferences. This way, the business can use the form builder application to customize the form and integrate it with Zoho Subscriptions at the same time.

How can you do it?

 For our explanation today, we will be using JotForm as the form builder. You can view the form that we've built to address the above scenario. JotForm lets you send the submitted date (customer's preferences) via a HTTP POST method. All you have to do is:
  1. process the submitted data;
  2. send it to Zoho Subscriptions server; and
  3. redirect the customer to the customized Hosted Payment Page.
In Zoho Subscriptions, we will create Custom Fields for the Subscriptions module to save the customer's preferences and map those preferences to the custom fields. You have to write a script to send an API call to Zoho Subscriptions server with all the data obtained from the form and retrieve the customized hosted payment page URL. Later, you can load this URL for your customers to check out.

There are two ways in which you can do this;

1. Create a custom PHP page:

You can create  your PHP script and deploy it in your server to process the submitted date. Access the code in GitHub.
  • Create a PHP web page using your text editor.
  • For the above example, you can copy-paste the code available in GitHub.
  • Modify the code based on your requirement.
  • Save the file with extension .php.
  • Deploy it in your website and configure the correct URL in the JotForm's Thank You page.
2. Use Google Cloud Function:

If you cannot host a PHP script in your website, don't worry. Google Cloud Functions can act as your script that processes the submitted data.

You can invoke the cloud functions with HTTP requests and configure them to meet our need. Learn more about cloud functions and get started. Once you complete the initial setup and enable the Cloud Functions API, follow the steps below:

  • Visit Google Cloud Functions and click the Create Function button at the top.
  • Provide a suitable name for the function and select the Trigger as HTTP.
  • The source code would be written in the Inline Editor with Node.js 6 runtime environment. So, configure them accordingly.
  • Next, copy the code from GitHub and modify it to suit your needs.
  • Create the function and configure the HTTP trigger URL in the JotForm's Thank You page.
Once the Thank You page of JotForm is successfully configured to redirect to one of the above URLs, the script will be executed successfully and your customers will be redirected to the hosted payment page to check out.

For further clarification, you can checkout this  video to understand this integration. 

Found this useful? Try it our for your subscriptions business and let us know. If you have any queries, feel free to comment below. We are here to answer them.

Cheers,
Sasidaran K,
Zoho Subscriptions.

    • 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

    • Recent Topics

    • Why wont Zoho Support Grammarly!! --- PLEASE VOTE FOR THIS to show Zoho we need this

      The spell check and grammar in ZOHO are so buggy and a waste of time. Please support Grammarly! I'm sure I'm not the only one — there are other CRMs that support this. If you're not planning to add this feature, Please let others know before accepting

    • Is it possible to hide Developer Space for all user in Zoho Projects

      Hello! I am Zoho admin in a company and we want to use Zoho Project to manage projects, but after a few days of testing we are not able to "hide" the Developer Space from all kind of users except the admin. To sum up, I want to hide this for all users.

    • API (v2) Search Criteria using CONCAT

      With API I can search for a contact using First_Name and Last_Name. However, when I need to search the Contact Module using a full name — and because CRM does not provide an API for full name — I am not finding a way to do this in the traditional way

    • Weekly Tips: Stay Focused with Email Snooze!

      New Year, New Resolutions Being back at work also means being back to the constant barrage of messages from work and clients. The constant flood of incoming emails can lead to the missing of important messages, especially when you can't respond right

    • Schedule Zoho CRM reports only on Business Days

      Hello, Is it possible to schedule reports only on business days ? We currently get daily sales reports on weekend which has no value since the sales team doesn't work on weekends. Thanks

    • Zoho Payroll's Year in Review 2024

      As we roll into 2025, we'd like to pay tribute to all the milestones we hit in 2024! From releasing out new features that streamlined your workflows to updates that made payroll management smoother, we’ve had a prolific year—all while keeping you, our

    • Recurring Events Not Appearing in "My Events" and therefore not syncing with Google Apps

      We use the Google Sync functionality for our events, and it appears to have been working fine except: I've created a set of recurring events that I noticed were missing from my Google Apps calendar. Upon further research, it appears this is occurring

    • Multiplying Weight of product by Quantity

      I am facing an issue with creating a report that consolidates the total sales volume in kilograms. I have already specified the weight for each product. I have also aggregated the total sales quantity. The key question is: how can I create a report that

    • Confirmation prompt before a custom button action is triggered

      Have you ever created a custom button and just hoped that you/your users are prompted first to confirm the action? Well, Zoho knows this concept. For example, in blueprint, whenever we want to advance to the next state by clicking the transition, it is

    • Frontal interview scheduling - room availability in office using Google Workspace?

      Hi, We're using Zoho Recruit as our ATS and Google Workspace as our email, calendar and resources management. We want to use the interview feature to schedule an in-person (frontal) interview with the applicants. How can we sync the room resources availability

    • Add and Remove Agents from Departments and Groups in Zoho One

      Hi Zoho Flow Team, We hope you're doing well. Currently, Zoho Flow provides an action to add an agent to a group in zoho one, but there is no action to remove an agent from a group or a department. Another action that we find missing is the option to

    • Introducing Hiring Pipeline for Vendor Portal

      Keeping vendors informed about candidate progress is often challenging, leading to communication gaps and repeated follow-ups. To address this issue, we've released an update to the Vendor Portal feature that lets you choose to display candidates' hiring

    • Address Grabber function for Zoho

      I converted from ACT to Zoho. With ACT, I used an add-on called AddressGrabber to scrape the contact information from leads that I buy and contact information contained on emails and websites and directly add it as a new lead or contact. Does anyone know

    • Integrate zoom with zoho bookings please; or add optional times in zoho meetings

      Just like events - these online meetings like zoom need to be integrated with zoho bookings, and there needs to be option for customer to book a time slot. It should not be dictated by CRM user.

    • Add Owner to deluge-created module record note

      Is it possible to include the "owner" aka "creator", of a Note when creating it via delulge? This sets "superadmin" as the Note creator. I need to override it. notemap = Map(); notemap.put("Parent_Id",program_contact_id); notemap.put("Note_Content",program_contact_data.get('Note'));

    • Unique and Random IDs in Zoho Forms: Organize and Secure Your Data Efficiently

      When it comes to form submissions, organizing and identifying entries effectively is crucial. Zoho Forms offers two versatile ID generation options for submissions: Unique ID and Random ID. Each serves distinct purposes, providing flexibility to meet

    • Sort By Date - Deluge

      I have the following code, which normally works to sort calls by created time. Every once in a while, it doesn't work and something sneaks through in the wrong order and I can't figure out why. calls = zoho.crm.searchRecords("Calls","(Owner:equals:" +

    • Iteration through a list - Coming up against a "Failure to update function" error

      Hi there! I've been attempting to get a deluge script working and am running into an error that I have been unable to resolve. The error I am getting is Failed to update function Error at line :18. Improper Statement. Error might be due to missing ';'

    • Can you modify "Last Activity Time" in deluge? If so what's the field name?

      I need to perform some bulk modifications on records in the Leads module, but I need to avoid changing the "last activity time" or "date modified" because I am using those fields to filter and sort leads for follow-up action. I cannot find an answer anywhere

    • How do I define a weekend

      I noticed the default for weekends does not seem to include Saturdays. How can i define weekends to include both Saturdays and Sundays? Thank you.

    • 【Zoho CRM】ポータル機能のアップデート

      ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。コミュニティチームの藤澤です。 今回は「Zoho CRM アップデート情報」の中からポータル機能のアップデートをご紹介します。 今回の機能アップデートにより、CRMのポータルへのログインがより簡単にできるようになりました。 【目次】 SAMLベースのシングルサインオンについて ポータルへのアクセスリンク送付について 今回のアップデートにより、アイデンティティプロバイダー（IdP）を利用している組織において、SAMLベースのSSO（シングルサインオン）を有効化できるようになりました！

    • Getting error during inserting a record in form of zoho people using zoho api

      import requests import json # Set your access token and Zoho People API base URL access_token = '1000.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX' api_base_url = 'https://people.zoho.in/people/api/' # Set the form name and data to be inserted form_link_name

    • UI Arabic

      can i change the member portal UI to arabic in zoho community?

    • Resume template to include profile photo

      Hi, We would love the Resume Template to be able to include their profile photo. How can this be done? Miriam

    • Marking a form as 'done'?

      Hi! I've got a form that staff fill in when moving stock from location to location. I see the entries they've sent across and I input them into my stock control system. Is there a way to mark a form as 'done'? So that I know which entries I've input,

    • Zoho CRM - best way to search an account and assign to a deal

      Hi Everyone I am looking for some advice. I want to find the best way to complete the below steps. We have a deal and once it reaches a certain stage we need to allocate a supplier / vendor to this deal along with the salesperson. I want to add (ideally

    • Zoho Rating

      When I close a ticket, the zoho system automatically sends an email to the customer for them to leave a rating. When they leave a rating, the ticket re-opens and I have to close it again. When I close it again, the zoho system sends the customer an email

    • Zoho GC Flow is not showing in IM Channels

      I have added my social IM channels in zoho desk. Created a GC Flow to automate conversations. But Guided conversations are not showing in any platforms I have chosen; WhatsApp Instagram Messenger Web (Business Messaging) In the flow I mentioned these

    • Sharing Knowledge Base articles across multiple departments

      It would be useful to share some Knowledge Base articles across multiple departments where they are applicable, rather than having to go into other departments to find the article you're looking for. For example. Our reception uses the 'Admin' desk whereas our IT guys use the 'Support' desk, however both divisions would find KB articles about our company intranet useful. Reception does not have access to the support desk, so cannot see articles created in the Support KB. Perhaps you could install

    • Contacts marked as Spam are shown as Contacts in tickets.

      Hi Zoho, If a ticket is marked manually as Spam you get an option to set the contact as Spam as well. It would be great if there was another option to delete this Contact. This would be based on the understanding that it wouldn't be marked automatically

    • Is possible to use ${webhookTrigger.payload.street==null?"No street":${webhookTrigger.payload.street}} for to detect inline a null parameter

      Hi Team I need to know if it's possible to evaluate inline the following parameter, with the objetive to detect a null value ? I would like to use ${webhookTrigger.payload.street==null?"No street":${webhookTrigger.payload.street}} Regards, Pablo

    • Real Estate CRM

      How can I tailor my CRM for real estate? I had seen an image where the CRM included property tabs.

    • Issue with Bulk Edit Triggering Function Multiple Times in Zoho Report

      In our Zoho report, we have observed an issue where executing a function during a bulk edit operation runs the function multiple times—once for each selected report entry. This behavior is causing errors due to overlapping or redundant executions. Our

    • Set recurring tasks in Zoho Support?

      Hello,   We use the task function in Zoho Support to set reminders for "due dates" of important events, such as lease expirations, etc. Is it possible to set some of these as recurring yearly? As of now, we have to reset every task manually after one year. Is there a way to have it reset automatically?   Additionally, is there a way to import a list of tasks and their dates into Zoho Calendar? I have not been able to do it from Zoho Support to Calendar. I tried exporting tasks from Zoho Support,

    • Help - How Can I Enter a Hourly Rate (Global Cost) for our Team for Profitability Reporting?

      Hi everyone, I'm hoping someone can help as I am at a loss and am quite shocked (if true) at the lack of functionality in Zoho Books. We run a company in which we do hourly jobs for clients and we bill based on the hours of work completed. Projects are

    • Schedule a regular backup

      In CRM I have a regular backup setup. I cannot find an option to backup Desk? I would like to take a backup before I test syncing products between CMR and Desk.

    • Limit who can submit a support ticket to your site?

      Does anyone have a use case for needing to limit who can submit tickets via your help portal? Some of our customers want to have end-users view our knowledge base articles and see tickets their IT groups have submitted but they do not want end-users to

    • Allow us to disable the Reopen Ticket button after a ticket is closed

      Disabling the Reopen Ticket will allow us to have more control over the ticket's flow. According to support, this is currently not possible. Please add this to let us, the customers, mold the ticketing system into something that we can use for our business

    • How to Enforce Mandatory Fields (Category/Sub-category) Before Closing a Ticket?

      Hi, I'm currently using Zoho Desk and encountering an issue where agents are able to close tickets without filling out mandatory fields, specifically Category and Sub-category. I’ve already set them both as a mandatory field, but it can still be bypassed

    • Admin Control for Default Email Templates in Zoho Desk

      Hi Zoho Desk Team, We would like to request a feature enhancement related to default email templates. Currently, agents can select and set their own default email templates when replying to tickets. However, we believe this setting should be managed centrally

    • Next Page