Build data protection into your support

Build data protection into your support

At Zoho, privacy is our principle. Every Zoho product is built with privacy as the foundation and the finishing touch, guiding every decision we make. Security, privacy, and compliance are woven into the software development lifecycle, starting from how we write our code, test, deliver, and maintain the features.
On this Data Protection Day, we want to share how Zoho Desk practices these principles every day.
  

Privacy standards during free trials

When you sign up for a Zoho Desk free trial, your data is handled in compliance with global privacy regulations. Privacy-by-design ensures that data collection, storage, and processing comply with data regulation from the very beginning.

Consent, transparency, and respect  

How does it feel when a support agent suddenly asks to “take control of your screen”?  
Zoho Desk avoids discomfort by ensuring explicit customer consent before any remote session or debugging activity begins. Customers are informed about how their data is analyzed and used, and support teams access only what is necessary to resolve the issue.

Not everyone needs to see everything   

As an admin, imagine sharing a ticket with an agent, only to realize later that it contained a customer’s card number or personal ID. Zoho Desk helps prevent such moments by allowing organizations to mask personally identifiable information (PII) such as credit card numbers, phone numbers, emails, and identity details. Sensitive fields are encrypted and visibility is restricted based on roles. This ensures that even while support is fast, privacy is never compromised.

Place data in the right hands  

Not every agent needs access to every detail. With role-based permissions in Zoho Desk, organizations can control who sees what across layouts, fields, and modules. Support agents see only what is relevant to their role, while administrators retain broader visibility.
Give everyone the right key, instead of handing out a master key.

Secure communication across every channel  

Whether customers reach out via email or chat, all communication in Zoho Desk is encrypted. Emails are protected by configuring DKIM and SPF, so that every conversation remains secure within Zoho’s ecosystem. So even when customers share sensitive details, their data stays exactly where it belongs: secure and protected.

Safe file attachments  

We have all hesitated before opening an attachment that the email sites as “suspicious.” Zoho Desk reduces that risk by restricting file types that can be attached to tickets and emails. This prevents harmful files from entering the system while keeping customer data safe during document sharing.

Clear audit trails  

Privacy is not just about prevention; it is also about accountability. Zoho Desk audit logs track who accessed or modified data and when actions occurred. This transparency helps organizations investigate issues, meet compliance needs, and maintain trust.

Privacy-driven support

Our support teams comply with GDPR, ISO, and other regional regulations and industry standards. We stay updated on evolving policies, and always seek consent before accessing customer data. We believe in open communication even during an outage or accidents.

The right to be forgotten   

Zoho follows strict data retention policies. During imports, exports, or migration from one data center (DC) or service to another, customer data is retained only for defined periods of two to four weeks and deleted securely within a planned timeframe. Customer data is never stored for prolonged time frames on support systems, ensuring end-to-end data encryption.
Learn more about Zoho's commitment to GDPR compliance.

Privacy tips for Zoho Desk users  

  1. Enable data masking for sensitive fields.
  2. Configure role-based permissions.
  3. Review audit logs regularly.
  4. Use secure communication channels.
  5. These small steps make a big difference in protecting customer trust while delivering efficient support.

Zoho Desk, the privacy-driven support  

Privacy should not slow down support, and support can never compromise privacy. Zoho Desk brings together powerful customer service capabilities with security and privacy controls. You get transparency without complexity, compliance without confusion, and trust without trade-offs.
On this Data Protection Day and beyond, choose Zoho Desk to serve your customers with confidence, responsibility, and respect for their data.
Choose Zoho Desk. Deliver support that your customers trust. 

    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

                                                            • Register for Zoho Desk Beta Community

                                                              With the start of the year, we have decided to take a small step in making the life of our customers a little easier. We now have easy access to all our upcoming features and a faster way to request for beta access. We open betas for some of our features
                                                            • Share your Zoho Desk story with us!

                                                              Tell us how you use Zoho Desk for your business and inspire others with your story. Be it a simple workflow rule that helps you navigate complex processes or a macro that saves your team a lot of time; share it here and help the community learn and grow with shared knowledge. 
                                                            • Tip #1: Learn to pick the right channels

                                                              Mail, live chat, telephony, social media, web forms—there are so many support channels out there. Trying to pick the right channels to offer your customers can get pretty confusing. Emails are most useful when the customer wants to put things on record. However, escalated or complicated issues should not be resolved over email because it's slow and impersonal.  When you need immediate responses, live chat is more suitable. It's also quick and convenient, so it's the go-to channel for small issues. 
                                                            • Welcome to Zoho Desk Community - Say hello here!

                                                              Hello everyone! Though we have been here for a while, it’s time to formally establish the Zoho Desk Community; we’re really happy to have you all here! This can be the place where you take a moment to introduce yourself to the rest of the community. We’d love to hear all about you, what you do, what company or industry you work for, how you use Zoho Desk and anything else that you will like to share! Here’s a little about me. I am Chinmayee. I have been associated with Zoho since 2014. I joined here
                                                            • Webinar 1: Blueprint for Customer Service

                                                              With the launch of a host of new features in Zoho Desk, we thought it’ll be great to have a few webinars to help our customers make the most of them. We’re starting off with our most talked about feature, Blueprint in Zoho Desk. You can register for the Blueprint webinar here: The webinar will be delivered by our in-house product experts. This is a good opportunity to ask questions to our experts and understand how Blueprint can help you automate your service processes. We look forward to seeing


                                                            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

                                                                                                              • Contact's title in "Contact Role Mapping"

                                                                                                                When I'm creating a deal, I'd like to see the contacts title in the listing. Right now, I only see this: How can I get the contact's title in there?
                                                                                                              • Zoho CRM - Client Portal - Hide Notes Related List

                                                                                                                Hi Community, I'm building a customer portal and I can't find a way to hide the notes related list. I don't want the client to see the notes I have about them. Is there a way to do this as it is no bin/trash icon when I hover over.
                                                                                                              • "Pivot Table" Conditional Formatting

                                                                                                                Team, I there a way to use conditional formatting a "Pivot Table"  report? Thanks, Arron Blue Pumpkin Hosting | Solutions Made Simple
                                                                                                              • How many clients can be added to Zoho Practice?

                                                                                                                How many clients can be added to Zoho Practice without having their zoho app?
                                                                                                              • Stage History

                                                                                                                when viewing a ticket , and you look at stage history tab (kanban view) and look at the stage duration column in days, it shows the current stage of the ticket as " current stage ". Should it not rather show the amount of days it has been in that current
                                                                                                              • Automating Ticket Responses Using Zoho Desk's AI Features

                                                                                                                We’re looking to set up an automation within Zoho Desk that can analyze incoming emails or tickets and automatically respond with relevant knowledge base articles based on the content of the request. Could you please guide us on how to configure this
                                                                                                              • Service locations are tied to contacts?

                                                                                                                Trying the system out. And what I discovered is that it seems that the whole logic of the app is, I'd say, backwards. There is a Customer - a company. The company has contact persons and service locations can be associated with different contact persons.
                                                                                                              • Enhancements to Zoho Map integration tasks

                                                                                                                Hello everyone, We're excited to announce enhancements to the Zoho Map integration tasks in Deluge, which will boost its performance. This post will walk you through the upcoming changes, explain why we're making them, and detail the steps you need to
                                                                                                              • Bug in Total Hour Calculation in Regularization for past dates

                                                                                                                There is a bug in Zoho People Regularization For example today is the date is 10 if I choose a previous Date like 9 and add the Check in and Check out time The total hours aren't calculated properly, in the example the check in time is 10:40 AM check
                                                                                                              • Narrative 12: Sandbox - Testing without the risk

                                                                                                                Behind the scenes of a successful ticketing system: BTS Series Narrative 12: Sandbox - Testing without the risk What is a sandbox environment? A sandbox environment is a virtual playground that allows you to test freely and experiment with various elements
                                                                                                              • Announcing new features in Trident for Mac (1.27.0)

                                                                                                                Hello everyone! Trident for macOS (v1.27.0) is here with new features and enhancements to improve scheduling and managing your calendar events. Let's take a quick look at them. Stay aligned across time zones. Both the scheduled and original time zones
                                                                                                              • Slow uploads of large files

                                                                                                                I'm wanting to use Workdrive for transferring large images and video (we're talking things from 100MB-5GB). I'm running solo on a 500MBit/sec fiber connection. I'm getting upload speeds to Workdrive of no more than about 1-3Mbytes/sec when going through
                                                                                                              • Migrate Your Notes from OneNote to Zoho Notebook Today

                                                                                                                Greetings Notebook Users, We’re excited to introduce a powerful new feature that lets you migrate your notes from Microsoft OneNote to Zoho Notebook—making your transition faster and more seamless than ever. ✨ What’s New One-click migration: Easily import
                                                                                                              • need to upload from airtable to google drive

                                                                                                                I have a zapier zap that automates between airtable and google drive. When a customer uploads a new file into airtable via a client portal interface, zapier uploads that file into a folder linked to that customer's project record. I need to replicate
                                                                                                              • Can't delete functions that are associated with deleted workflow rules

                                                                                                                We have a handful of functions that were once associated with a workflow rule, but the rule has been deleted. The function still thinks it is associated so I can't assign it to a new rule. It is starting to get really messy because we have a list of functions
                                                                                                              • Default Sorting on Related Lists

                                                                                                                Is it possible to set the default sorting options on the related lists. For example on the Contact Details view I have related lists for activities, emails, products cases, notes etc... currently: Activities 'created date' newest first Emails - 'created
                                                                                                              • Credit Management: #1 Credit You Owe vs Credits Owed to the Business

                                                                                                                Think about the last time you ordered food online. You might have paid in advance through your card, but you received a $20 refund because your order got delayed or cancelled. In most apps, refunds don't go into the bank account directly; instead, they're
                                                                                                              • Tip #46- Turn Every Session into an Insight with Zoho Assist survey report- 'Insider Insights'

                                                                                                                Delivering exceptional remote support isn’t just about resolving issues, it’s about understanding how both customers and technicians experience each session. That’s where Survey Report in Zoho Assist come in. You can configure and customize survey questions
                                                                                                              • CRM/Bookings integration edits Contact names

                                                                                                                Hi there, I've installed the extension that connects Zoho CRM and Zoho Bookings. When we get a new appointment from Bookings from an existing Contact, that Contact's record shows this: First Name was updated from asd to blank value Last Name was updated
                                                                                                              • Domain Change

                                                                                                                “Please update my Email-in domain from @biginmail.biginmail.in to @biginmail.zoho.com. Messages to the .in domain are bouncing.”
                                                                                                              • Webhooks Limit Exceeded

                                                                                                                Today, I received an error message saying, 'Total number of Webhook call exceeded', but when I look at Manage > Billing, it doesn't look like any of my invokeURL calls are being logged. Following the advice from this thread: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/webhooks-daily-limits-in-zoho-creator
                                                                                                              • Auto select option in CRM after Zoho Form merge

                                                                                                                Hi, I have a dropdown field in Zoho CRM that is filled with a Zoho Form. The data is filled but not automatically shown. After selecting the right value in the dropdown the information a second field is shown. So the question is; how can I make the dropdown
                                                                                                              • Bring your CRM data straight into your presentations in Zoho Show

                                                                                                                Let's say you are working on a presentation about your team's sales pipeline for an upcoming strategy meeting. All the information you need about clients and leads is in Zoho CRM, but you end up copying details from the CRM into your slides, adjusting
                                                                                                              • Zoho People 2.0 Help Manual

                                                                                                                Hello All, Zoho People Help Documentation is now available at this link. Please go through and get in touch with us at support@zohopeople.com in case of any questions. Regards, Hemalatha Chandrasekaran | Zoho People
                                                                                                              • Introducing New APIs in Zoho Contracts

                                                                                                                We are excited to announce the release of new APIs in Zoho Contracts to help you automate and manage every stage of your contract lifecycle more efficiently. Here’s a quick overview of what’s new: 1. Complete Contract Draft You can use this API to complete
                                                                                                              • Vimeo

                                                                                                                For me Vimeo is the most important video social channel for media and filmmakers. Would others agree and like it added to Zoho Social.
                                                                                                              • Delete a department or category

                                                                                                                How do I delete a Department? Also, how do I delete a Category? This is pretty basic stuff here and it's impossible to find.
                                                                                                              • Organization Emails in Email History

                                                                                                                How can I make received Org Emails to show up here?
                                                                                                              • How to setup pricing in Zoho

                                                                                                                Hi everyone, I am relatively new here and have just moved from my old inventory system to the Zoho one. I am trying to get my head around how it all works. I am mostly setup connected to a shopify store, but I do manual sales also For manual invoicing,
                                                                                                              • Prefilled Date fields auto-changed and then locked when using “Edit as new”

                                                                                                                If a document out for signature has date fields (not SignedDate fields) that were pre-filled before sending, and then you use “Edit as new” to create a new version of the same document, the value of those date fields gets automatically changed to today
                                                                                                              • Access Phone Field Components (Country Code) Directly

                                                                                                                Hello everyone, I'd like to propose an enhancement for the Phone field in Zoho Creator. The Problem: The Phone field captures the country code and local number separately, but stores them as a single string (e.g., +1234567890). To get the country code,
                                                                                                              • Send mass messages through WhatsApp from the Tickets module

                                                                                                                Hi Everyone! Effective communication is key to delivering prompt and reliable customer support. Because WhatsApp is one of the most widely used and familiar messaging platforms, it's an effective channel for agents to reach customers who have submitted
                                                                                                              • Lead Owner Signature Merge Field

                                                                                                                I want to automatically insert a signature (i.e. contact info usually found at the bottom of an email) into an email template, depending on who the lead owner is. What is the merge code for the Signature from a Users profile? CRM > Settings > Customization > Templates There is a popup near the bottom of the edit screen which says: "You can insert a Signature, which is available as a merge field in the users section." It is also referenced on this page: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/crm/customize-crm-account/customizing-templates/articles/template-builder#Merge_Fields
                                                                                                              • How do I create a time field?

                                                                                                                I want a field that only records time. I can only see how to create a date-time field. If I do that and enter a time, without a date, nothing is recorded. If I create a number or decimal field, I cannot use it in time calculations. All I want is a field
                                                                                                              • Alternating columns - How to reverse order on mobile - Responsive template

                                                                                                                Can the order of alternating columns be reversed on mobile so that image comes before the text? Example: Desktop Row 1 column Left (image) , column right (text) Row 2 column Left (text) , column right (image) Mobile Currently Row 1 Image over text Row
                                                                                                              • InvokeURL butchering JSON for OpenAI API calls

                                                                                                                My organization works with mostly educational institutions. We have a custom module called "Schools", which is the user-entered school name they put when using our service (which they enter along with their state and zip code). We want to map this to
                                                                                                              • Custom order for Current Stage (Blueprint field)

                                                                                                                Hi! I suggest adding the option to set a custom order in reports for the Blueprint field ‘Current Stage’. Currently, these fields can only be sorted in ascending or descending order. Thanks!
                                                                                                              • CRM E-mail Sync from Outlook

                                                                                                                We are exploring Zoho as a possible new solution for our company. We are trying to understand further on how e-mail sync works. We use outlook. Our current CRM logs anytime we e-mail a customer so we can see in the CRM the message sent to the customer.
                                                                                                              • Run your help desk on your schedule

                                                                                                                In business, time is of the essence. This is especially true in a function like customer service, where KPIs such as response time and agent availability are the measures of success. Perhaps the most crucial consideration one needs to make about time is your hours of operation. These set expectations for your customer and for employees. To make communicating this information easier, we've revamped the way business hours and holiday lists work in Zoho Desk.   In order to accommodate teams that work
                                                                                                              • The Customer Happiness REST API is broken

                                                                                                                1. We are unable to extract the customerHappiness ( https://desk.zoho.com/DeskAPIDocument#CustomerHappiness#CustomerHappiness_ListallcustomerHappiness) object using the ticketNumber criteria. We keep getting HTTP 429 even when we limit to 60 calls per
                                                                                                              • Next Page