Extension pointers #15: Create blueprints to carry out business processes smoothly
When the various stages of a business process are well-planned and executed efficiently, the entire process runs smoothly and the overall functionality is efficient.
Blueprint is a useful feature available in Zoho CRM that is currently supported in the Zoho Developer platform. It allows you to plan different stages of a business process and set up predefined transitions between the stages to achieve the desired results. Along with defining the stages for a blueprint, you can associate people to each stage, guide them through the process, mandate information, validate information, and automate routine processes if necessary.
Components of a blueprint
A blueprint is made up of two major components or blocks: states and transitions. We’ll discuss each below.
State
A business process might involve one or more stages that need to be crossed for its completion. A state is a stage that is involved in a business process. It’s a particular condition/stage that a process is in at a given point of time.
Transition
A transition acts as a connecting factor or link between stages. It consists of the conditions that must be met to move from one stage to another.
Let's consider an example that demonstrates how blueprints can be effectively implemented/incorporated through an extension to achieve desired business processes.
Assume you run a campaign management organization. Several companies hire (outsource) you as a vendor to work on campaigns to help their businesses grow. Depending on your clients’ business needs, you manage the processes involved in preparing these campaigns using the Campaigns module in Zoho CRM. Campaigns can be of different types, such as webinar, advertisements, emails, etc.
Each of these campaign types will require following a different flow in order to be organized and executed. For example, for a webinar, you’ll need to check on resource availability and target audience, whereas for advertisements, you must check on content and banner design. It would be difficult to manually ensure that all of your team members assigned to a client’s campaign follows the correct flow each time.
A blueprint would be useful in this situation because a fixed process can be designed for a specific campaign type. This way, whenever one of your team members is assigned to handle that campaign type, they follow the defined process flow to execute it.
Similarly, different blueprints can be designed for different campaign types and collectively rendered as an extension to help your campaign management process as a whole. In this post, we'll build the overall blueprint flow for a webinar-type campaign.
A company contacts your campaign management organization about organizing a webinar to promote their business. You plan a webinar idea based on the needs of the company, gather the requirements to organize the campaign, generate or execute your campaign plan and share it with the manager, decide whether the plan is active or inactive based on feedback and discussion, and, finally, complete the campaign by finalizing (active) or closing (inactive) based on discussion.
Creating a blueprint for the Campaigns module in Zoho developer console
Here are the process steps for creating a blueprint flow:
- Go to the Extension's detail page in the Zoho Developer console.
- Choose Workflow under Automate from the left panel of the Zoho CRM console under Build, and then click Blueprint.
- Click Create Blueprint.
- Enter the necessary details. You can refer to this link to get detailed information on creating a blueprint. In our example, the module is Campaign, the layout is Standard and the field is Status.
Note: You can create picklist fields through the extension and choose them as the field for the blueprint. This helps you run blueprints specific to your campaign’s organization-related Zoho CRM fields as well.
- When the basic details are filled in, next you’ll define the criteria based on which records will be associated with this blueprint. In our example, we choose the campaign records of the webinar type to be associated with this blueprint.
- There’s an option to create continuous blueprints, i.e., with the completion of a transition the next transition is automatically triggered, and so on. To achieve this, click Advanced configuration. Enable the Is this a continuous Blueprint? option. Choose the owners who will be eligible to view the transitions as buttons in the record's detail page.
Note: In our example, we don't enable this option; we manually execute transitions one after the other when the preceding transition's conditions are met and the next one is ready to be implemented. Click Next.
- Below is the blueprint created for our example.
- The states and the transitions involved in our example are listed below.
States | Transitions |
Plan idea | Plan |
Requirement gathering | Requirement analysis |
Plan generation | Generate plan |
Active | Active |
Inactive | Inactive |
Complete | Complete |
- Next, add the criteria to be met at different stages of the transition (BEFORE, DURING, and AFTER). These transitions are conditions to be met to cross from one state to another, and will appear as buttons on the record details page.
- Let's see the criteria involved in our example for each transition.
Plan: Notes on the webinar plan and tags are mandatory during this transition.
Requirement analysis: Create a checklist for analyzing the requirements by using the Add > Checklists during the transition.
Generate plan: Make attachments of the contents or related documents required for the webinar mandatory during the transition.
After the transition, generate an email notification to your manager with the campaign plan details. We’ve associated a campaign plan email template that includes the description of the campaign record as part of the email body.
Active: Upon discussion with the manager, if the plan is approved, the campaign plan is active and is to be executed further. Make tags mandatory during the transition.
Schedule the campaign start date for 15 days from the current execution date (i.e., the date the plan changes to active status) after the transition is completed.
Inactive: After discussion with the manager, if the plan is not approved, the campaign plan is inactive and is then moved to an inactive state. When you click Inactive, the campaign is automatically moved to Complete status.
Complete: Finally, whether the plan is active and ready to be executed, we can move it to a closed state by making tags mandatory to establish that the record for creating the webinar campaign plan has been completed.
- Now that the blueprint is designed, click Publish.
- You can now publish the extension and install it in your Zoho CRM account.
Sample Output
You can view the sample output attached as a video.
In this manner, any webinar campaign will follow the blueprint process to completion. Similarly, you can create blueprints for each campaign and efficiently manage your campaign management process.
We hope you find this information useful. Keep following us for more inputs!!
Access your files securely from anywhere
New to Zoho Recruit?
Zoho Developer Community
New to Zoho LandingPage?
Zoho LandingPage Resources
New to Zoho Survey?
New to Zoho CRM Plus?
Deliver unforgettable customer experiences
New to Zoho CRM Plus?
Deliver unforgettable customer experiences
New to Zoho Marketing Plus?
Everything you need to run your marketing
New to Zoho Marketing Plus?
Everything you need to run your marketing
New to Bigin?
Topic Participants
Nanditha Somasundaram Somasundaram
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 FAQsKaizen #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
New to Zoho TeamInbox?
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
Design. Discuss. Deliver.
Zoho Show Resources
Get Started. Write Away!
Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.
Zoho CRM コンテンツ
-
オンラインヘルプ
-
Webセミナー
-
機能活用動画
-
よくある質問
-
Ebook
-
-
Zoho Campaigns
- Zoho サービスのWebセミナー
その他のサービス コンテンツ
Nederlandse Hulpbronnen
ご検討中の方
Recent Topics
Involved account types are not applicable when create journals
{ "journal_date": "2016-01-31", "reference_number": "20160131", "notes": "SimplePay Payroll", "line_items": [{ "account_id": "538624000000035003", "description": "Net Pay", "amount": 26690.09, "debit_or_credit": "credit" }, { "account_id": "538624000000000403", "description": "Gross", "amount": 32000, "debit_or_credit": "debit" }, { "account_id": "538624000000000427", "description": "CPP", "amount": 1295.64, "debit_or_credit": "debit" }, { "account_id": "538624000000000376", "description":Zoho Books - Include Payment Terms as a Custom View filter
It would be great if you could created a custom view based on Payment Terms. This would be really handy for seeing a list of customers who have credit terms. A workaround is not required. I could do something with a creditor checkbox, but it would beHow to update changed purchase account of item in invoice
I have selected the wrong purchase account for various articles and created invoices. I had to adjust the purchase account in the article afterwards, but the old purchase account is still posted in the transaction-journal of the invoice. To adjust theHelp - Zoho CRM notification on mobile (IOS/Android)
Hello Community! Can I get the IOS/Andoid CRM app to notify me of events, calls, etc. due as I can with MANY other apps? I am running the free Zoho I would like this to be native to the Zoho CRM app. I do not want to write a sep. mobile appZoho Books Idea - Include another field in Bank Details for Address
Hi Books team, Currently use the Description field in the Bank Details to store the bank's address. This works fine but it would be great if you could add another field for Bank Address, so that other notes about the bank account could be stored in thea question about the COQL API v8
When I specify eight or more values in a WHERE IN clause and execute it, an error occurs. Is there a limit to the number of values that can be specified in a WHERE IN clause? ↓Error select * FROM Vendors WHERE (id in (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)) ↓SuccessZoho Books Idea - Bank Details Button on Banking
Hi Books team, Sometimes I'm asked to share bank details with a customer or a colleague. So I go to the Banking Module, find the correct bank account, click Setting > Edit, then copy and paste the bank details. Wouldn't it be great if there was a buttonJS SDK 8.0 – TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'getCacheStore') with sample code
Hello Zoho Support Team, I’m integrating the Zoho CRM JavaScript SDK v8.0 and I’m getting the error below when running your official sample. I tested directly from: https://github.com/zoho/zohocrm-javascript-sdk-8.0/blob/main/samples/create_records_sample/create_records.jsFunction #55: Convert multiple quotes to single SO using Custom Button
Hello everyone, and welcome back to our series! In Zoho Books, after a quote is accepted by your customer, it can be converted into a sales order or an invoice. Often, a customer might have multiple quotes, and for easier billing or upon the customer'sTime based workflow without edit/action
Hello I need help solving this problem if possible. We have Deals come into the CRM via Live Transfer which have the field properties: Stage = New Channel = Inbound Some of them don't get answered so we want these to automatically go into our OutboundWhat's New - August 2025 | Zoho Backstage
Every month, Zoho Backstage grows with you. These updates aren't just features and fixes, they're about making your workday smoother, your events more impactful, and your attendees happier. We’ve listened, learned, and shaped this release to keep thingsprevent selling expired items
Hello. I need to make a constraint on expired batch items not to be sold. Is it possible in Zoho Inventory? if so, then how? Thanks for further help.Product details removed during update from other system
We maintain our product details in an other system. These details are synchronized with Zoho at the end of each day, through an API. This has worked perfectly sofar. But last Monday, all product codes and some other product data have been wiped duringClient Customer
I purchased a customer user license, but we cannot see the project I added in the customer account. I would like to ask for support on what we should do.Add Ability to Use Zoho Finance Tags
For Zoho Finance (Books and Inventory), the current actions do not allow us to affect the tags associated with the entities in question (customers, vendors, items, etc.). Please consider adding this functionality into the actions.Embeded Signing doesn't work on Safari Browser
We have implemented Zoho Sign in our website by using embeded signing, It works perfectly on Chrome. But it fails on Safari, We get stuck on Zoho Sign Page during redirection from Zoho Sign to our website after signing the document, Please let us knowDataprep Webhook Limits and Cannot update column with Dataprep
I have two problems : 1 - I am using Airflow to trigger my pipeline, and when I tested it, it worked fine a couple of times. However, after that, I received an error: {"code":429,"message":"Request rate limited"}. I didn’t send too many requests — maybeNew in Zoho Forms: Google reCAPTCHA v3 for smarter spam protection
Hello form builders, Spam submissions are one of the biggest challenges when you share your forms online. They not only clutter your data but can also waste valuable time. To help you combat this without making life harder for genuine respondents, we’reProject Management Bulletin: August, 2025
We’ve touched a grand 19 years since we started pioneering project management solutions with Zoho Projects. What started as a simple one-page interface is now a suite of products with Zoho BugTracker, Zoho Sprints, and our new debut Zoho Projects Plus,Zoho Sign and Zoho Workdrive Integration
Hello, there. I want to know if it's possible to save a signed document from Zoho Sign in an specific folder for each signer in Zoho Workdrive. For example: If John Doe signs the document in Zoho Sign I want to save it automatically in a folder namedEmpowered Custom Views: Cross-Module Criteria Now Supported in Zoho CRM
Hello everyone, We’re excited to introduce cross-module criteria support in custom views! Custom views provide personalized perspectives on your data and that you can save for future use. You can share these views with all users or specific individualsHow do you list multiple contacts for a lead?
My sales team wants to be able to add additional contacts for leads, how do we do that? Is there a different way we should be using the lead / contact functionality? Moderation update (9th September 2025): Our developers have built an extension to achieveModifying Three Dot Menu Options
Is there a way to modify the three dot menu options that display in a Report header? They currently display: Show As (List, Calendar, Timeline), Print, Import, Export. I'd like to remove the Show As and Print options, since they aren't applicable forField Not Updating in FSM Script - Service and Parts module.
Dear Team, I am reaching out regarding a script I have implemented in Zoho FSM to automate the calculation of the End of Service date based on the End of Sale date in the Service and Parts module. Overview of the script: Fetches the End_of_Sale__C andZadarma + Zoho CRM Integration – Missed Calls Saved as Contacts Instead of Leads
Hello everyone, I’m looking for input from anyone with experience using the Zadarma + Zoho CRM integration. Currently, I’m seeing that missed calls are automatically being created as Contacts instead of Leads. From a CRM perspective, this doesn’t makeZoho Books | Product updates | September 2025
Hello users, We’ve rolled out new features and enhancements in Zoho Books. From PayNow payment method to applying journal credits to invoices and bills in other locations, explore the updates designed to enhance your bookkeeping experience. IntegrateHow to update Multiple Users field in Quote Module from Deal Module
Scenario : Deal Module having Multiple User Field (Presales Engineer) which having more than 1 User and through Deluge Script I need to get that Users Details and need to put into Multiple User Field (Presales Engineer) of Quote Module. Note: Both ModuleAuto-sync field of lookup value
This feature has been requested many times in the discussion Field of Lookup Announcement and this post aims to track it separately. At the moment the value of a 'field of lookup' is a snapshot but once the parent lookup field is updated the values diverge.Clone a Module??
I am giong to repurpose the Vendors module but would like to have a separate but very similar module for another group of contacts called Buyers. I have already repurposed Contacts to Sellers. Is it possible to clone (make a duplicate) module of VendorsAdvance PDF creation from CRM data
I'm trying to create a PDF export of data in the CRM. My problem is I want a pretty complicated format for the data. I'm trying to export multiple modules worth of data, with nested one-to-many relationships between the modules. Along with that, I wanthow to disable staff selection Zoho Booking integrated to SalesIQ?
currently there is only one Consultant in my Zoho Bookings like this I integrate Zoho Bookings into Zoho SalesIQ to create a chatbot. Unfortunately, even though I only have one consultant for a consultation, the user have to pick the consultant. It willHow to change the text in WhatsApp Zobot integrated to Zoho Booking?
I have integrated Zoho Bookings into Zoho SalesIQ, I want to change the text in WhatsApp when creating a booking in Zobot how to change those text?Updating Subform Record from other Form
Just wanted to ask how to properly approach this. I have 2 forms and would like to trigger an auto update on the subform once record submitted. block below only updates 1 row for each recordRow in input.AV_System { AssetRecord = Site_Asset_Services[SOR_NoZoho Books - Hide Convert to Sales Order if it can't be used.
Hi Books team, I noticed that it is not possible to convert a Quote to a Sales Order when a Quote is not yet marked as accepted. My idea is to not show the Convert to Sales Order button when it is not possible to use it, or show it in a grey inactiveHow do I bulk archive my projects in ZOHO projects
Hi, I want to archive 50 Projects in one go. Can you please help me out , How can I do this? Thanks kapilCross-Data Center Collaboration and / Or allowing users to choose DC
Dear Zoho Cliq Support Team, We are writing to request a significant enhancement to Zoho Cliq that would greatly benefit our geographically dispersed development team. Current Challenge: Currently, Zoho Cliq automatically routes users to specific dataNew Mandatory One-Click Unsubscribe Link Overshadowing Custom Unsubscribe Link
I was recently informed by Zoho CRM Support that they are now mandated by the large email service providers like Google and Yahoo to provide a one-click unsubscribe option in the header (not the body) of all mass emails. I have a custom unsubscribe linkSend / Send & Close keyboard shortcuts
Hello! My team is so close to using Zoho Desk with just the keyboard. Keyboard shortcuts really help us to be more efficient -- saving a second or two over thousands of tickets adds up quickly. It seems like the keyboard shortcuts in Desk are only forIs it possible to register webhooks in Zoho CRM using API?
Hello, I am trying to register a webhook in Zoho CRM programmatically (using the API). Specifically, I want to register a webhook that is fired when new Contacts are created in the CRM. I was able to setup a webhook using the UI, by creating a rule thatCalls where the local audio is shared, have echo
When another user is sharing their screen with audio, I get echo from my own voice. We tested this with multiple users, with different audio setups, and there's no obvious way to fix it. Is this a bug you could look into, or are we missing something?Next Page