Introducing Connected Workflows in Zoho CRM for Everyone : Free Your Teams to Focus on What Matters
Hello Everyone,
We’re thrilled to introduce the next big evolution in Zoho CRM for Everyone -- Connected Workflows. This new feature builds on our commitment to deliver a CRM that’s truly inclusive, adaptable, and designed for consistent collaboration across your entire organization and not just your sales team.
With the launch of Connected Records, we enabled teams to share contextual information and stay aligned through record connections across modules. Now, with Connected Workflows, we’re taking it one step further by enabling Zoho CRM to coordinate work across teams and enable them to deliver their best for customers.
What are Connected Workflows?
While Connected Records make it easy to share customer context across your customer journey, however, many of the processes involved in your customer's journey need to be consistently carried out. That’s where Connected Workflows come in.
Connected workflows help free your teams from manual coordination by enhancing coordination across multiple teams and improving customer relationship management. They allow you to automate your entire customer journey that spans across multiple customer-facing teams.
With Connected Workflows, you can build smooth coordination between departments like Sales, Marketing, Legal, Onboarding, and Training so that each step in the customer journey is coordinated without manual follow-ups or miscommunication.
How to create Connected workflows?
"Users should have the Connected Workflows permission enabled in their profile settings."
Every connected workflow begins with a primary module, either an organization module or a team module, depending on your customer journey.
Triggers : Initiate by setting up triggers by configuring either a single trigger or multiple triggers for a module. The triggers are :
- when a record is created in the module
- When a record is edited record in the module,
- When a record is created or edited in the module, or
- When a field in the record is edited in the module.
Multi-module criteria for Triggers : You can configure multiple criteria for triggers to execute actions in any other related modules; Enable other module criteria option for this. This ensures actions run when related modules are updated with values matching the trigger.
Actions : Assign one or more actions for each trigger . The actions are :
- Creating a new connected record in the associated module
- Updating an existing connected record in the associate module, or
- Notifying users via email.
Use Case: Automating the customer journey from a sales enquiry to customer success
A typical customer journey goes through four stages, and we know that even though the sales team is the initial point of contact, multiple teams are involved and will support the sales team to win the customer.
Involved Teams | |
Initial Evaluation | Sales Team is the point of contact Marketing team supports with customer-facing content in the Case Study Module |
Demo Request | Sales Team schedules a product demo Pre-sales team provides product demos in the Product demo module |
Customer Onboarding | Sales Team updates the sale cycle stage to 'Closed Won' Onboarding team helps the customer get started post-sale in the Onboarding Assistance module |
Product Training | Sales Team arranges for training sessions Training team helps the customer to be fully equipped to use the product in the Training module |
Here's how Connected Workflows can automate the sales process and achieve coordination between the multiple teams involved.
We’ll create a connected workflow with Deals as the primary module and configure three triggers:
Trigger 1: When a new record is created → Create a connected Case Study record for Marketing (Action)
Trigger 2: When Lead Status is "Qualified" → Create a Product Demo record and notify the Pre-sales Team(Action)
Trigger 3: When Deal Stage is "Closed Won" → Create an Onboarding record for handoff prep(Action)
This sets up three connected modules: Case Study, Demo Request, and Onboarding, as shown in the image below.
Now we will configure the associated modules.
- Case Study
Trigger : When status is "Completed" → Notify Sales Team about availability(Action) - Demo Request
Trigger : When status is "Completed" → Notify Sales Team that demo was given(Action) - Feedbacks (manually created from Demo Request)
Trigger : When new record is created → Email lead with feedback form(Action) - Onboarding
Trigger : When status is "Completed" → Notify Training Team to start sessions and Sales Team of onboarding completion; also create a Training record(Action) - Training (automatically created from Onboarding)
Trigger : When new record is created → Update Account type to "Customer" and notify Sales Team of training completion(Action)
Now let's look at how all these modules have been connected to carry out a customer journey in the GIF below.
In this entire customer journey, there is no loss of customer context, no repeated back-and-forth between teams, and no delays due to miscommunication. Each team receives a connected record with all the relevant data they need to execute their part of the process.
Here is another video with a detailed explanation on how connected workflows works :
How Are Connected Workflows Different from Traditional Workflows?
- Connected Workflows go beyond one module; they’re designed to coordinate across team boundaries and hence use multiple modules to build a workflow.
- Connected workflows trigger follow-up tasks/actions in both org and team modules.
- Connected Workflows generate connected records as part of the process, so new requests are automatically created in modules, and those teams will have full context from day one. Users can save the time they take to create requests from the Request tab with this feature.
Why use connected workflows for your business?
- No more manual follow-ups because of automating cross-team coordination and reducing dependency on reminders or emails.
- Achieving consistent execution across your customer's journey.
- Providing end-to-end visibility where teams see the full customer journey, not just their part in the entire journey.
- Above all, providing contextual coordination among multiple teams by minimizing delays between hand-offs.
We believe Connected Workflows will be a game-changer in how you deliver exceptional customer experience. We’re excited for you to start building your first Connected Workflow. Let us know in the comments if you have any queries.
Availability :
- This enhancement is available only in Zoho CRM's new UI.
- The number of connected workflows that can be created edition-wise are :
- Standard Edition. : 2
- Professional Edition : 2
- Enterprise Edition : 10
- Ultimate Edition. : 10
- Click here to learn about others limitations for this feature.
Early Access for Connected Workflows
We are in the process of opening out connected workflows for our customers, however, if you’d like early access to explore and use this feature, we’ve got you covered!
Fill out this form to get early access.
We’d love for you to try it out and share your feedback.
Resource Kit
Regards,
Serena Woolridge
Zoho CRM Marketing Team
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
Serena Woolridge
sima
Aishwarya M
Andres
Mani Vembu
Sticky Posts
Elevate your CX delivery using CommandCenter 2.0: Simplified builder; seamless orchestration
Most businesses want to create memorable customer experiences—but they often find it hard to keep them smooth, especially as they grow. To achieve a state of flow across their processes, teams often stitch together a series of automations using WorkflowPresenting ABM for Zoho CRM: Expand and retain your customers with precision
Picture this scenario: You're a growing SaaS company ready to launch a powerful business suite, and are looking to gain traction and momentum. But as a business with a tight budget, you know acquiring new customers is slow, expensive, and often deliversNimble enhancements to WhatsApp for Business integration in Zoho CRM: Enjoy context and clarity in business messaging
Dear Customers, We hope you're well! WhatsApp for business is a renowned business messaging platform that takes your business closer to your customers; it gives your business the power of personalized outreach. Using the WhatsApp for Business integrationZoho CRM: Sales Rep Professional Certification Program on Coursera
We are happy to share that we have published the Zoho Sales Representative Professional Certificate in partnership with Coursera, a leading platform for online learning and career development that offers access to courses and degrees from leading universitiesEnhancements to the formula field in Zoho CRM: Auto-refresh formulas with the "Now" function, stop formula executions based on criteria, and include formulas within formulas
Dear Customers, We hope you're well! By their nature, modern businesses rely every day on computations, whether it's to calculate the price of a product, assess ROI, evaluate the lifetime value of a customer, or even determine the age of a record. With
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
Inactive account cleanup policy for Zoho Sign
Zoho Sign reserves the right to delete accounts that are license free and inactive for more than 120 days. The account deletion will be initiated only after the user receives prior email notice about possible data deletion and how to backup the data.Missde API documentation for Sales Receipt
Hi! I noticed that the Sales Receipt endpoint is not currently listed in your API documentation (https://www.zoho.com/books/api/v3/introduction/). Could you please provide any available temporary documentation for this endpoint, along with a detailedMulti-currency in Zoho CRM Forecast and Reports
As a company we have branches in 4 different countries with as many different currencies. Our Sales Teams would like to work with their local currency as much as possible. The Forecast module using only 1 currency is practically usable only by the salesHow to select from pricebook when creating a salesorder or quote
I am creating a sales order and when selecting the Products I do not see any where to select from pricebooks. How do i associate this to my orders?Proposal for Creating a Unique "Address" Entity in Zoho FSM
The "Address" entity is one of the most critical components for a service-oriented company. While homeowners may change and servicing companies may vary, the address itself remains constant. This constancy is essential for subsequent services, as it providesI cannot find my older documents from 2024 and 2023
I cannot find my older documents from 2024 and 2023.System default SLA descriptions can't be modified
The system default SLAs have identical descriptions for all SLA levels, but their settings differ. However, I am facing an issue where I cannot modify these descriptions and save the changes. The content of the description box can be edited but the changesCustomising Help Center
Hi I don't think it is possible to add custom pages to help center? We'd like to use this as a customer portal with support tickets, FAQ/Guides, Billing and contracts. Is there any plans to add a feature like this or an alternative way to do it otherReplies sometimes creating separate ticket
Sometimes when a customer responds to an email coming from Zoho Desk, instead of adding a reply to the original ticket, a separate ticket is created. This happens even though the response subject line contained the ticket number, and the person respondingTicket Approvals - External Users
The ticket approval option - we need to be able to select external users (Contacts) for approvals. Sometimes we are working with an end user and their boss needs to approve a purchase. For example, working with a cashier on a broken cash register andForce Users to Ask Answer Bot a question... First
End users will always skip talking to a bot. It would be nice if Zoho adopted the standard and forced users to first ask a question to answer bot (or zia in some fashion) and then pass to the agent if it wasn't answered. Options to force the user to speakView Answer Bot conversations?
We are trialing Zia and are experimenting with Answer Bot on our knowledge base. So far so good! Management asks me if it is possible to view Answer Bot conversations, the purpose being to look over its shoulder and confirm that it is working as desMass Email an Account
It would be nice to mass email an account stating there is an outage at their business or something specific to an account is needed to be mass communicated. Even if it makes a ticket for every Email Out to every contact in the Account. Think: the customerMultiple Topics assigned to a single Campaign
Hello, is it possible to assign multiple Topics to a single Campaign? We frequently write a content to our subscribers that spans multiple Topics and we would like to send it to all Contacts that are subscribed to at least one of the Topics. But it looksZoho Projects Fonts and Accessibility missing
I cannot find any more the tab where I can change the font in Zoho Project. I also checked the knowledgebase and there they have accessibility tab which I am completely missing. Is there some setup I am missing or is it a problem with our account?Zoho Books Custom Widgets Deprecation Error
I created a simple sample widget with zet and published it using sigma Both in the Sandbox and Production the Widgets are showing this errorProblems with PDF files in notebook
I'm evaluating Zoho Notebook as an alternative to Evernote and imported my Evernote account to Zoho Notebook. First issue is that notes in Evernote that comprise a PDF are turned into a 'group' with a single note page (that has the text from the EvernoteAPI (v3) Tasks sorting issue
We are using the v3 API for Projects. When we gat all tasks, per page of 100 tasks, we get the task info alright. But when we try to sort based on DESC(last_modified_time) we don't get the correct sort order. It is roughly sorted by the last_modified_time,Assemblies make my stock go negative
I am sure this is just the way that we are using this feature, but we use assemblies, a lot. The issue for us is the way that the relive inventory and the fact that it makes our composite item stock go negative. I have added flows to auto assemble andUser Activity Reports
I'd like to get data related to user activity. For example, Login and logout times, emails sent/received, new records created , etc. Is that currently available. I just can't seem to find anything . Thanks, DaveHelp: Populate “Contact Owner” details into Customer custom fields (for email templates) in Zoho Books
We want to send invoices on behalf of our sales agents, and include the agent’s name, email, and phone in the email body using placeholders. Plan is to copy the Customer Owner details into three Customer custom fields, so they can be used as placeholdersUndocumented Books API error message - 1000 - The requested action could not be completed. Please try again. | Unexpected error
This code sometimes throws this error 1000 - The requested action could not be completed. Please try again. | Unexpected error What does it mean? result = zoho.books.updateRecord("salesorders",organization.get("organization_id"),salesorder_id,sales_Partial payments for retainer invoices
When a customer does not pay the entire retainer invoice there is no way to apply a partial payment. PLEASE add this function.Making Tags Mandatory
When creating an expense, is it possible to make the Tags field mandatory? I see the option in settings to make other fields mandatory, like Merchant, Description, Customer, etc, but nothing about Tags. Thanks! KevinMass Update not trigger workflows
Hi, I have performed a mass update of all records in a custom module using a custom view. I have a dummy checkbox on my module that I turn on or off - hoping to trigger all the new workflows that have been created for that module. However, no workflowsMulti-Select lookup field has reached its maximum??
Hi there, I want to create a multi-select lookup field in a module but I can't select the model I want the relationship to be with from the list. From the help page on this I see that you can only create a max of 2 relationships per module? Is that true?Generating CRM reports based on date moved in staged history
Hi everyone, I'm trying to generate CRM reports of jobs (I think these are called usually deals) based on when they were moved to a particular stage, ie all jobs that were moved to Proposal/Quote in the previous financial year. I can see from other similarModules for missed calls, emails, texts etc
Hi there. Is there a way to create a module that would automatically show a list of all inbound calls that were missed by our users, as well as any inbound SMS's, emails & WhatsApp messages. That way, a user who is available, can work through that listSubforms and automation
If a user updates a field how do we create an automation etc. We have a field for returned parts and i want to get an email when that field is ticked. How please as Zoho tells me no automation on subforms. The Reason- Why having waited for ever for FSMConditional layouts - support for multi-select picklists
Hi, The documentation for conditional layouts says the following: "Layout Rules cannot be used on the following field types: Auto Number Lookup Multi Select Lookup User Lookup Formula File Upload Multi Line" I have a custom module with a multi-pick listAbility to Set a General Email Signature for the Organization in Zoho Recruit
Dear Zoho Recruit Team, I hope you're doing well. We would like to request a feature that would allow us to set a general email signature at the organizational level within Zoho Recruit. Currently it is only possible for individual users to create theirCustom Buttons & Links Now Supported in Portals
We’ve just made portals in Zoho Recruit more powerful and customizable than ever! You can now bring the power of Custom Buttons and Links to your Candidate, Client, Vendor, and Custom Portals — enabling portal users to take direct action without recruiterIs there a way to show contact emails in the Account?
I know I can see the emails I have sent and received on a Contact detail view, but I want to be able to see all the emails that have been sent and received between all an Accounts Contacts on the Account Detail view. That way when I see the Account detailLive webinar: Transform data into impactful visuals with Zoho Show
Data is frequently a core part of a presentation, whether it’s a sales pitch, project update, research report, or performance review. But when it’s just numbers on a page, the message you’re trying to convey can get buried. The real magic happens whenFile attachments not working - web version
Since Notebook announced better file attachments, I have experienced file attachments failing. When uploaded from my pc to the web version, notebook just spins. Acting like the attachment is very large. When it's 30k. If I cancel out of this, the notecardAPI - Barebones Data for Send Doc For Signiture
I am learning how to use with Zoho Sign API. I am wondering if someone can give me a bare bones JSON data sample for "Send Document For Signature". Below is the blank data that is pre-populated in postman. Seems like there is more here than the bare minimumRevenue Management: #2 How to compute revenue?
In our previous post, we discussed the revenue recognition standards under IFRS 15 and ASC 606 and the five-step model. Now, let's examine three distinct business scenarios to see how the standards and model work in practice. This will help you understandExternal lookup in CRM (as in Books)
Hello Context: We have a CRM module, similar to Deals, but for Purchasing. Once the PO is created, a link to this PO should be updated in that "deal". In Books, you can add a custom 'external' field which can look up into CRM modules. I'm asked to have"Undo Send" Feature
Would love it if TeamInbox had an "Undo Send" feature, that gives you 10 seconds or so to "undo" the sending of an email. Many other email clients already have this feature, and my clients really miss it, as it has saved them many times in the past whenZoho Sites
Does anyone have experience building Zoho sites or know how I can find someone who does?Next Page