Kaizen #126 - Circuits in Zoho CRM - Part 1
Hello everyone!
Welcome back to another week of Kaizen!
Today, we will discuss an exciting topic—Circuits in Zoho CRM.
For starters, we will discuss what Circuits are, how beneficial they are for businesses, different views of a Circuit, and the different states and flow controls.
In the next post, we will discuss associating a Circuit to a blueprint, workflow, and a button, testing and execution, and see a Circuit in action with an interesting use case.
What are Circuits in Zoho CRM?
We use different microservices to accomplish our business needs, but most of the time, we are forced to switch over to multiple places.
With Circuits in Zoho CRM, you can integrate multiple microservices in a single platform and create automated workflows, all within your CRM!
For example, consider that you have an e-commerce application that involves multiple processes like tracking inventory, payment processing, fulfilling and tracking orders, generating receipts and reports, etc.
Typically, you would code this entire logic and use it to fulfill your business needs. But, with Functions in Zoho CRM, you can write the logic for each of these individual processes and simply orchestrate them using Circuits.
So, for the above example, you can simply create an automated workflow using Circuits and use the functions in the right order. That's not just it! You can re-use these functions elsewhere, too.
Another simple example of a Circuit is when you want to automating sending SMS alerts to users when an event occurs. How this is different from a workflow is that in this circuit, you can have a function that triggers an SMS alert, and also a function that sends an email to the user when the SMS alert ails. This involves circuit's functional states and a decision making state.
Like this, the use cases of circuits are endless.
Advantages of Circuits
- Automate your routines
Convert all your manual routines to automated workflows to save time. Avoid the need to trigger or interrupt applications to control the system flow, as you can create smooth-sailing, smart workflows that control themselves. - Scale fast
Handle any number of requests hassle free as your workflows get executed on cloud. While Zoho Circuit dynamically allocates resources on need, you can focus more on building your applications rather than managing them. - Update in minutes
Building the business logic of your applications in workflows empowers you to update the applications quickly. Swap or reorganize the components easily and build the modified applications in minutes. - Low-code
Create a circuit effortlessly with the visual drag-and-drop interface, which makes it easier for the users with minimum coding knowledge. - Developer-friendly
Circuits help you manage parallel processes, service integrations, spot failures, retry, and view logs, within minutes. Developers can focus on the business logic and not worry about these factors. - Orchestrate CRM Functions
Use various CRM functions on your circuit to integrate multiple third-party apps and Zoho CRM seamlessly. Write functions once, and orchestrate them in circuits to solve different business needs. - Automate IT and business processes within CRM
Create a circuit, associate it with a workflow, blueprint, or button, and automate your entire business process. With high availability, scalability, and fault tolerance, circuits ensure the performance of your workflow remains consistent even with changing states and an increase in frequency. - Diagnose errors and view audit logs
A detailed log of each execution provides the status of each state's task execution, the payload and parameters passed, and the responses and exceptions generated. - Use Existing Functions
From picking functions you've already tried, tested, and are up and running in your CRM account, to using a circuit within another circuit, this flexibility opens up possibilities of handling so much of your out-of-the-box requirements in a single space.
How are Circuits different from Workflow Rules and Blueprints?
Circuits is simply an orchestration of functions with powerful state management capabilities, along with in-built flow controls to automate the business process.
Workflow rules help us automate repetitive tasks and standardize business processes within the CRM system.
Workflow rules are useful in simple automations that the sales person does on a regular basis, like sending an email after record creation.
Builder View and Code View of a Circuit
Builder View
This view offers an easy drag-and-drop interface to build your circuit. The left pane in this view comprises all the states that can be added to a circuit.
The right pane comprises Configuration and Input/Output.
The Configuration tab lets you give a name to the state, choose its type, and select its next state.
The Input/Output tab allows you to control how JSON data must flow from one state to another through Paths.
Paths are strings beginning with $ that identify the components within the JSON. Specific parts of a JSON can be accessed by denoting their attributes in Input Path, Result Path, and Output Path.
This tab contains the following.
1. Input Path
Input path selects parts of the input JSON to pass to the state. You can also pass parameters to the input as a collection of key-value pairs. The values of Parameters can either be static or parts of the input JSON selected as a Path. For example, if your state's input is
{
"Entry1": {...},
"Entry2": {...}
}
then, you can apply the input path as $.Entry2 within the state definition. So, only the data inside the "Entry2" object will be passed as input to the state.
2. Result Path
After the input is processed by the state, Result Path selects what combination of the state result and the actual state input has to be passed to the output.
3. Output Path
Output Path further filters the data from the Result Path to pass it as state output.
Code View of a Circuit
In Code View, you can define your state machine in a simple JSON-based, structured language. Once a circuit is created, a sample workflow with the pass state as 'State 1' is created by default.
States of a Circuit and Flow Controls
Circuits offer a cascading structure to different states in a business process, allowing you to write functions that each feed their output into the next one, or any other one you pre-define, individually. You can also reroute, pause for a certain period, or feed it in batches to enable just about any sort of action.
Simply put, Circuits have different 'functional states' and 'flow controls' that allow you to automate execute your business process.
Flow Controls
Flow Controls let you control the flow of your circuit. To achieve this, Circuits make use of different states that allow you to make the execution, 'Wait' for another state, 'Pass' the input of a state to another, use 'Success' and 'Failure' to stop the execution of the Circuit.
The different states available are:
- Pass: Transfers the input from one state to another.
- Branch: Decides between branches of execution based on input.
- Parallel: Performs simultaneous executions.
- Wait: Inserts a delay for a specific time. The maximum wait time is 30 days.
- Batch: Implements multiple group executions. You can have a maximum of 10 jobs per batch.
- Success: Terminates an execution, returning 'Success'.
- Failure: Terminates an execution, returning 'Failure'.
For more details on states, refer to this article.
Zoho CRM
Zoho CRM states help you execute business logic in circuits with respect to the data available in CRM.
You can write functions in the built-in editor or orchestrate existing ones, get the details of a record as an input to other the states, get the details of your org, user, CRM variables and use them in your Circuit.
You can also trigger another Circuit within a Circuit using the 'Circuit' flow control.
'Function' State
Use this state in your Circuit to use an existing function in CRM. Depending on your need, you can configure the input and output, and control data flow in your circuit. Only the functions that are REST API-enabled are shown here.
'Circuit' State
You can use another Circuit in one of the states and configure the flow accordingly.
'Record' State
This state fetches the details of a particular record in a module in CRM. You can choose to pass a portion or all of this state's result as an input to the next state in the circuit. Note that the information displayed will be based on the scope provided to the user.
Depending on where the Circuit is associated(Blueprint, Workflow, Button - Create/Clone/Details/Edit View pages, individual record, mass action), the response of the Record State differs.
'Org' State
This state gives you the details of your CRM org that you can use in your circuit.
'User' State
Use this state in your circuit to get the details of the current user in your org and process this information in other states.
'Org Variable'
This state gives you the details of all CRM Variables in your org.
Error Handling
When you use any of the Zoho CRM states, you can also perform error handling as these functional states tend to have runtime errors.
On TimeOut
When a functional state runs longer than the expected time, timeout errors occur. For handling timeout errors in code view, the field value "errorType": "Error.TimeOut" will be added.
On Execution Failure
When a state's execution fails due to some exception that cannot be processed, it can be handled using execution failure. In code view, key-value "errorType": "Error.ExecutionFailure" is appended.
Custom Error
You can also have custom error handling for your states.
Configure Exception Type and Exception Value to set the error handling options based on the error code or error message delivered by the state's output.
Retry the function in case of failure or timeout, set the Attempt (number of retries) and Delay (wait time after failure for every retry attempt).
In case of failure, if the retries fail to fix the error, the State will Fallback the error output to the Next state in the Result field.
We hope you found this post useful. Stay tuned for part 2!
Let us know if you have any questions or suggestions.
Cheers!
Shylaja S
Access your files securely from anywhere
Centralize Knowledge. Transform Learning.
All-in-one knowledge management and training platform for your employees and customers.
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
Shylaja S
Ash-Tech.co.il
Pheranda Nongpiur
Nicolás
Sam Stemp
Sticky Posts
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.Kaizen #226: Using ZRC in Client Script
Hello everyone! Welcome to another week of Kaizen. In today's post, lets see what is ZRC (Zoho Request Client) and how we can use ZRC methods in Client Script to get inputs from a Salesperson and update the Lead status with a single button click. In thisKaizen #222 - Client Script Support for Notes Related List
Hello everyone! Welcome to another week of Kaizen. The final Kaizen post of the year 2025 is here! With the new Client Script support for the Notes Related List, you can validate, enrich, and manage notes across modules. In this post, we’ll explore howKaizen #217 - Actions APIs : Tasks
Welcome to another week of Kaizen! In last week's post we discussed Email Notifications APIs which act as the link between your Workflow automations and you. We have discussed how Zylker Cloud Services uses Email Notifications API in their custom dashboard.Kaizen #216 - Actions APIs : Email Notifications
Welcome to another week of Kaizen! For the last three weeks, we have been discussing Zylker's workflows. We successfully updated a dormant workflow, built a new one from the ground up and more. But our work is not finished—these automated processes are
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
Please design a better spam filter
Hi Team, While I love Zoho Mail for all the awesome features you have designed - this is the one you need to do a lot of work on - Spam Filter. Your spam categorization seems to be very inefficient - any email containing brand images or a tracking pixelHost not reachable when sending
For few partner that I send regular emails now got error and they don't receive emails Temporary failure fam-xxx.hr/185.xx.xx.xxx Host not reachable. Have more than 20 mails in https://mailadmin.zoho.eu/cpanel/home.do#mailSettings/retryEmail pleaseIP flagged as abusive
I'm getting the error that 136.143.188.15 is listed as abusive. I've checked with mxtoolbox.com and it is indeed in the listApp passwords stop working
Some of my app passwords appear to stop working after awhile. Seems to happen every 6 months or so. Just had to change one again for the second time in a year. Is this a bug or a feature? Or perhaps changes are being made on the back end on occasion thatDuplicate entries for contacts birthdays
Good morning I have recently started to use my Zoho calendar and noticed that there are multiple birthday events showing for some of my contacts. I have checked my contacts and there were duplicates for some contacts which I have now rectified but theProblem: New Email Consistently Failing to Sync/Display in Inbox
Recently, I have noticed that my Zoho Email inbox does not indicate I've received a new email, until I go to *another* folder and then return to the inbox. Only then will new emails be displayed. This has happened 100% of the time, during the past fewZoho IMAP Access to mail doesn't sync messages
As stated in the topic - I have company account email address setup, and it has ( as in the picutre ) ActiveSync and Imap access enabled. However the messages does not show up while logged in in Zoho Mail however when I log in in thunderbird everythingCliq iOS can't see shared screen
Hello, I had this morning a video call with a colleague. She is using Cliq Desktop MacOS and wanted to share her screen with me. I'm on iPad. I noticed, while she shared her screen, I could only see her video, but not the shared screen... Does Cliq iOS is able to display shared screen, or is it somewhere else to be found ? RegardsTemps working custom view in Zoho Recruit
How do you create a custom view of temps working for this week. I have tried multiple combinations of job status, start date, end date etc but I am unable to find the correct combinations to show the temps I have working this week?? Any suggestions on how I can do this.Client Scripts similar to CRM?
Hi, Is there any plans for Client Scripts to become a feature of Recruit? Feel this will be a great benefit to a number of users. Would be great for example in cases where a Client has banned / blacklisted a Candidate - so that if that candidate is associatedAnnouncing Zoho Sheet desktop app for macOS and Windows (Beta)
Hello Sheet users, We know you’ve been waiting for this one. It has always been the top priority on our roadmap to provide a single native desktop app for macOS and Windows that works both online and offline. Today, we are excited to announce that theAutomated entries past the current month in a calendar report
Hi all, I have an automation problem. I have a form which on successfull entry adds either 5 or 10 more of these entries with a slight change so our customers can see it throug a calendar report on the webiste. The entry put in manually shows up perfectlyBilling Status Update
Hello Latha, I’m working on a new automation (deluge) to fulfill one of our requirements. In this automation, there is a step to update the Work Order billing status from “Not Yet Invoiced” to “Non-Billable.” I tried to find the API information relevantWhat's New in Zoho POS - April 2026
Hello everyone, Welcome to Zoho POS’s monthly update, where we share our latest feature updates, enhancements, events, and more. Let’s take a look at how April went. Access and manage other web applications in Zoho POS with Web Tabs You can now accessMany Zoho POS Issues
Can not apply credits from a customers account as a form of payment. It shows that you can but there is a bug that does not execute the action. Reported many times. Can not view Sessions from Zoho POS WebView, throws a JQUERY error Workflows and actionsHOW I CAN GET BETA VERSION FOT TESTING
HI. ZOHO I AM INTERESTED IN YOUR BETA SOFTWARE TO EXPERIENCE NEW FEATURES.Multiple EAN code for product
option to add multiple EAN code for product???Issue adding/changing mobile number for OTP
Hi Zoho Community, I’m trying to add or change my mobile number, but I keep getting this error: “We’re unable to send OTP to this mobile number. Please contact support-as@eu.zohocorp.com” Because of this, I can’t verify my number or continue the setup.Zoho Payroll Canada does not work
We submitted payroll within the required timelines. The money was withdrawn from our account and our employees have not been paid. Impossible to get a hold of someone at Zoho. I can’t believe the company operates like this. What a bloody disgrace. ShameEnhance Appointment Buffers in Zoho Bookings
There was previously a long-standing feature request related to enhancing the way appointment buffers work in Zoho Bookings, but it looks like the original post has been deleted. I am therefore adding a new request that Zoho Bookings adjust how appointmentFunctionality based URL to find records due today or in the next week
I need to construct a URL to filter a view to records where the evaluation is due soon (i.e. in the next 7 days). To me, that includes today, but Zoho has a different opinion. Zoho defines 39 as NEXT_7_DAYS but this gives unexpected results. https://creatorapp.zoho.eu/...#Report:My_Evaluations?Evaluation_due_by_op=39Allow customers to choose meeting venue and meeting duration on booking page
My business primarily involves one-to-one meetings with my clients. Given the hybrid-work world we now find ourselves in, these meetings can take several forms (which I think of as the meeting "venue"): In-person Zoom Phone call I currently handle theseEvent Time Zone in meeting invites are confusing users
When sending calendar invites to internal and external users, the first section "Event Time Zone" is confusing people and they are automatically declining events. Can this section please be removed??? It already shows the correct time zone next to theForwarding without verification
Hi, I use Tripit to keep track of all my business travel. I've recently moved over to Zoho and wanted to set up a forwarding rule to send various travel confirmation emails automatically to plans@tripit.com Obviously this is an email address I don't control,Filter by user in Pivot Chart
I have a Pivot chart where the data should be filtered by user. The user enters the system and should see only the data that correspond to it. Can anyone help me?All new Address Field in Zoho CRM: maintain structured and accurate address inputs
Availability Update: 29 September 2025: It's currently available for all new sign-ups and for existing Zoho CRM orgs which are in the Professional edition exclusively for IN DC users. 2 March 2026: Available to users in all DCs except US and EU DC. 24Whatsapp Limitation Questions
Good day, I would like to find out about the functionality or possibility of all the below points within the Zoho/WhatsApp integration. Will WhatsApp buttons ever be possible in the future? Will WhatsApp Re-directs to different users be possible basedInternal mails on our company domain (managed by Zoho) do not get delivered
Hi last week Thursday and Friday a colleague had sent me two emails which did not show up at all in my inbox, spam or anywhere else. What this a problem with Zoho mail in general or did this affect just us? From the forum is reads like many problems had#2 The Tax Talk Nobody Wants to Have
"We are also able to manage our GST invoices without worrying about compliance issues. With Zoho Invoice, we are happy, our tax consultant is happy, and so are our customers," rejoices Shivprateek Habib, Partner, Flutterboots Services LLP. That's usuallyBulk upload images and specifications to products
Hi, Many users have asked this over the years and I am also asking the same. Is there any way in which we can bulk upload product (variant) images and product specifications. The current way to upload/select image for every variant is too cumbersome.Workflows fail silently in Zoho CRM and there is no native way to know
Workflow automation is honestly one of the biggest reasons my clients choose Zoho. But there is one problem I keep running into across almost every implementation. When a workflow fails, nobody finds out. Email alerts hit daily limits and just stop. CustomZoho Commerce and Third-party shipping (MachShip) API integration
We are implementing a third-party shipping (MachShip) API integration for our Zoho Commerce store and have made significant progress. However, we need guidance on a specific technical challenge. Current Challenge: We need to get the customer input toIs there a way to update bounce domain after verification process has started
Hi Zeptomail Team, I've created a domain and we did not update the bounce domain to our custom record... the validation has already started and I am now unable to update the bounce domain. Is there any way to get this updated on the backend without deletingPre-orders at Zoho Commerce
We plan to have regular producs that are avaliable for purchase now and we plan to have products that will be avaliable in 2-4 weeks. How we can take the pre-orders for these products? We need to take the money for the product now, but the delivery willHow to Customize the Member Portal Login Page?
Hi everyone, I am currently using the default member portal login page for Zoho Commerce, but I feel it looks quite plain and doesn’t align well with my brand's style. I would like to make it more visually appealing, possibly by: Adding custom colorsPicklist values out-of-date in Campaigns
Hi I use a CRM (Global) picklist set of values for my field "Connection Strength" (see screenshot 1). . I use Campaigns to follow-up and change the Connection Strength value depending on their stage. The picklist values that appear in the dropdown forRefering cell from other sheet
Hi, If we want to refer any cell in the same sheet its very easy, like suppose if I want to refer cell A2 in P7 I just need to type =A2 in P7, similarly how can I refer a cell present in different sheet ( I mean refer cell A2 from Sheet1 into Sheet2) ThanksHow to keep track of bags, cans, drums of inventory?
We buy and sell products that are packaged in bags 🛍️, cans🥫, drums🛢️, etc. with batch numbers. When we get a shipment of one of the products, how do we track we received (say) 10 cans each of 5L of a product and maybe we received 10 cans of anotherGlobal/Overall Reports & Dashboards in Zoho Sprints
Hi, Do we have an option to refer Global Level Reports & Dashboards in Zoho Sprints? We could see that we have Project specific Reports & Dashboards inside every Project. However, for a management level we want Reports & Dashboards visibility at a GlobalImportant Update: New Fields Addition in Zoho Sprints Integration
We'd like to inform you of an upcoming update to the 'Timesheets' module in the Zoho Sprints integration from June 3, 2026. To enhance time tracking and reporting accuracy for the Zoho Sprints integration, three new fields - Log Type, Meeting ID, ReleaseNext Page