Kaizen 126 Circuits in Zoho CRM
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
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
Sticky Posts
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! CommandsKaizen #165 : How to call Zoho CRM APIs using Client Script
Welcome back to another exciting Client Script post! In this post, we will discuss one of the most frequently asked questions: How do you call Zoho CRM APIs from Client Scripts? In this kaizen post, 1. Ways to make calls to Zoho CRM APIs using ClientKaizen#162 : Add Tags and Open Pre-filled Email Drafts via Client Scripts
Hello everyone! Welcome to another informative Kaizen post. In this post, let us see how to accomplish the following using Client Script. 1. How to auto-tag a record based on field update? 2. How to Open a pre-filled email draft This post will provideExtension Pointers - JS SDK series #4: Managing data from a widget using ZOHO.CRM.HTTP
Handling and managing the data between two applications is a major factor for an efficient business. There are a variety of ways to handle data between Zoho CRM and other third-party applications. You can use deluge CRM tasks, create connectors, use APIKaizen #152 - Client Script Support for the new Canvas Record Forms
Hello everyone! Have you ever wanted to trigger actions on click of a canvas button, icon, or text mandatory forms in Create/Edit and Clone Pages? Have you ever wanted to control how elements behave on the new Canvas Record Forms? This can be achieved
New to Zoho TeamInbox?
Zoho TeamInbox Resources
Zoho DataPrep 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
Tailoring the Share info on an IFrame link
I want to adjust my form size. It's customised on a theme and normally you would be able to edit the parameters in the attached image. Now all I can do is click on it to copy it. I want to stop it having to be scrolled when people access the form. TheCustom Related List anchor tag with tel protocol
The following code worked great for about a year to create clickable tel and mailto links in a related list in the Deals module. Just this morning, it started displaying the HTML as text. For example: <a href='tel:8882490100'>8882490100</a> Zoho supportClient Can't View Ticket
Hi, I created a ticket for my Client since he had an issue. I added him as a Contact as well. My client got a notification in his email that the ticket has been created. When he went to view the ticket on his desktop, the screen was blank. He then viewedCustom Status for Purchase Orders
Currently Zoho books has functionality to create custom statuses for Sales Orders. Can this be extended to include custom status for purchase orders as well? It was a great decision to add this functionality to sales orders. Our use case is for trackingMy workflows not working
Hi I have created my first workflow I want it so when a customer responds to a ticket that the status is changed to "reopened" We want this so its clear there is a ticket to deal with again. We only have 2 agents responding to tickets and do not haveWaiting Room
Is there any plans to implement a Virtual Waiting Room for Attendees on Meetings and or Webinars?Error AS101 when adding new email alias
Hi, I am trying to add apple@(mydomain).com The error AS101 is shown while I try to add the alias.Global Sets for Multi-Select pick lists
When is this feature coming to Zoho CRM? It would be very useful now we have got used to having it for the normal pick lists.What's New - January 2025 | Zoho Backstage
Hi there! As we step into a brand-new year, we’re thrilled to bring you some exciting updates to make event management more enjoyable and efficient. Here’s what we rolled out in January to kick off 2025: Backstage 2.0 now enforced for all users We'veHow do you do ticket add ons in Backstage?
Hi Everyone, If you wanted to have general admin tickets and allow for add ons, like camping, or car or Carbon offset. What would you do? Peace RobinRe-create auth token
I need to re-create a self-client auth token, with the same scopes (and additional ones) as the current token. Is there a way to view the scopes assigned to the current token to ensure that no scopes are missing when creating the new one?Writing on sketch cards is bugged when zoomed in
When zoomed in, it writes a noticeable distance above or to the side of where you're actually trying to write. The further you're zoomed in, the more noticeable it is. Zooming is also entirely absent on the desktop version.Doesn't let me test my newsletter.
Hello, I click "Preview and Test". I select the email address to send the test (usually my own email). I send the test email, appears the message "Your test email has been sent", but nothing happens. I mean, there is nothing in my inbox. I also triedreset of user password
User forgot her password, so she requests a password rest, but never gets the email. How do I reset her password, since that function is not an option, even for an administrator?In what case it's better to use Developer Console? Only for marketplace?
As I can see from the documentation, the limitations are challenging. No Custom API No Page Variables No Custom Connections.commision tracker
I am after a zoho developer to finish my commission tracker as I hired someone on oDesk that started but now will respond to my emails.I really need to get It finished as it is holding up my plans Thanks Budget : $500 | Duration : a.s.a.p To leave a private message, please click the link for private response in post Action section.Generate a Zoho Sign link
From time to time I get a response "I never received your you e-document for electronic signature" is there a way to generate a Zoho Sign link to share.Error 403: Forbidden When Updating Email Signature via API
Hi Zoho Desk team, First, congratulations again on the excellent Zoho API. But, I’m encountering an issue while attempting to update an email signature via the API. Whenever I make a request to update the signature, the response returns an HTTP 403 ForbiddenQueues Management ?
I need to assign the new requirements equally between my support agents. How I can configure this feature in Zoho? ThanksAutomating Custom Web Link Messages to Customers via Instant Messaging in Zoho Desk
Hello, I am looking for assistance with Zoho Desk's Instant Messaging feature. Is there a way to automate the sending of a custom web link to customers every day at 6:30 PM? Any guidance or suggestions on how to achieve this would be greatly appreciated.How do you apply field validation to a date field?
We are using Sign for remote e-signature of liability waivers. The signer must enter a date of birth, and if they are a minor their legal guardian must sign for them. However we have had numerous problems with signers returning an invalid date of birthImplement Regex in Layout and Validation rules
Hello all, We are excited to announce that users can now implement Regular Expressions (Regex) in our layout and validation rules. This new functionality allows for more flexible rules to be created when designing and validating forms. What is Regex?Zoho Desk Validation Rule Using Custom Function
Hi all, I tried to find the way to validate fields using custom function just like in Zoho CRM but to no avail. Is there a way to do this?Editing landing page after signup for a webinar
Hi, how can I edit the landing page after signing up for a webinar. I personalized the email "registration confirmation", which is working fine. Nevertheless after submitting the form, the participant gets redirected to a page, which looks like the standardKiosk GetRecords can't compare formulas
(submitted as a help request by accident - should have been a topic) Scenario: I have an "email domain" formula whose value is "@xyz.com" if the e-mail address is brent@xyz.com . I have the same field in Leads and Contacts. So, theoretically, I shouldKiosk can't merge picklist or multiselect
There is no ability to load a multiselect or picklikst field into a kiosk with the values that have been previously selected. So, I essentially have 3 unacceptable options: 1.)Load the value into a text string and include instructions like this: "PicklistFillable template with dynamic tables?
Is there a way to build a fillable template so that users can add rows to a table? To describe what I'm trying to accomplish the table has 3 sections; a header row, some number of rows with custom information, and a summary row with totals. I can't figureTip of the Week - Timeline User Filter for Dashboard
Does the Date User Filter in your Dashboard leave out a few reports from filtering? This happens when the reports are not created over the same table and the (time) column over which the user filter is created. To solve this, Zoho Reports has a Timeline User Filter. This filter applies the criteria on all reports, matching it with the best possible date column associated with a report. i.e., if your reports are based on a date column, then it will filter it for that data column. To know more onZoho Forms Webhooks - Only sends on submission not on edit.
Hi There, We have a slightly unique use case for Zoho Forms. We used Zoho Forms for the collection of Guest Lists. When a customer submits their guest list they get an email confirmation. Within this is a link for them to update their guest list beforeAdd Knowledge Base KB Articles to multiple categories
Greetings, Love you help center system. One item that would be incredibly helpful to many of us would be able to add a single Knowledge Base KB article to multiple categories in our system. It seems it could be quite easy to use a checkbox form, insteadWhat does "Tickets for Review" do?
What is the purpose of the va nilla view " Tickets for Review?"Report of Leads/Accounts/Deals with no open activities
How can we replicate the option in filter to only show Leads/Accounts/Deals with no open activities ? The option is present in the filters (please find screenshot) but I am unable to find them in the report. ThanksCannot set Subform Multiline field to read-only using Client Script
I am using client script to set different subform fields as read-only It works for Single Line Fields, but when I try to set a Multiline field as Read-only it doesn't work var subform = ZDK.Page.getSubform("Subform_1"); var item_Code_old = subform.getField('Item_Code_Old').setReadOnly(true);Changing Color Theme of Guided Conversations
Hello, We have recently added Guided Conversations to one of our websites, but I am wondering if there is a way to customize the color scheme so it matches the appearance of the website? Thank you in advance!Lost the ability to sort by ticket owner
Hi all, in the last week or so, we have lost the ability to sort tickets by Ticket Owner. Unlike the other columns which we can hover over and click on to sort, Ticket Owner is no longer clickable. Is it just us, or are other customers seeing this too?Can't login to Zoho mail
I'm logged into Zoho but when I try to go in zoho mail I get: Invalid request! The input passed is invalid or the URL is invoked without valid parameters. Please check your input and try again. I just set up my mx records and stuff with namecheap a fewSocial Media Simplified with Zoho Social: Bridge sales and social media marketing
Social media marketing has become the go-to strategy for most businesses who are trying to boost awareness of their product/service, create a brand image in the minds of their audience, increase website traffic and engagement, and generate leads. PostingThis domain is not allowed to add. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details
I am trying to setup the free version of Zoho Mail. When I tried to add my domain, theselfreunion.com I got the error message that is the subject of this Topic. I've read your other community forum topics, and this is NOT a free domain. So what is theWork Orders / Bundle Requests
Zoho Inventory needs a work order / bundle request system. This record would be analogous to a purchase order in the purchasing workflow or a sales order in the sales cycle. It would be non-journaling, but it would reserve the appropriate inventory ofCreate Quote does not show the "Product Description" entered as part of the Product setup.
The product description created as part of the product setup page, does not show in the Create Quote module; The module allows for an additional description to be added but without access to the original stored description. By selecting the product from the "Product Name Lookup" pop-up, the "Product Description" part should be populated from the product record where the user is allowed to further modify it.Next Page