What's New - June 2025 | Zoho Backstage

What's New - June 2025 | Zoho Backstage

Plans change. People cancel. Tickets get handed off. It happens, and we understand. As an organizer, you need tools that offer flexibility for attendees while protecting your event’s integrity. That’s why we’ve built features to help you manage these situations with clarity and control.

This month’s updates may not be the flashiest, but they have a clear purpose. They are designed to give you quiet confidence, helping you say "yes" when it matters and "not this time" when it doesn’t. With that balance, your events become more than just efficient. They become intentional and genuinely human.

Let's take a look at what's new and enhanced. 


Cancellation Approval 

Make cancellations work for you and your attendees.

Managing cancellations is now more flexible and organizer-friendly with the new cancellation approval workflow in Zoho Backstage. Instead of canceling tickets immediately, organizers can now receive formal requests from ticket holders, review them, and choose to approve or deny them. This extra layer of control helps you stick to your event policies, handle refunds more accurately, and keep communication clear, especially for complex or high-value requests.

To turn this on: 


  • Navigate to Registrations > Registration Settings from the Dock, and switch on the Cancellation Approval toggle. 
  • Once active, any attempt by an attendee to cancel a main ticket, companion ticket, or session will create a request instead of an instant cancellation. The request will show up as Pending in the attendee’s event portal, so they can see what’s happening at any time.
On your side, these requests appear under a new Cancellation Approval tab in the Registrations module. You can check each request in detail. If it includes multiple items, such as a ticket and sessions, you can approve or deny each item separately. For example, you might approve a ticket cancellation but keep the session registrations active.



When you approve a request:
  • You’ll see the attendee’s reason, the items involved, the cancellation fee (which you can still edit), the refund amount, and an optional comment box. 
  • Once you confirm, the request status changes to Approved on the attendee’s side.
When you deny a request:
  • You’ll see the same details and can add a reason for the denial. 
  • The status will then update to Denied for the attendee. 
  • If only some items are approved, the status will show Partially Approved, and any denied items will be removed from further processing.
To help you stay on top of things, the Cancellation Approval tab has filters to see all requests or only those that are pending, approved, denied, or partially approved. This makes sorting and managing large volumes of requests easy.
Notes
  • If the primary ticket is selected for cancellation, any linked sessions or companion tickets will be automatically included. 
  • Also, once a request has been denied, it can't be submitted again.
Plan availability: Included in the Free, Essentials, Premium, and Ultimate plans

Restriction of ticket transfers

Stronger control over how tickets change hands.

A new enhancement has been introduced to give event organizers greater control over how ticket transfers are handled. You can now decide whether to allow or restrict transfers, depending on your event’s needs. This helps prevent unauthorized resale, reduce misuse, and maintain operational clarity, which is especially important for tightly managed or high-value events.

In the past, many organizers offered attendees the flexibility to transfer tickets to others after registration, which worked well for most events. However, as some events grew more complex, organizers began to see new challenges where tighter control became necessary. For example, some reported cases where tickets purchased at the standard price were resold at higher rates, creating potential policy conflicts. In other cases, especially when attendee badges are preprinted, last-minute transfers can lead to mismatches and confusion at the venue.

To address these concerns, organizers can now enable or disable ticket transfers at any point, based on their event’s operational requirements. 



To turn off ticket transfers: 
  • Navigate to Registrations > Registration Settings from the Dock, and switch of the Allow Ticket Transfers toggle. 
  • Here, the ticket transfer policy can be defined for all ticket classes or tailored to specific ticket classes. This ensures that organizers can enforce different transfer rules for different tiers or categories of tickets.
By default, when the Allow Ticket Transfers option is enabled, transfers are permitted. However, organizers also have the option to define a time window during which transfers are allowed. They can choose to allow transfers until the event start date, the event end date, or set a custom date and time. Once this defined period has passed, ticket transfers will be automatically restricted for attendees.
Notes
While attendees are subject to these restrictions, event organizers themselves will retain the ability to transfer tickets on behalf of attendees at any time, regardless of the transfer settings in place.
This is designed to help organizers prevent unauthorized resale, maintain data consistency, and ensure smooth operations on event day.  

Plan availability: Included in the Free, Essentials, Premium, and Ultimate plans

Simplified refunds with automatic cancellation fee application

Spend less time on fee calculations and more time running your event smoothly.

Managing cancellations is now faster and more consistent with our new automatic cancellation fee application. When you use the Cancel and Refund option, the cancellation fee you defined during ticket setup is automatically applied to the refund amount. This removes the need for manual adjustments and helps you maintain fairness and consistency across all refunds.

Full control when you need it:
  • You still have the flexibility to adjust the cancellation fee percentage before finalizing the refund. This means you can easily handle special cases, such as emergencies or loyal attendees, while protecting your revenue and saving valuable time.
If you issue a refund without canceling the ticket, such as for a goodwill gesture or a partial adjustment, no cancellation fee will be applied. In these cases, the ticket remains valid, and you can manually adjust the refund amount to suit the situation.
Notes
Automatic cancellation fees are only applied if you’ve set a cancellation fee for the ticket class during ticket setup.
This update makes your refund process quicker, clearer, and more reliable, allowing you to focus on delivering great event experiences instead of double-checking fee calculations.

Plan availability: Included in the Essentials, Premium, and Ultimate plans

Alt Text support for all website images

Make your event website more accessible and search-friendly.

Alt Text support has officially arrived in Zoho Backstage, helping you build more inclusive and discoverable event websites. Whether you are aiming for WCAG compliance or looking to improve your site's SEO performance, this feature ensures your visuals are both beautiful and meaningful.

Every time you upload an image in the website builder, you will now see an Alt Text field in the right-side panel. It comes with a default value of “image,” but you can and should replace this with a custom, descriptive phrase that accurately represents the image. This allows screen readers to convey the content to visually impaired users and gives search engines better context to index your site.



For bulk management:
  • Navigate to Settings > Customize Text > Alt Text (available on all paid plans). You’ll see a preview of each image, making it easy to update values at scale. Multilingual sites are fully supported—you can switch languages and refer to the source-language Alt Text while entering translations.
For a spreadsheet-based workflow:
  • The Event Website - Alt Text sheet is now part of the language export file. Update it in bulk and import it back into Backstage to instantly reflect the changes across your website.
Whether you're optimizing for discoverability or inclusivity, this update ensures your event content is both meaningful and compliant.

Plan availability: Included in the Free, Essentials, Prem​ium, and Ultimate plans

Register companion tickets anytime (Early access)

Give attendees more flexibility for their guests.

Attendees can now register companion tickets anytime after they purchase their main ticket, as long as their ticket includes the companion benefit. They simply log in to your event website and add companion tickets from either Your Orders or Your Tickets.

From Your Orders:
  • Navigate to Your Orders > Event Tickets > Register Companions. This takes them to the ticket selection page to complete the registration.
From Your Tickets:
  • Navigate to Your Tickets > Register Companions. This also directs them to select and confirm companion tickets.
Each companion ticket will appear as a separate order on the website, linked to the main ticket ID. On your end, the companion registration is also tracked as its own order, keeping everything clear and organized.


We’re just getting started.

The updates you see today are only part of our bigger vision to make Zoho Backstage more flexible, reliable, and rewarding for every organizer. In the second half of 2025, we’ll roll out more practical enhancements and thoughtful tools to help you handle change smoothly, deliver better experiences, and run every event with more confidence.

Thank you for being with us on this journey. Stay tuned, because there is more to come.

Note: All the features and enhancements mentioned in this article are available across all Zoho Backstage-supported data centers.

If you have any questions or would like to try out our early access features, feel free to contact us at support@zohobackstage.com.

    Access your files securely from anywhere







                            Zoho Developer Community





                                                  Use cases

                                                  Make the most of Zoho Desk with the use cases.

                                                   
                                                    

                                                  eBooks

                                                  Download free eBooks and access a range of topics to get deeper insight on successfully using Zoho Desk.

                                                   
                                                    

                                                  Videos

                                                  Watch comprehensive videos on features and other important topics that will help you master Zoho Desk.

                                                   
                                                    

                                                  Webinar

                                                  Sign up for our webinars and learn the Zoho Desk basics, from customization to automation and more

                                                   
                                                    
                                                  • Desk Community Learning Series


                                                  • Meetups


                                                  • Ask the Experts


                                                  • Kbase


                                                  • Resources


                                                  • Glossary


                                                  • Desk Marketplace


                                                  • MVP Corner






                                                            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 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

                                                                                                            • Unable to enable tax checkboxes

                                                                                                              Hi Zoho Commerce Support, I'm writing to report an issue I'm having with the tax settings in my Zoho Commerce store. I've created several tax rates under Settings > Taxes, but all of them appear with the checkbox disabled. When I try to enable a checkbox,
                                                                                                            • Does Zoho Learn integrate with Zoho Connect,People,Workdrive,Project,Desk?

                                                                                                              Can we propose Zoho LEarn as a centralised Knowledge Portal tool that can get synched with the other Zoho products and serve as a central Knowledge repository?
                                                                                                            • Zoho Commerce - Enable Company Name and Tax Number collection for B2B orders in Global Edition

                                                                                                              Please enable Company Name and Tax Details option on checkout settings in Zoho Commerce Global Edition. It is still important to collect Company Name and Tax Number for B2B sales in many countries. My business is based in Ireland (in the EU) and I have
                                                                                                            • ZohoSign and ZohoBooks Integration/Workflow

                                                                                                              Hello All, We utilize ZohoSign for signatures on tax eFiles. We utilize Dynamic KBA. Additionally, we use ZohoBooks for invoicing for these services. Is there a way to accomplish the following: Send a copy of the Tax Return, Invoice and eFiles in one
                                                                                                            • Manage monthly tasks with projectsf

                                                                                                              Hi All I run a finance and operations team where we need both teams to complete monthly tasks to ensure we hit our deadlines. Can Zoho projects be used for this. There many finance focused tools but we have Zoho one so want to explore Thanks Will
                                                                                                            • Zoho Suite is very slow

                                                                                                              Since today Zoho is incredibly slow over all applications! What's going on?
                                                                                                            • Field Dependency Not Working on Detail Page in Zoho Desk

                                                                                                              Hi Support Team, I’ve created field dependencies between two fields in Zoho Desk, and they are working correctly on the Create and Edit layouts. However, on the Detail page, the fields are not displaying according to the dependencies I’ve set — they appear
                                                                                                            • Is anyone else having trouble saving a custom image in their email signature, or is it just me?

                                                                                                              When I try to save the image I get an error that says "Operation Failed" I opened a support ticket two weeks ago and received a response that it would be debugged, but it still isn’t working
                                                                                                            • Combine and hide invoice lines

                                                                                                              In quickbooks we are able to create a invoice line that combines and hides invoices lines below. eg. Brochure design         $1000 (total of lines below, the client can see this line) Graphic Design           $600 (hidden but entered to reporting and
                                                                                                            • Option to Disable Knowledge Base Section in Feedback Widget Popup Hello Zoho Desk Team

                                                                                                              Hello Zoho Desk Team, How are you? We are actively using Zoho Desk and would like to make more use of the Feedback Widget. One of the ways we implement it is through the popup option. At the moment, the popup always displays the Knowledge Base section,
                                                                                                            • Transaction Locking with the dynamic date

                                                                                                              Is it possible to dynamically update dates on transaction locking. We want to lock transaction x days from today
                                                                                                            • Zoho Devops

                                                                                                              We have a Zoho one account which we have integrated with an SAS educational product, sold on a subscription model, using webhooks and API calls. We make some use of custom fields and cross module lookups and relationships. We utilize CRM, Books and billing
                                                                                                            • Fuel up your sales with the Zoho SalesIQ + Bigin integration

                                                                                                              Hi everyone! We’re happy to bring you the all-new Zoho SalesIQ + Bigin integration. With this, every prospect from your website instantly becomes a contact in Bigin, complete with transcripts and follow-up tasks, so you never lose a lead again. Let's
                                                                                                            • Dealing with API responses where integers have more than 16 digits

                                                                                                              Hi there How do I deal with an api response contaning an int or float with more than 16 digits (before any decimal places for a float). I constantly receive the response "Unable to cast the 'BigInteger' value into a 'BIGINT' value because the input is
                                                                                                            • Add a 'Log a Call' link to three dot icon in Canvas

                                                                                                              Hi, There's a three dot element when creating a canvas called 'More'. I would like to modify this to add a link that says 'Log a Call' in order to quickly record the details of a cellphone call. I'd also like this to be a simple 'contact' selection and
                                                                                                            • Collaps Notes

                                                                                                              There are times when long/large notes are added to a record i.e. Accounts or Deals etc. Currently, the full note is displayed in the notes related list section. It would be great if by default only 5 to 10 rows of the note are displayed when the note
                                                                                                            • Introducing AI-powered Assessments & Zoho's native LLM, Zia

                                                                                                              We’ve shipped a cleaner, faster way to create assessments in Zoho Recruit. 🚀 Instead of manually building question banks or copying old templates, you can now generate ready-to-use assessments in just a few clicks, all tailored to the role you’re hiring
                                                                                                            • Ability to Reset Visitor Fields During an Active Chat Flow

                                                                                                              Hello Zoho SalesIQ Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to propose a feature enhancement to Zoho SalesIQ regarding the management of visitor fields within Zobot flows. Use Case: Our bot asks the visitor to provide information about a 3rd person
                                                                                                            • The Social Wall: August 2025

                                                                                                              Hello everyone, As summer ends, Zoho Social is gearing up for some exciting, bigger updates lined up for the months ahead. While those are in the works, we rolled out a few handy feature updates in August to keep your social media management running smoothly.
                                                                                                            • External ID in Zoho CRM

                                                                                                              Hello everyone! We know that Zoho CRM allows you to integrate third-party apps and manipulate data through APIs. While you integrate a third-party application, you may want to store the third-party reference IDs in Zoho CRM's records. To meet this need
                                                                                                            • New in Zoho Chat : Search for contacts, files, links & conversations with the all new powerful 'Smart Search' bar.

                                                                                                              With the newly revamped 'Smart Search' bar in Zoho Chat, we have made your search for contacts, chats, files and links super quick and easy using Search Quantifiers.   Search for a contact or specific conversations using quantifiers, such as, from: @user_name - to find chats or channel conversations received from a specific user. to: @user_name - to find chats or channel conversations sent to a specific user. in: #channel_name - to find a particular instance in a channel. in: #chat_name - to find
                                                                                                            • Aggregating the First Value in the Group By of a dataset

                                                                                                              Hi I am trying to get the following Aggregate Formula to work in my chart, but cannot seem to get the right format. I have a series of data that I am running an include_groupby and want to SUM only a column in the first row of each group. So for example.
                                                                                                            • New in Cadences: Option to Resume or Restart follow-ups when re-enrolling records into a Cadence, and specify custom un-enrollment criteria

                                                                                                              Managing follow-ups effectively involves understanding the appropriate timing for reaching out, as well as knowing when to take a break and resume later, or deciding if it's necessary to start the follow-up process anew. With two significant enhancements
                                                                                                            • Is it possible for contacts to "Re-enter" a workflow in Zoho Campaign?

                                                                                                              We are currently working on a way to automatically add users to from one list to other lists based on specific criteria, but can't seem to find a native way of doing this so we are trying to use Workflows to do this. So, for example, if a user's status is set to "Active," then they should be added to the list "Active Users." If the same user's status is then set to "Paused," they should be added to the list "Paused Users" and removed from the list "Active Users." This works fine for the first go
                                                                                                            • Admin Control Over Profile Picture Visibility in Zoho One

                                                                                                              Hello Zoho Team, We hope you are doing well. Currently, as per Zoho’s design, each user can manage the visibility of their profile picture from their own Zoho Accounts page: accounts.zoho.com → Personal Information → Profile Picture → Profile Picture
                                                                                                            • How can I track which zoho users are actively using Zoho CRM

                                                                                                              I have several licenses of Zoho CRM. We now need to add a new user. I could purchase a new license, but before I do, I would like to see if any of our existing users are not actively using the license assigned to them. How can I determine the activity
                                                                                                            • Seriously - Create multiple contacts for leads, (With Company as lead) Zoho CRM

                                                                                                              In Zoho CRM, considering a comapny as a lead, you need us to allow addition of more than one contact. Currently the Lead Section is missing "Add contact" feature which is available in "Accounts". When you know that a particular lead can have multiple
                                                                                                            • Track Zoho Campaign and Workflow sales impact

                                                                                                              I am attempting to measure the performance of our marketing workflows and campaigns by comparing the date each campaign was sent to a contact with the purchase date of the contact. For example, if Contact A was sent Email A on 9/1 and made a purchase
                                                                                                            • Zoho / Outlook Calendar sync

                                                                                                              The current Marketplace -> Microsoft -> Meetings integration needs 2 changes. 1. The current language for the Two-Way sync option should be changed. It currently states, "Sync both your Zoho CRM Calendar and Office 365 Calendar meetings with each other."
                                                                                                            • Tables for Europe Datacenter customers?

                                                                                                              It's been over a year now for the launch of Zoho Tables - and still not available für EU DC customers. When will it be available?
                                                                                                            • What is a line break code for zoho?

                                                                                                              Hi, I am archiving data by adding values from a single line field from one form to a multi-line field in another form. So I need a code/function that starts a new line on that multi-line field so it does not just keep adding it on the same line. Example, doing something like this means that it will be on a same line. archive.field1 = archive.field1 + input.Field1 I need a code so the input.Field1 can just start on the next line. Instead of "value 1, 2,3,4,5" It will be: "1 2 3 4 etc.".  something
                                                                                                            • Automatic Project Owner change

                                                                                                              Is there a way to change Project Owner automatically once a specific Milestone in a project is marked as completed. Different Teams are working on projects in our Org, they have their own Milestones to complete and so we transfer the project from team
                                                                                                            • Button to add product to cart

                                                                                                              Is there a way to have a button on a page, that when clicked, will add Qty 1 of a product to the cart?
                                                                                                            • Problem with Submit Button Design

                                                                                                              I have made a template to apply to my forms and under the button controls, I have it set to "standard" and yet it's still filling the container. This is super frustrating and looks weird. Why do we not have full control over button size? How can I fix
                                                                                                            • Zoho CRM- Authorize your Microsoft Teams account issue

                                                                                                              Hi, I tried to link Zoho CRM with Teams and I got the following message: Clicking "Authorize now" sent me to the following page, Microsoft tried to start a session but, after 3 seconds the page closed and nothing happened. I get the same message each
                                                                                                            • Passing the CRM

                                                                                                              Hi, I am hoping someone can help. I have a zoho form that has a CRM lookup field. I was hoping to send this to my publicly to clients via a text message and the form then attaches the signed form back to the custom module. This work absolutely fine when
                                                                                                            • Is there a way to associate an email in ZOHO Main to a Vendor record in ZOHO CRM

                                                                                                              My situation is as below, I have a vendor in ZOHO CRM lets say "Vend A" and an associated contact, "Cont A" If Cont A sends me an email using the email I've registered in the contact record the standard OOTB email sync will work. But the vendor has some
                                                                                                            • Adding a developer for editing the client application with a single user license

                                                                                                              Hi, I want to know that I as a developer I developed one application and handed over to the customer who is using the application on a single user license. Now after6 months customer came back to me and needs some changes in the application. Can a customer
                                                                                                            • Kaizen #207 - Answering your Questions | Advanced Queries using COQL API

                                                                                                              Hi everyone, and welcome to another Kaizen week! As part of Kaizen #200 milestone, many of you shared topics you would like us to cover, and we have been addressing them one by one over the past few weeks. Today, we are picking up one of those requests
                                                                                                            • Présentation de SecureForms dans Zoho Vault

                                                                                                              Soyons francs : demander à quelqu’un de transmettre un mot de passe ou des informations sensibles n’est jamais une tâche facile. On attend, on relance, parfois de nombreuses fois. Et quand l’information arrive, elle se retrouve souvent dispersée dans
                                                                                                            • Next Page