Meta's pricing change took effect on October 1, and it reaches Zoho Social too. Non-template replies sent within the 24-hour customer service window are now charged at the recipient's market rate, with no volume discounts. The first 1,000 service messages per WhatsApp Business phone number each month are free, and charges are handled through Zoho Social credits, so check you have enough to cover them.

No more switching to Books to act on a transaction. The actual Books record page loads as an embedded view, so you can submit, approve, or reject invoices, apply a retainer, update shipping information, and see item-level details, all from the CRM record. Anyone synced between the two products with approval permission in Books can approve or reject directly from CRM. Because CRM no longer maintains its own copy of those buttons, new Books capabilities now appear there as soon as they ship in Books.

Zoho Key Service (ZKS) lets you enable OpenAI or Anthropic with a toggle, with Zoho managing model access through a built-in credit system rather than you handling external API keys and third-party billing. Organizations get complimentary credits by edition: 6,000 on Ultimate, 4,000 on Enterprise, and 2,000 on Professional. OpenAI is available to everyone now, with Anthropic rolling out in phases. The Models page has also been reorganized into Internal LLMs, ZKS, and BYOK (bring your own key) sections.

Previously the system would flag records with matching images but leave you to manage them one by one. Now you can act directly in the module: merge up to two records into a master record, or mark one as unique so that pairing stops resurfacing. Useful when Zia's face matching flags two people who simply look alike. Available in the US and JP data centres on Professional and above editions.

The latest Android update brings three changes. In the composer, you can drag and drop email addresses between the To, Cc, and Bcc fields, and copy an address by tapping it and using the copy icon on the contact card. In Calendar, Google Meet is now available as a conference option when you create, edit, or view an event.

Healthcare recruiters verifying nursing licenses have had to switch systems, check the license, then record the result back in the ATS (applicant tracking system). The Nursys integration does it from the candidate record: enter the license details, click Verify License via Nursys, and the status comes back into Recruit automatically, with every request tracked in a dedicated Nursys Licenses module. It's a beta for US recruiters only, available on request rather than from the Marketplace, and you'll need an institutional Nursys account with API access.

For service teams operating in shifts, knowing who is on the clock is the difference between a synchronized team and a chaotic scramble. Create named shifts with defined hours, time zones, and day-by-day customization to handle different rotations. Assign users with start and end dates, and overlapping assignments get flagged instantly. When scheduling, a toggle excludes anyone outside their shift hours so dispatchers only see who is actually available, and shift windows show up across the Dispatch Console's Gantt, Grid, and Calendar views as well as in attendance records. Plenty more in the full post.

When the CRM and Desk integration is set up with two-way sync, you can now carry a product's associated contacts and accounts across, not just the product information itself. That gives support agents the customer context behind a product when a ticket comes in, and sales the same picture after purchase. You'll need to select the option to sync customer associations on the CRM integration page.

When you're across multiple projects, or a release depends on several of them, checking each board separately is tedious. Global Board View puts every work item in your workspace on one kanban board. Group columns by status, progress, assignee, or tag, add swimlanes to break each column down further, and drag an item to a new column to update its field value. An item summary shows the total count with estimation points, so you can gauge workload at a glance.

The Trips and Advances modules have been tidied up. List pages now switch between a compact view for scanning and a card view for detail, with advances pending addition to a report behind their own filter rather than buried in the dropdown. History on a trip or advance now describes what changed, when, and who did it. You can bulk archive instead of working one at a time, a banner on the details page points to your next step, and itineraries take preferences per leg, including meal, seat, and flight class.

What was a simple activity log is now built for enterprise compliance. Basic mode stays on by default and captures user actions, while Advanced mode, enabled per form, also logs Deluge scripts, API calls, form emails, and workflows. Log entries now show the device an action came from and the before-and-after values of every field, and records deleted within a set window can be restored straight from their log entry. Reports can be filtered to exactly what you need and arrive as password-protected ZIPs, with change audit data now retained for three years on paid plans, up from one.

What if a tap, scan, or click was all it took to go from meeting someone to having them in your CRM? Zoho TouchPoint is a digital identity platform built around exactly that, through NFC cards, digital business cards, dynamic QR codes, and interactive email signatures. Each one points wherever you choose, whether that's your profile, a lead capture form, an appointment page, or a survey, and the contacts and leads collected can be pushed straight into CRM. Analytics then track taps, scans, clicks, views, and form submissions so you can see which touchpoints are actually working. Available in the US, IN, AU, CA, and EU data centres.

That's your September Part 4 wrap-up, and that's a wrap on September! Drop a comment on what stood out for you this month, and we'll see you in October!

Missed an edition? Catch up on Part 1 (September 1–7), Part 2 (September 8–15), and Part 3 (September 16–24), or browse the full Zoho Community Digest archive.