Zoho CRM: Automate using Custom Functions - An Introduction

Zoho CRM: Automate using Custom Functions - An Introduction



Hi folks!


With every growing business, the next step is what matters. Zoho CRM manages your business; makes it easy.  But say you want a little more ease in CRM, you want a tad more flexibility in a framework. For  example,  Let' s assume that a user needs to create  invoice copies of purchase orders to make accounting easier. However, this option is normally unavailable in your CRM account. So how do you do it?  Your solution: Custom Functions! 

 

What are Custom Functions?

  • Custom functions in Zoho CRM are pluggable workarounds that let you accomplish a task that is not doable out-of-the-box. 
  • They are powered by Deluge. So essentially all custom functions are written in Deluge. An intuitive drag and drop interface lets you set up your custom functions in no time.
  • They facilitate workarounds within CRM and, between CRM and other products.

#Supported Zoho CRM Editions -  Enterprise and Ultimate.


Why Custom Functions?  

  1. Custom functions provides immense flexibility and empowers you to explore alternative ways of solving a CRM problem. 
  2. They also eliminate the need to wait for a feature to be built into the product. You have more control on what you want to get done. After all, requirements differ from business to business.

How it works?

 

Without further ado, let me just give you a quick overview on what custom functions in Zoho CRM is all about.


Sample scenarios where you'd want to use Custom Functions:

  • Automatically update the address information of a contact based on the address information of the parent account.
  • Apply a discount to a particular customer if the revenue generated by the customer exceeds a certain limit.
  • Mark a deal as 'lost' if the status of the deal is not "Closed (Won)" after the closing date is passed.
  • After successful negotiation, create follow-up activities that you and your team need to do.
  • Create a project in Zoho Projects (preferably) or any third-party application when the potential is won and closed in CRM. And also, access the link from an Account or Potential record to monitor the project!

As you can imagine, the scope for custom functions is huge.  So we, at Zoho CRM are excited to bring you a series that will start with simple custom functions that help solve a few basic problems and then gradually progress to advanced functions that will work some magic into your CRM.

 

We'll be dishing out such custom functions every forthcoming week to aid you in managing your customer relations better. Rather than spend time coming up with a code to customize your CRM, you can now simply use these custom functions with tweaks required. Let's get you started.


How to get started?


Hop on to our documentation linked here for the detailed steps and the ways in which you can add custom functions.


https://www.zoho.com/crm/help/automation/custom-functions.html#Set_Up_Customfunction


So, here we go folks! We are all set to create awesome custom functions that will make your CRM proactive and efficient. We'll share a custom function every Tuesday in this section of our community. To stay notified as and when new posts and comments are made, make sure you follow this forum. We look forward to having a lot of conversations with you all around building simple, yet powerful custom functions as we go! Catch you next Tuesday!

    Access your files securely from anywhere







                          Zoho Developer Community






                                                • Desk Community Learning Series


                                                • Digest


                                                • Functions


                                                • Meetups


                                                • Kbase


                                                • Resources


                                                • Glossary


                                                • Desk Marketplace


                                                • MVP Corner


                                                • Word of the Day


                                                • Ask the Experts



                                                          • Sticky Posts

                                                          • Zoho CRM Functions 53: Automatically name your Deals during lead conversion.

                                                            Welcome back everyone! Last week's function was about automatically updating the recent Event date in the Accounts module. This week, it's going to be about automatically giving a custom Deal name whenever a lead is converted. Business scenario Deals are the most important records in CRM. After successful prospecting, the sales cycle is followed by deal creation, follow-up, and its subsequent closure. Being a critical function of your sales cycle, it's good to follow certain best practices. One such
                                                          • User Tips: Auto-Create Opportunity/Deal upon Quote Save (PART 1)

                                                            Problem: We use quotes which convert to sales orders but Users / Sales Reps do not create opportunities / deals and go straight to creating a quote. This leads to poor reporting. Implementing this solution improves reporting and makes it easier for users.
                                                          • Custom Function : Automatically send the Quote to the related contact

                                                            Scenario: Automatically send the Quote to the related contact.  We create Quotes for customers regularly and when we want to send the quote to the customer, we have to send it manually. We can automate this, using Custom Functions. Based on a criteria, you can trigger a workflow rule and the custom function associated to the rule and automatically send the quote to customer through an email. Please note that the quote will be sent as an inline email content and not as a PDF attachment. Please follow
                                                          • Function #50: Schedule Calls to records

                                                            Welcome back everyone! Last week's function was about changing ownership of multiple records concurrently. This week, it's going to be about scheduling calls for records in various modules. Business scenario Calls are an integral part of most sales routines.. Sales, Management, Support, all the branches of the business structure would work in cohesion only through calls. You could say they are akin to engine oil, which is required by the engine to make all of it's components function perfectly. CRM
                                                          • Function #37: Create a Purchase Order from a Quote

                                                            Welcome back everyone! Last week, we learnt how to calculate the total number of activities for a lead and further take note of the activity count for particular dates. For instance, from the period of Demo to Negotiation. This week, let's look at a function that lets you create a Purchase Order instantly from a Quote. Business scenario: In any form of business, one of the most important things to do is to document the transactions. Naturally, negotiation, signing an agreement, placing an order,


                                                          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

                                                                                                          • Notes and Attachments visibility can now be restricted based on profiles

                                                                                                            Dear All, We hope you're well! We are here with a quick update about Notes and Attachments profile permissions. In the past, a record's Notes and Attachments were visible by default to all users with record access. However, as notes and attachments can
                                                                                                          • Zoho webinar--hard for agencies

                                                                                                            So, this is just a dive into our use case, and why we've been disappointed in Zoho webinar. We are a small marketing agency, and we wanted to add webinars to the services we provide, as many of our clients want to learn to use them as part of their content
                                                                                                          • Celebrating Raksha Bandhan with Zoho Desk: A Bond of Trust, Protection, and Service

                                                                                                            Raksha Bandhan, celebrated across India, symbolizes the sacred bond of protection and affection between siblings. “Raksha” means protection, “Bandhan” means bond or knot: together, it represents a knot of care and security. On this occasion, we'd like
                                                                                                          • Banking > Import statements with a csv file

                                                                                                            Good morning, I am regularly using the "import statement" option to match my transactions. I've been using csv files produced by my bank online and was able to import my transactions. Until now. Thank you for your help for fixing this ! Alex.
                                                                                                          • ZOHO BOOKS - RECEIVING MORE ITEMS THAN ORDERED

                                                                                                            Hello, When trying to enter a vendor's bill that contains items with bigger quantity than ordered in the PO (it happens quite often) - The system would not let us save the bill and show this error: "Quantity recorded cannot be more than quantity ordered." 
                                                                                                          • Has anyone successfully added Microsoft Graph API Oauth2 as a connection?

                                                                                                            I'm having trouble getting Microsoft Graph API created as a connection in zoho crm. Has anyone successfully added Microsoft Graph API Oauth2 as a connection? My issue is not necessarily on the Zoho side, but understanding how to set up the Microsoft side
                                                                                                          • Syncing Timesheets between Projects and Desk

                                                                                                            All users able to see their own timelog entries from all apps in one place, synced immediately. All managers able to view total/all time entries from one place. This is something that has come up for us and multiple clients. Example: we have a client
                                                                                                          • Spell Check default language

                                                                                                            Hello All, Is it possible to set the Spell Check default language? I can't find it in the settings. Thanks a lot! Levente
                                                                                                          • Zoho Backstage 3.0 - Boostez vos événements avec des outils malins

                                                                                                            Zoho Backstage vous accompagne dans l’organisation d’événements réussis, avec des outils qui simplifient la planification, optimisent l’exécution et renforcent la connexion avec votre public. La version 2.0 a apporté une nouvelle interface, plus de flexibilité
                                                                                                          • Portal user activity reporting

                                                                                                            Aside from the metrics section in the admin dashboard, is there a way to view/create reports for portal user activity? Im looking for a more granular option to see exactly what users are utilizing the portal. Thanks!
                                                                                                          • Automation #11 - Auto Update Custom Fields with Values from Emails

                                                                                                            This is a monthly series designed to help you get the best out of Desk. We take our cue from what's being discussed or asked about the most in our community. Then we find the right use cases that specifically highlight solutions, ideas and tips to optimize
                                                                                                          • Admins to set Agents Picture

                                                                                                            Admins should not have to rely on agents to set a nice profile picture for them. Admins get the headshot pictures from HR and should be able to upload and set their picture, not rely on them to: 1) upload a picture at all 2) upload a good picture 3) upload
                                                                                                          • Time Tracking Reporting and Billing

                                                                                                            I wish for the time tracking module to be enhanced further. Currently it is independent of Support Plans and Contracts. Support Plans and Contracts are also mostly separate. We need a better dashboard of this with the ability to natively mark billed or
                                                                                                          • Enhanced Email Signature Folding

                                                                                                            We have departmental signatures setup which are great, however, when viewing ticket details, it gets very overwhelming when scrolling though threads and conversations where you scroll past ten different signatures of your own team, then ten signatures
                                                                                                          • How to add formatting in zoho.cliq.postToUser(...) message?

                                                                                                            In a CRM Deluge function, I'm trying to use the message formatting guidelines given here: https://www.zoho.com/deluge/help/cliq/posting-to-zoho-cliq.html#message-formats My message is: message: #Title text. The result in Cliq is: #Title text. (no large
                                                                                                          • How to add line breaks in zoho.cliq.postToUser(...) message?

                                                                                                            In a CRM function using Deluge I'm sending this message and attempting to add some line breaks but they are ignored. Is there another way to add these breaks? My message: message: New urgent task\nDescription \nThis is a fake description.\n A new line?
                                                                                                          • Zia Agents/End of Day Reports

                                                                                                            As a manager or owner it would be nice if Zia analyzed today's (or this week's tickets) and gave an end of the day report to management team. - what important tickets were worked on or submitted today? - what agents were unproductive today and answered
                                                                                                          • Project Cost Tracking

                                                                                                            I see there are questions/concerns that Zoho doesn't track costs to a tasks in a project. We are a manufacturer and are in the early stages of tracking costs to project. I would like to expand out the COGS Chart of accounts in Books and record costs via
                                                                                                          • How to record if the payment made is return due to transaction failed.

                                                                                                            So there is Bill of $2000, and a payments made transaction to clear the bill. The amount is actually deducted from bank account. However, a few days later, I found the bank returned only $1750 cause there are $250 bank service charge for this failed transaction.
                                                                                                          • Help Center Customization UI

                                                                                                            The customization screens for the help center needs the UI improved. It looks straight out of 2004. The Zoho Desk normal UI is great. All it takes is uniform fonts and colors across all parts of the tool... I compare this to Zendesk Guide.
                                                                                                          • Este domínio já está associado a esta conta

                                                                                                            Fui fazer meu cadastro na zoho e quando digitei meu domínio recebi essa mensagem que meu domínio estava associado a uma conta que eu nem faço idéia de quem seja. Como que faço pra resolver isso? Atenciosamente, Anderson Souza.
                                                                                                          • I need some help in Expenses Per Diem Policy

                                                                                                            this is my script written for restricting the PerDiem Components. Say if Lodging and Per Day Allowance both is selected from Per Diem Page then the report should gets auto rejected. When Im trying to executing it says the following error {"code":11,"message":"The
                                                                                                          • Adding Photos to Dashboards on Zoho Analytics

                                                                                                            I am creating a dashboard to showcase data from survey results from focus groups. I am creating a focus group participant profile tab where it is filtered by the name of the participant and showcases information about them using KPI widgets. I am running
                                                                                                          • What is the difference between Retainer invoice and Advance Payments?

                                                                                                            Retainer invoice seem like they are just advance payments with extra details. Instead of creating a Sales Order with order details, a retainer is created. It feels like they are a workaround to link advance payments with sales orders. Is there any advantage
                                                                                                          • Exporting record notes in bulk

                                                                                                            Hi team, Is it possible to bulk export the notes attached to a record? i.e to a CSV file or otherwise. Our use case is exporting all notes for our lead/account/Deal records. We have another system we'd like to import these notes to but I can't seem to
                                                                                                          • Field customization

                                                                                                            Hi Team Good day! I am a commission agent who sell and purchase goods from vendors, while in purchasing invoices I am not able to deduct the expenses such as commission and other expenses on actual amount. Kindly help me to customize the invoice based
                                                                                                          • vendors / customers with 2 different address and gst no

                                                                                                            Why can't we have option for more than one address and depending on the state option for more than 1 GST no. ? We have customers / vendors PAN india with different addresses and GST no. for different states.
                                                                                                          • Error: Invalid Element gst_no, Invalid Element gst_treatment, Invalid Element place_of_contact

                                                                                                            so i am creating a new contact post request and i want add gst infomation when amount is above 50000 and if pass gst info in request body then i get this errors > Error: Invalid Element gst_no, Invalid Element gst_treatment, Invalid Element place_of_contact
                                                                                                          • Add multiple Billing Addresses under one GST number

                                                                                                            My client owns multiple businesses in various locations but they all come under one GST. Is there a way to add multiple billing addresses for the same GST? Managing this by adding multiple Shipping addresses is not an option. The client wants the GST
                                                                                                          • Zoho Mail API - Upload Attachment

                                                                                                            https://www.zoho.com/mail/help/api/post-upload-attachments.html I followed the steps from the API documentation and wrote a backend in JavaScript to send emails. Normal emails are sent without any problems. However, I can’t send emails with attachments.
                                                                                                          • Unable to create custom fields for shipment order

                                                                                                            I'm unable to create custom fields for shipment orders, even though the custom fields are set up correctly. A request to the following endpoint: https://www.zohoapis.com/inventory/v1/settings/preferences/customfields?organization_id=${ZOHO_ORGANIZATION_ID}&entity=shipment_order
                                                                                                          • Kaizen #202 - Answering Your Questions | Testing and Using REST APIs in Widgets

                                                                                                            Hello Developers! Welcome back to a fresh week of Kaizen! Thank you for your active participation in sharing feedback and queries for the 200th milestone. This week, we will look at the following queries related to widget: Widget Testing Using REST API
                                                                                                          • Introducing the 'Send as Email' option on the Zoho Desk iOS mobile app

                                                                                                            Hello everyone! In the latest version(v2.10.2) of the Zoho Desk iOS app, we have brought in support for the 'Send as Email' option while creating a ticket. This feature enables you to reach out to the customers by sending outbound emails. The emails are
                                                                                                          • Zoho Forms Not Loading on Website – DNS Resolution Error

                                                                                                            Dear Zoho Support Team, User ID : 20069458731 We are experiencing an issue with the Zoho Form embedded on our website (https://vitel.com.tr/satis-destek-formu/). The form is not loading, and the following error message appears in the browser: “forms.zohopublic.eu
                                                                                                          • Data backup retention question/

                                                                                                            My zohocrm subscription gives me 2 full data backups per month. I have a scheduled backup configured to run twice a month. I just went to download my backup and i can't find it, it ran about 9 days ago... From what i can tell with google zoho only keeps
                                                                                                          • Basic Apple Watch App

                                                                                                            Sometimes I leave my phone behind. I will get push notifications that tickets are updated etc.. It would be nice to at least view them and do a few basic functions. reassign. public reply. private comment.
                                                                                                          • Look and Feel Uniformity

                                                                                                            Someone needs to go through the mobile app and match the look and feel of the web version. For example, it is global standard to highlight private notes as yellow background hue. Desk does that on web, but not on mobile. Mobile also has an odd blue icon
                                                                                                          • Managing two books in Zoho Books

                                                                                                            is it possible to effectively manage two separate books within Zoho Books? My organization is considering handling accounting for two distinct subsidiaries, and we would like to understand the best way to achieve this within the Zoho Books.
                                                                                                          • Display All Custom Buttons Without Dropdown on Record Page

                                                                                                            In my org's workflow we usually want to do some kind of quick action off of an individual record - i.e. of an individual contact, or individual deal. What we have always found a hindrance is the location of all custom buttons being in the drop down on
                                                                                                          • Zoho Sales Team - Extremely Slow Response Times

                                                                                                            Hi everyone, Has anyone else experienced unusually slow response times from Zoho’s sales team? I sent an email last night, and it’s been nearly 24 hours with no reply. While I understand delays can happen, this seems longer than expected for a sales inquiry.
                                                                                                          • Next Page