Zoho CRM Blueprint 3.0 — What's in store for you!

Zoho CRM Blueprint 3.0 — What's in store for you!

Hello everyone,

We hope all of you are doing well. We are excited to let you know that we have launched a set of useful enhancements in Blueprint. Here is a rather elaborate post on what those enhancements are and what to expect. Feel free to get back to us with any questions you may have.

Summary of enhancements:

  1. SLAs now support automated actions apart from existing default email alerts.
  2. "Same-state looping" has been introduced.
  3. The During Transition settings now let you mandate Tags.
  4. Introducing Automatic Transitions (Early access only*):
    Avoid process delays by automatically pushing records from one state to another after the passage of an acceptable time period.
  5. Introducing Mass Inclusion/Exclusion of records (Early access only*):
    Whether you want to include records into a Blueprint or take them out of one, you can now do so in bulk.

1. Automated actions now supported in SLAs.

SLA or Service Level Agreement in Blueprint, is a setting that enables you to keep a track of records that are falling behind in a process. How is this done?

By triggering a standard escalation alert to yourself or your team members, whenever a record has rested in a particular Blueprint State for more than a defined period. This way, you can take note of records that have stalled within a Blueprint and take further action on them before further delay.

Now in addition to standard email alerts, you can also now configure custom email notifications, tasks, field updates, run a custom function, or trigger a webhook as part of automated actions in SLAs.

For example, let's say that as per your process, you want to be alerted whenever a record has stayed in the Negotiation State for more than 5 days. For this, apart from the the default email alert you can choose to automate a field update where a field called "Urgency" gets updated from "Mild" to "Severe" whenever a record has stayed in the Negotiation state for more than 5 days. Later you can filter out records for which the urgency is severe and prioritise their transitions first.

2. Same-state looping

A process often contains steps which you have to attempt multiple times for it to be successful. A typical example would be an attempt to contact a customer. In order to gather their requirements you will have to call them. But often they may be unavailable or may ask you to call later. Unless you speak to them you cannot go to the next stage, so you have to stay in the same State until they answer. However your staying in the same state doesn't also mean you did not do your job — you just have to try multiple times until you are successful.

In such cases, you can now create a transition that "loops back" to the same stage. The From and To state is the same. For example, in the following deal follow-up process, you can use the "Retry contacting" transition infinite number of times, until you are successful in which case you will select Customer Available and progress further.

3. Mandate tags in the During Transition settings

You may now mandate tags as part of the During Transition section of a Blueprint. The transition owner would then be prompted to enter a value for tags in order to complete the transition.

4. Automatic transitions

Automatic transitions have been introduced in Blueprints, to help you combat process delays. Often, a record that traverses through a process tends to stagnate in a particular state and you may not even realise it. This causes unwarranted delays. One thing you can certainly do is set an SLA for the state and be notified whenever there's an escalation.

But ultimately, SLA is also a notification or a task/field update of sorts— the record at the end of the day, needs your manual intervention in order to progress further in the process. If you only want to be notified of escalations, you may configure SLAs. On the other hand, if you want the system to act and automatically move a record from one state to another at any point, you can now create automatic transitions.

So what are automatic transitions and how do they work?

An automatic transition is one in which a record in a Blueprint automatically moves from one state to another, after a specified "Wait" time has elapsed.
As per the process, in order for a record to go from State A to State B, you will have to perform a Transition A. If this Transition A has not been executed within a said time period, say, 5 days, then the Automatic Transition configured for that state will get executed and the record will be pushed forward automatically to another state in the Blueprint as per the configuration.

For instance, in the following screenshot, CRM will wait for one of the transitions to take place: Either "Confirm Interest" or "Drop deal". If no action is taken on this record until a said date, the record will be moved to the "Price Quote" stage automatically and the users can take it up from there.


To configure an automatic transition

Select the Automatic Transition checkbox as you create a regular transition.

Then, mention a "Wait time" and corresponding automated actions.

According to the following screenshot, the deal follow-up process flow has a handful of major steps to be performed before a price quote can be drafted — namely, Contact establishment, qualification, needs analysis and value proposition. If a particular deal has moved to the "Contacted" stage but the user has not taken the action required for Qualification, Blueprint will wait for 5 days and directly move it to the "Id.Decision Makers" state. From there the user concerned can take over drafting a price quote.



A price quote cannot be created without knowing requirements, contact details etc, so there the action items from previous states can also be done altogether at this point, without wasting any more time.

5. Mass Inclusion and Exclusion of records to a Blueprint

While creating a Blueprint for a module, you have the option to specify entry criteria. When you specify one, only records that meet these criteria can go through with the Blueprint.

Well, an important point to note is, only records that henceforth meet the criteria can go through with the Blueprint. So what about existing records? How can you get already existing records that qualify for the Blueprint into the Blueprint.

That is where the mass inclusion of records come in. With this enhancement, you can easily include a bulk of records by specifying your desired criteria. All you need to do is go to Bulk Include > define conditions to pull out the records you have in mind > click Include.

Also, if you have the need to "exclude" records in bulk from an existing blueprint, you can filter them out in a similar way.

When is it ideal to include/ exclude records in bulk?

  • Bulk inclusion: When you have created a new Blueprint and you have existing records that qualify to enter the Blueprint, you can include them in bulk.
  • Bulk exclusion: When you want to push records from one Blueprint to another, or you want to disassociate the records from a Blueprint altogether.
We hope you find these updates useful. If you have any questions or suggestions on this subject, please let us know by commenting below.

(*) Early access: Automatic Transitions and Mass inclusion/exclusion of records are early access features which will be enabled for those who have request them. This will be done in batches. 

If you are interested in gaining early access to these two features: SUBMIT YOUR REQUEST HERE. 

Further reading: 


    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

                                                                                                            • Zoho Integration with UPS

                                                                                                              I have 2 questions: Firstly, is there a way to notify UPS that we have a package to collect once we have done the shipping label? Secondly, how do I get the tracking number and shipment method onto the Invoice and Package Slip for the customer? Than
                                                                                                            • Cannot log in to IMAP account as of last night

                                                                                                              Hey I've been using MFA with an authenticator for a while and have had to use application passwords for Outlook and Edison Mail on my Android devices. Last night the app passwords started to be rejected on my Android devices so I created new ones for
                                                                                                            • Low Stock View

                                                                                                              We use the Low Stock view frequently as a guide to inform us when to reorder items, but the view is misleading because it does not take into account Purchase Orders that have already been raised. Unless you are aware and check item by item, this can lead
                                                                                                            • Improve History Feature in Zoho Inventory

                                                                                                              At present there is a "history" tab on Zoho Inventory Items, however this only shows a date and time stamp along with the users name. It doesn't say what was changed. What is the value of this if you can't see what was changed? My Ideal is to include
                                                                                                            • Payroll and BAS ( Australian tax report format )

                                                                                                              Hello , I am evaluating Zoho Books and I find the interface very intuitive and straight forward. My company is currently using Quickbooks Premier the Australian version. Before we can consider moving the service we would need to have the following addressed : 1.Payroll 2.BAS ( business activity statement ) for tax purposes 3.Some form of local backup and possible export of data to a widely accepted format. Regards Codrin Mitin
                                                                                                            • Show backordered items on packing slip

                                                                                                              We send out a lot of large orders, and often there are one or two things backordered. How can I fix the packing slips to show quantity ordered  & quantity packed There should also be the ability to "ship" 0 of an item so the receiver knows that things
                                                                                                            • Document | Files

                                                                                                              The vendor "Partial matches" still not fixed here after years of putting up with having to select most vendors manually ! ( again, the banking "Transaction rules" would solve a lot of these issues ) Some unwanted, irrelevant pdf's also arrive. It would
                                                                                                            • books+POS+ tap to pay+ stripe

                                                                                                              So in the UK we now have tap to pay with stripe. So we can use the stripe app as a POS terminal. Brilliant news. Can we hope that the Books App might add this feature ASAP. It would be great to have one system rather than using the not very good Square
                                                                                                            • Canvas Form View - Client Script Page on load - Url params not working

                                                                                                              We have a custom module with a canvas page for form view. We have a button in Customers module to open this canvas page using invokeurl function. We send few parameters as in the URL as query parameters. https://crm.zoho.in/crm/orgxxxxxxxx/tab/CustomModule12/create/canvas/64333200000261xxxx?layoutId=643332000002605001&c=${Customers.Customer
                                                                                                            • Sending Recruit SMS's to Zoho Cliq - Or tracking in the Messages module in Recruit?

                                                                                                              Is there any way to send SMS Gateway messages in Recruit to ZOho Cliq? We use 2-way SMS massages a lot in Zoho Recruit to speed up communication with Candidates. However the only way to keep track of received SMS's is by keeping a look out for the Email
                                                                                                            • This mobile number has been marked spam. Please contact support.

                                                                                                              Hi Support, Can you tell me why number was marked as spam. I have having difficult to add my number as you keep requesting i must use it. My number is +63....163 Or is Zoho company excluding Philippines from their services?
                                                                                                            • Zohomail does not support additional fields in mailto links

                                                                                                              Hello, I set up Zohomail as default composer in Firefox according to manual here: https://www.zoho.com/mail/help/defaultcomposer.html#alink2 Later, I wanted to use this functionality to answer in a Linux mailing list thread using mailto link: mailto:xxxxx@kernel.org?In-Reply-To=%3C727o0521-q24p-s0qq-66n0-sn436rpqqr1p@example.com%3E&Cc=xxxxx%example.org&Subject=Re%3A%20%5BPATCH%20v2%28%29
                                                                                                            • Is it possible to set a customer context variable in Zobot

                                                                                                              Hi, I want to use a context variable to route users down different paths in my Zobot chat flow. I know I can do this when the user enters data. But I want to know if I can use a variable that is 'hard coded' on the card, that the user is unaware of. Use
                                                                                                            • Cannot change Blog Title

                                                                                                              There is nowhere to change the blog title. You can change the blog URL but that is making no difference to the text "Enter Your Post Title" am I missing something?
                                                                                                            • Pending Sales Order Reports

                                                                                                              Pending sale order report is available for any single customer, Individual report is available after 3-4 clicks but consolidated list is needed to know the status each item. please help me.
                                                                                                            • Kaizen #203 - Answering Your Questions | Handling API Limits and Error Responses

                                                                                                              Hi Everyone, Welcome back to yet another post in the Kaizen Series! We appreciate your keen participation in the 200th milestone celebration of the Kaizen series. We will continue to answer the queries we received through the feedback. When working with
                                                                                                            • How to verify website ownership with google search console

                                                                                                              Hi, I am having a free .in domain provided by Zoho I have created a website on it now I want to verify my ownership to google webmaster. Can you please help me how to do that.
                                                                                                            • Kaizen #89 - Color Coding using Client Script

                                                                                                              Hello everyone! Welcome back to another exciting Kaizen post. Today let us see how you can apply color codes to the List and Detail Pages of Zoho CRM using Client Script. Need for color code in Zoho CRM When you mark things with different colors as a
                                                                                                            • "SPF record exceed the allowed limit of 10"

                                                                                                              Hi, I was wondering if there were a "universal Zoho SPF record" that would allow all my configured Zoho services that email things to meet this limitation ? or do I have to have an entry for mail, com, billing, etc?
                                                                                                            • Zoho Mail android app update: Block & reject future emails, Report phishing, Spam alerts, Suspicious URL detection

                                                                                                              Hello everyone! In the most recent Zoho Mail Android app update, we have brought in support for the following features: Block & reject future emails Report Phishing Spam alerts in the mail details screen. Suspicious URL detection. Block & reject future
                                                                                                            • What is Resolution Time in Business Hours

                                                                                                              HI, What is the formula used to find the total time spent by an agent on a particular ticket? How is Resolution Time in Business Hours calculated in Zohodesk? As we need to find out the time spent on the ticket's solution by an agent we seek your assistance
                                                                                                            • Animated GIF Images in Chat

                                                                                                              I know this seems to be a small feature request but in a recent Cliq update Zoho disabled autoplay for animated GIFs posted in Cliq conversations. We think this was not a good change. In our organization, animated GIFs in a chat play a role in expressing
                                                                                                            • I can't seem to login in to Mail Apps of MacOS /IOS

                                                                                                              Hi, i'm having trouble in signing in to mail apps from IOS. It's always come back to wrong passwords. But i already changed my password like 3 times. But still it says wrong credentials
                                                                                                            • Profile Image Showing Incorrectly in Zoho Mail

                                                                                                              Hi everyone, I’m facing a serious issue with Zoho Mail. The profile image showing for my email address is incorrect — it’s not my image. When I send an email to my Gmail account, it displays someone else’s image. This looks very suspicious and can make
                                                                                                            • I need access to my old email

                                                                                                              I need access to my old email bromzeman@zoho.com to verify it for forwarding. I can’t access the inbox to get the confirmation code. Please assist with recovery or forwarding. as you might already know, they made alot of the email addresses to have that
                                                                                                            • Set Defaults for Email Groups

                                                                                                              Is there a way to set defaults for all of the groups that I establish as a moderator? For example, I want every group I establish to have the following settings: 1. Moderator is <user> 2. User is <user>, <user> 3. Notifications for new group turned
                                                                                                            • LOGS FOR RECEIVED MAIL ( READ DATE & TIME)

                                                                                                              In Zoho mail we can extract the read logs of received mails so that we can see when we have read the mail and at what time & we have read it.
                                                                                                            • Domain verification probem

                                                                                                              Hello, i use a domain from Namecheap with hosting from Cinfu when i try to verify my domain on zoho i get "TXT Verification failure" i even tried the HTML verification and the code appears but also giving me the verification failure error.
                                                                                                            • Switching to Cloudflare email routing from Zoho Mail

                                                                                                              Hello, I'm currently working on migrating from Zoho Mail to Cloudflare's email routing solution. This requires changing MX and TXT records for our custom domain - when we do this, will our users still be able to log into their accounts and access an archived
                                                                                                            • Un Subscription Button

                                                                                                              How can i Add the Un Subscription Button in Zoho mail
                                                                                                            • Documents unable view and need to downlad

                                                                                                              I can't view .doc files in Zoho mail unless I download them, but I can view PDF files without downloading.
                                                                                                            • we encountered a problem while sending your email. please try again later.

                                                                                                            • Adding and removing people from groups

                                                                                                              We're having problems adding people to a group. Apparently Zoho has one email address and will not recognize a different email address.
                                                                                                            • MAIL SEARCH IS NOT WORKING

                                                                                                              THIS ISSUE HAS BEEN BUGGING ME SINCE MORNING, PLEASE RESOLVE THIS AT THE EARLIEST
                                                                                                            • URL Parameter on Help Center SIgn in link

                                                                                                              Is it possible to add a url parameter to the sign in link on the Help Center?
                                                                                                            • migrating from HelpScout

                                                                                                              I am attempting to import a conversation file from helpscout into desk and am receiving size errors. What is the current file size restriction. Does anyone have any tips for a successful migration?
                                                                                                            • Layout Rules Don't Apply To Blueprints

                                                                                                              Hi Zoho the conditional layout rules for fields and making fields required don't work well with with Blueprints if those same fields are called DURING a Blueprint. Example. I have field A that is used in layout rule. If value of field A is "1" it is supposed to show and make required field B. If the value to field A is "2" it is supposed to show and make required field C. Now I have a Blueprint that says when last stage moves to "Closed," during the transition, the agent must fill out field A. Now
                                                                                                            • Article Name Sorting in Zoho Desk Knowledge Base (agent / admin side)

                                                                                                              Dear Zoho Desk Support, We are writing to request an enhancement to the Knowledge Base management feature within Zoho Desk. Currently, there is no option to sort articles by their name, which significantly hinders efficient article management, especially
                                                                                                            • How to parse JSON data with SQL in Zoho Analytics?

                                                                                                              Hi all, I have a column with JSON data. I want to show this column in a chart, but it is very messy, and no JSON parsing function is supported on Zoho Analytics. data example: {"id": 5, "status": "false", "date": "15/10/22"} what I want to do in SQL is
                                                                                                            • Ability to turn off "Would you like this amount to be reflected in the Payment field?" message

                                                                                                              Team, Is there any way to turn off the message" Would you like this amount to be reflected in the Payment field?" when I make a payment? This is so annoying. This happens EVERY TIME I put an amount in the Payment Made field.
                                                                                                            • Next Page