Overview

Operations helps to manage various functions for the Solutions and their components efficiently from one place. These operations can be used to perform actions such as backing up your data, enabling troubleshooting to resolve issues, or maintaining logs of the activities inside your solution. All three types of Solutions, listed below, have a separate set of operations for them.

• Application

• BI & Analytics

• Integrated Flows

Only super admins and admins can access the Operations page and configure its functionalities.

• You want to insert the published report consisting of the available medicines in this pharmacy in another webpage that manages a community of cancer survivors so that the information will be beneficial to them. You can obtain the embed code of this report and use it to insert the report into the other application.
  

• You want to monitor the changes to records stored in a Delivery Status form, in order to make sure there are not tampered with. You can obtain a history of any edits or deletion of these records in the target form's audit trail.

In this way, the Operations page gives you insights into your app's functionality and helps you manage various functions.

Navigate to the Operations page

You can find Operations under the MANAGE section on the left-side pane once you sign in to your Creator account. It lists the different functions or features that allow you to configure actions, analyze insights, and manage both your organization and your applications' activities.

Note: The operations for each type of the Solution will be enabled in the Operations page only when the respective Solutions have been created.

Operations for Application

Operations for BI & Analytics

Operations for Integration Flows

Note: Connections mentioned here is for BI&Analytics while Connections as a microservice is for Applications.

1.   Backup

Backup allows you to store a copy of your applications and their data periodically or when needed. Download this copy as a zip file, which will contain a DS file and few CSV files containing your application's schema and the data within respectively. Learn more

Example: Let's say you've built an app to manage your business. If there is accidental data loss from your side, you can restore the application to a recently backed up version using the backup file and get back your data.

2.   Audit Trail

Audit Trail helps you to maintain logs on the activities that happen within your app. These activities can be divided into two types of logs:

Learn more

Example: Say you are managing an IT Asset Management app. This would involve handling important data that is highly sensitive, such as the financial documents of an individual. Let's say one such record is deleted or modified by a user. Audit Trail enables you to track and review this security violation and also serves as an evidence for any unforeseen issues.

3.   Email Management

Email Management includes two configurations that can be made at account level in Creator:

• Establishing a sender email
  This involves adding and verifying a custom 'From' email address apart from the admin and logged-in users' email addresses. This email address can be used to send email notifications to your customer.
  
  Example: Let's say you've created a food delivery app called Foodbag. After the food is delivered, the customer wants to contact you regarding support-related queries. In this case, you will need a separate email address apart from the admin and logged-in user's email addresses. You can add and verify a separate email address "support@foodbag.com" through which you can address customer queries.

• Authenticating a domain
  An internet service provider (ISP) always tries to verify your email address to check if you are a legitimate source or not. Authenticating your domain makes you a legitimate source in the eyes of the ISP of a receiver when you send emails to them.
  
  Example: Let's say you've created a Zylker's Clothing Line app. You would need to send periodical automated notifications informing the customer about various deals and offers. Say the domain for this email address is "@zylker.com", but these emails go to the customer from Creator's domain "@zohocreator.com" on behalf of Zylker.
  
  The presence of two domains raises suspicion for the ISP of the receiver and it pushes your email to the spam folder. If your domain is authenticated, the customer's ISP will have no reason to doubt your identity and will deliver your email into their inbox instead of considering it spam. Learn more

4. Domain Restriction

Users having different domains are allowed to be a part of your Zoho Creator account. Domain Restriction allows you to restrict application-access only to users who belong to a verified domain (owned by your organization). So, this doesn't allow you to share an application with user who have an unverified domain. This operation acts as an added level of security for your applications. Learn more

Note: Users that have access to a permalink of a published app component can access it even if they are from a restricted domain.

Example: Say your organization has a verified domain, "@zylker.com". The application they have created deals with handling highly sensitive customer data. Therefore, they want to restrict application-access to only their organization to avoid data theft. This doesn't allow the application to be shared outside their organization. In this case, they can enable Domain restriction to ensure enhanced security.

5.  API Management

API Management allows you to enable/disable access to certain applications that use API for data transfer and other commands. An Application Programming Interface (API) is a pathway through which two applications can communicate with each other. When API access is disabled for an application, only incoming calls are detained. Learn more

Example: Let's say you are managing a Mediclaim Insurance app. This app would contain sensitive data of the patients such as their medical history, scans, and documents. Such data should strictly not be allowed to go out of the company. Therefore, the company can limit any application from accessing this information by detaining their incoming API calls through API management.

6. Blueprint Analytics

A Blueprint is used to review and track the various business stages and development cycles in an application. Blueprint Analytics enables you to get insights into the different blueprints in the form of charts. These charts will provide information such as the average duration of record actions, count of the records that entered/exited, and the overall statistics of a blueprint. Learn more

Example: Let's say you are managing a food delivery app called Foodbag. There are various stages of tracking and recording a food order. These stages are recorded in a blueprint. You want the number of orders that have successfully passed this blueprint fully for year-end statistical purposes. You can obtain this information using Blueprint Analytics.

Analyzing this blueprint using Blueprint Analytics further helps the admin to optimize the function of the blueprint by inspecting the number of records that enter a blueprint, the number of transitions in it and the aggregate of all the insights in the blueprint.

7.   Logs

Logs are documented records that are automatically generated with a timestamp attached to them. They contain data related to the actions that happen within an application such as schedules, form actions, and integrations. Learn more

Example: Let's say you've created an Order Management app that manages project orders and their delivery to the customers. If there is a problem in the backend while this order management service gets integrated with a Delivery Management company and the user cannot find what the issue is, the admin can analyze the logs and ask a developer to fix any error in the backend. This helps prevent hours of manual debugging and makes your work easier.

8. Publish

Publish allows you to enable anyone access to the components in your application. This operation can be consumed irrespective of the consumer being subscribed to Zoho Creator.

Creator has three main components - forms, reports, and pages. Publishing any of these components creates:

• Permalink - Anyone with access to the permalink can access that specific component.

• Embed code - The embed code allows a user to insert that component into any existing webpage.

Learn more

9. Form Email Data

Apart from a user accessing a form in your application to enter data, users can email you the data that is needed in your form to you. This Form Email Data can be done in two ways:

• They can follow the form's template which you would have shared with them and send in their data accordingly.

• You can make your form capture the data from their email, such as the subject, message, and any attachments.

Learn more

Note : Form Email Data is available only for .com and .eu data centers.

Example: Let's say you've created an Event Management app. A customer tries to book tickets for a music festival. In the event of a transaction failure, the customer raises a support request email enclosing the details of the Booking ID. You can fetch the details from this email and use it to create a record for this issue.

10. Marketplace

Marketplace is an integrated Zoho platform where customers can view and install applications that are created beforehand by other users and developers in the Creator platform. This eliminates the job of the customer creating a new application from scratch. They can also sift through various extensions (components that are widely used across different types of apps) and install them for their ease of usage. Learn more

Example: Let's say you want to create a generic Order Management app for your retail business. You don't have any custom specifications that need to be included in your app. In this scenario, you can install a pre-built app from Marketplace and install the necessary extensions like a Feedback Form for your app. Ultimately, this saves you a lot of time and helps you run your business efficiently.

11. Support Access

Support Access enables you to grant or revoke the application-access to the Zoho Creator support team. When you grant a developer full access to your application, they can only view and edit your application and cannot view any account-related details. You can set a timeframe during granting access after which the developer's access will be automatically revoked. Learn more

Related Topics

• Understand Solutions

• BI & Analytics

• Understand Application

• Zoho Flow Overview