You can redesign the interface of record detail pages and list view pages using Canvas. You can ensure the interface presented to a user is relevant to that user's work and dynamically styled based on the data present in a record. This goes a long way in increasing adoption and usage as the users have an interface that is easy to learn and more usable than the standard design available in the CRM.
Your organization cannot unlock these benefits immediately after redesigning the interfaces. The changes have to be carefully validated and tested in realistic conditions to ensure they assist users instead of being superficial changes that get in their way.
In Zoho CRM, you can test your Canvas pages in the sandbox environment before deploying them in the production environment. By testing the interface before rolling it out to all end users, you can iron out the kinks and issues in a safe environment with a smaller set of users. This ensures a smooth transition from one interface to the next for your users.
To learn more about Canvas, see:
Customizing Record Detail page using Canvas Customizing List Views using Canvas To learn more about sandbox, see:
Sandbox overview.
Scenario
In a manufacturing company located in a bustling city, a CRM administrator noticed that she was receiving a lot of complaints about usability. Speaking with users across different teams, she realized many of them were finding it hard to quickly get the information required to do their jobs.
As the company was becoming more data-driven, they were collecting a lot of data which was stored in different modules. However, the data-intensive record detail page was hard to navigate for all teams. The admin collaborated with a small group of users from different teams to design and test new interfaces.
Users from the sales, marketing, customer service, finance, and legal teams shared their needs and challenges with the admin. Listening attentively, the admin used Canvas to craft customized list view and record detail pages to meet their requirements. Using the sandbox feature, the user group tested the interfaces, evaluating usability and efficiency. Their valuable feedback guided the admin in refining the designs.
After several iterations, the admin and the user group felt confident in the interfaces' effectiveness. Seamlessly deploying the redesigned pages from the sandbox into the live environment, they were able to improve the usage of the CRM across teams and were soon getting requests for further changes to the different pages.
Availability
Users with the Manage Customization permission can create Canvas pages.
Users with Manage Sandbox permission can deploy Canvas-related changes to the production environment.
When you are creating a sandbox:
- In the Create New Sandbox pop-up, if you choose All in Configurations Available in Sandbox , Canvas will be included.
If you choose Selected in Configurations Available in Sandbox , you'll have to select Canvas in the Items availability in Sandbox pop-up.
Once your sandbox is created, you can go to the newly created sandbox and navigate to Setup > Customization > Canvas.
Note
Your existing Canvas pages, presets, reusable components, images, Canvas assignment, and Canvas rules at the time of sandbox creation will also be available in the sandbox.
Once you've tested out the different Canvas-related options, you can deploy them to production. To do that, perform the following steps:
- Go to Setup > Data Administration > Sandbox.
- Click on the sandbox from which you want to deploy the Canvas-related changes.
In the Change Set list, select the Canvas-related change items (available under components like Canvas Detail view , Canvas Assignment , and so on).
- Click Deploy Changes to Production.
- In the Start deployment pop-up, click Yes, Proceed.
Idea
Before you deploy an update to an existing Canvas detail page view or a list view, you can see the difference between the sandbox version and the production version. To do this:
- Go to Setup > Data Administration > Sandbox.
- Click on the sandbox from which you want to deploy the Canvas view.
In the Change Set list, hover over the Canvas-related change items and click See Difference.
Note
- The different Canvas-related entries in the change set are:
- Record detail page
- List view page
- Custom list view
- Tile view
- Table view
- Canvas assignment
- Canvas rule
- Reusable components
- Presets
- Images
- On rebuilding a sandbox, un-deployed Canvas-related changes will be lost.
- When deploying a Canvas-related change, the following conflicts could arise:
- Limits reached in production.
- Same name exists in production.
- Required configuration is not present in the live environment.