Kaizen 216 - Actions APIs : Email Notifications

Welcome to another week of Kaizen!

For the last three weeks, we have been discussing Zylker's workflows. We successfully updated a dormant workflow, built a new one from the ground up and more. But our work is not finished—these automated processes are operating in a vacuum.

What happens when a high-value deal is finally flagged, or a new social media post is published? How does the team know to take the next crucial step? How does the system connect with your team? Through Automatic Actions-the vital link between automation and people.   

The actions include:

1. sending email notifications
2. assigning tasks to users
3. updating fields
4. communicating with third-party applications by sending instant web notifications, etc.

In this post we will focus on Email Notifications.

After bringing structure and visibility to workflows using the custom admin dashboard, the system administrators at Zylker seek to include Workflow Actions so that details of the actions associated with each workflow can be managed from the dashboard itself. Including Email Notification details to Zylker's dashboard ensure the right people receive clear, actionable email alerts at the perfect moment.

This update to the dashboard will allow system admins to:

1. audit the existing email notifications,
2. create new email notifications,
3. update existing email notifications, and
4. clean up inactive and unwanted email notifications.

STEP 1: Discover and audit existing email notifications

To get details of email notifications in the system the admins use GET email notifications API. This gives us the required information about email notifications in the system. 

Request URL: 

GET {api-domain}/crm/v8/settings/automation/email_notifications

Response JSON: 

{     "email_notifications": [         {             "template": {                 "name": "VP Alert - High Value Deal",                 "id": "6660682000001292005"             },             "reply_to_address": {                 "resource": {                     "id": "5843104000000424686"                 },                 "type": "user"             },             "created_time": "2025-02-26T14:35:51+05:30",             "lock_status": {                 "locked": false             },             "editable": true,             "module": {                 "api_name": "Deals",                 "id": "6660682000000002181"             },             "related_module": null,             "deletable": true,             "recipient_count": "3",             "source": "crm",             "created_by": {                 "name": "Alex Rivera",                 "id": "6660682000000501002"             },             "feature_type": "workflow",             "modified_time": "2025-07-06T16:15:58+05:30",             "associated": true,             "name": "VP Alert - High Value Deal",             "modified_by": {                 "name": "Alex Rivera",                 "id": "6660682000000501002"             },             "id": "6660682000000000353",             "from_address": {                 "resource": {                     "id": "5843104000000424686"                 },                 "type": "user"             }         },    //more records omitted for brevity     ],     "info": {         "per_page": 200,         "count": 2,         "page": 1,         "more_records": false     } }

STEP 2: Create new email notifications

The admin seeks to create a new email notification when a deal is lost. For creating the email notification first the admin should create an email template in Zoho CRM. 

Lost Deal Email Template

For creating an email notification, admin uses Create Email Notification API.

Request URL: 

POST {api-domain}/crm/v8/settings/automation/email_notifications

Input JSON: 

{   "email_notifications": [     {       "template": {         "name": "Lost Deal",         "id": "5843104000006629014"       },       "module": {         "api_name": "Deals",         "id": "5843104000000002181"       },       "related_module": null,       "feature_type": "workflow",       "bulk_email": false,       "recipients": {         "to": [           {             "details": {               "api_name": "${!Deals.Owner}",               "id": "5843104000000002555"             },             "type": "merge_field"           },           {             "details": {               "api_name": "${!Deals.Owner.Reporting_To}",               "id": "5843104000000256015"             },             "type": "merge_field"           },           {             "resource": {               "name": "Patricia Boyle",               "id": "5843104000000424672"             },             "type": "user"           }         ]       },       "name": "LostDealNotification"     }   ] }

Response:

{     "email_notifications": [         {             "code": "SUCCESS",             "details": {                 "id": "5843104000006646001"             },             "message": "alert created successfully",             "status": "success"         }     ] }

Key Fields:

1. Basic Fields

1. name: A unique identifier for your notification (e.g., "LostDealNotification")
2. feature_type: Set to "workflow" for automation-triggered notifications from workflow. 
3. template: The ID and name of the email template you created earlier
4. module: The ID and API_name of the module this  email notification applies to.
5. bulk_email: bulk_email field indicates whether the email notification will be sent a single mass email with all recipients displayed. When this key is set as true, you can add recipients in CC and BCC

2. Recipients 

The recipients object determines who receives the notification. The possible recipients to an email notification are indicated by the to, cc and bcc keys. These  type field inside these keys indicate the type of recipient, with possible values including merge_field, group, role, role_and_subordinate, territory, territory_and_subterritory, emails, user (applicable for team modules), and profile (applicable for team modules).

You can use three main strategies to add recipients:

1. A. Dynamic Fields (Merge Fields) 

           Use "type": "merge_field" to dynamically pull email addresses from the record:

{   "type": "merge_field",   "details": {     "api_name": "${!Deals.Owner}" // Sends to the deal owner   } }

1. B. Specific Users or Groups or Roles or Territories

          Use these options to send notifications to specific people

{   "type": "user",   "resource": {     "id": "5843104000000424672"  // Patricia Boyle's user ID   } }

1. C. Direct Email Addresses

          Use "type": "emails" for fixed email addresses:

{   "type": "emails",   "details": {     "emails": ["customer.success@zylker.com"]   } }

STEP 3: Updating an email notifications  

Zylker noticed a troubling pattern in their sales analytics. They were experiencing a much higher deal loss rate compared to the same period last year. The management brought in Mark Stevens, a Sales Strategist who specializes in analyzing lost deals. His first request was simple: "I need to see every lost deal as it happens to spot patterns in real-time."

Rather than creating new work flow rules or actions, the admin simply updates the existing email notification for lost deals to include Mark.

Request URL to update the lost deal email notification: 

POST {api-domain}/crm/v8/settings/automation/email_notifications/5843104000006646001

Input JSON: 

{     "email_notifications": [         {             "recipients": {                 "to": [                     {                         "details": {                             "api_name": "${!Deals.Owner}",                             "id": "5843104000000002555"                         },                         "type": "merge_field"                     },                     {                         "details": {                             "api_name": "${!Deals.Owner.Reporting_To}",                             "id": "5843104000000256015"                         },                         "type": "merge_field"                     },                     {                         "resource": {                             "name": "Patricia Boyle",                             "id": "5843104000000424672"                         },                         "type": "user"                     },                    {                         "details": {                             "email": ["mark.stevens@zylker.com"]                         },                         "type": "emails"                     }                 ]             }         }     ] }

Response:

{     "email_notifications": [         {             "code": "SUCCESS",             "details": {                 "id": "5843104000006646001"             },             "message": "alert updated successfully",             "status": "success"         }     ] }

After analyzing two weeks of lost deal notifications, Mark identified a pattern in the lost deals: over 80 percent of the recent losses were concentrated in the one industry - healthcare. He found that healthcare prospects consistently raised concerns about HIPAA compliance and data security protocols and that Zylker's sales team were not addressing them effectively. He made suggestions to train the sales team so that they can confidently address these specific requests.

STEP 4: Deleting email notifications  

Any unwanted or redundant email notification can be deleted using Delete Email Notifications API.

Request URL to delete an email notification: 

DELETE {api-domain}/crm/v8/settings/automation/email_notifications/5843104000006645001

Request URL to delete multiple email notifications: 

DELETE {api-domain}/crm/v8/settings/automation/email_notifications?ids=5843104000006645001,5843104000006645002

However, notifying alone is not sufficient. It should be followed with actionable tasks. In the next post, we will explore Workflow Tasks APIs.

We hope that you find this post on Actions - Email Notifications APIs useful. If you have any feedback, or if there are any pain-points that you would like us to address in our Kaizen series, please let us know in the comments, or reach out to us via support@zohocrm.com. 

Previous Kaizen : Kaizen #213 - Workflow APIs - Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 | Kaizen Directory

• Topic Participants

• Mable Mary M P

  

• Sticky Posts

• Kaizen #198: Using Client Script for Custom Validation in Blueprint

  Nearing 200th Kaizen Post – 1 More to the Big Two-Oh-Oh! Do you have any questions, suggestions, or topics you would like us to cover in future posts? Your insights and suggestions help us shape future content and make this series better for everyone.

• Kaizen #226: Using ZRC in Client Script

  Hello everyone! Welcome to another week of Kaizen. In today's post, lets see what is ZRC (Zoho Request Client) and how we can use ZRC methods in Client Script to get inputs from a Salesperson and update the Lead status with a single button click. In this

• Kaizen #222 - Client Script Support for Notes Related List

  Hello everyone! Welcome to another week of Kaizen. The final Kaizen post of the year 2025 is here! With the new Client Script support for the Notes Related List, you can validate, enrich, and manage notes across modules. In this post, we’ll explore how

• Kaizen #217 - Actions APIs : Tasks

  Welcome to another week of Kaizen! In last week's post we discussed Email Notifications APIs which act as the link between your Workflow automations and you. We have discussed how Zylker Cloud Services uses Email Notifications API in their custom dashboard.

• Kaizen #216 - Actions APIs : Email Notifications

  Welcome to another week of Kaizen! For the last three weeks, we have been discussing Zylker's workflows. We successfully updated a dormant workflow, built a new one from the ground up and more. But our work is not finished—these automated processes are

• Recent Topics

• Email Insights included in Bigin emals are marked as SPAM everywhere

  Today I noticed that email recipients who use Office 365 never receive emails sent from Bigin. Further examination showed that all Email Insights links in email headers are marked as spam/phishing by Office 365. Example screen included. The problem is

• How do I import Connected Records for a Deal?

  Can you point me to an example of the CSV file that would add related records to an existing CRM Deal? I imported a Deal, then tried importing a connected record using a unique ID that references the Deal ID, but it doesn't attach it to the Deal rec

• File Upload Field in Zoho Forms Not Updating Existing File in Zoho CRM

  Hi everyone, I’m trying to understand the behavior of a file upload field mapped from Zoho Forms to Zoho CRM. Scenario There is a File Upload field in a Zoho CRM module. A Zoho Form also has a File Upload field, which is mapped to that CRM field. When

• Zoho Training

  Greetings! I am trainer. My focus area is Project Management and MS Project. I have used Zoho CRM to a good extent. Though, I was interested in using ZOHO projects, as there were no live projects, I could not take it up for studies. Recently a client

• Detailed list of scoring rules in Zoho CRM

  Good morning Zoho community, warm greetings The reason for my message today is that I have a problem with my CRM, which I will explain below: Our organization has scoring rules designed to rate our potential customers or leads in the application based

• How to create a summary document from Projects details

  Hi, Our team is creating many projects inside Zoho Project. When closing a project, they write a summary document containing data from the projects it-self (understand project budget, customers, etc...), and editable (ie the document is either a Writer

• Host in US Data Centre

  I humble apply to be registered on US Data centre

• convert the project to templet

  i have some deployment ME product for different customer , i need to create a fixed template for use it rather then keeping creating this template every time

• Best practices for managing Project Charters, Business Case and RAID logs within Zoho?

  Hello everyone, I’m currently refining our PMO setup within Zoho Projects and I’m curious how others are handling high-level governance documentation. We’ve been using the standardized Project Charter, Business Case and RAID frameworks from projectmanagertemplate.com

• Work Orders / Bundle Requests

  Zoho Inventory needs a work order / bundle request system. This record would be analogous to a purchase order in the purchasing workflow or a sales order in the sales cycle. It would be non-journaling, but it would reserve the appropriate inventory of

• Izettle or Sumup Integration for Zoho Books.

  The Stripe & Square clearing works great in Zoho Books. Any further integrations planned in the future for Izettle or Sumup? These card processors are very common for taking payments with a card reader.

• Trying to access records in a custom module in Zoho Desk and not having luck

  I've built a custom module in Zoho Desk and am using a custom function to query the records in the module and I'm not having any luck. The only way I have found to retreive a record is by getting it by its recordID (the long zoho assigned one). The function

• ZOHO Books Smart Accounting Software for Travel Agency

  Dear Travel partner, Contact for Travel Agency Accounting Setup & Training Vansh Travel (ZOHO Books Authorised partner) Email: info@vanshtravel.com Mo: +91 98984 95155 Please find PDF   

• 452 Mailbox delivery restricted by policy error

  We have been testing Zoho desk for about a week now and have been forwarding emails in via an Exchange Online Mail flow rule without issue until yesterday. Suddenly yesterday morning we started getting the vast majority of the emails stuck in Pending

• Send Email reply on behalf of Agent

  Hi, When using the send email reply via the API I can set the reply on behalf of the customer by using impersonatedUserId in the header of the API call. Is there a way to do this for Agents too? I need to be able to send an email reply on behalf of an

• Sharing Tickets to a team within a department

  Hi there, We have a need for one department to be able to share tickets to a specific team within a department, I'm wondering if this is possible? All the shared tickets are going into the 'Shared Tickets' view for the whole department but is there a

• Automatic Department and Employee Sync Between Zoho One and Zoho People

  Dear Zoho Support, I'm writing to propose a valuable feature request that would streamline data management and improve user experience within the Zoho ecosystem: automatic synchronization between departments and employees in Zoho One and Zoho People.

• Maximum limit of bank accounts

  I'm currently setting up Zoho Books in order to migrate at the start of our next financial year (April) and while adding bank accounts I've tried to add a second account from the same bank and receive an error about the maximum limit of bank accounts.

• Unable to load a specific image

  Hi I am trying to upload an svg file, which reports that there is "a problem with the file", but does not say what sort of problem. I can't find anything which says which files are supported, so it may be it does not support svg. (which would be a real shame) The file itself will open in either Firefox or Chrome without problem. For the moment I am using a png file, which does not zoom well of course. David

• Why does the Address field show the wrong map location even with a correct Pincode?

  I am noticing an issue with the Address field map in Zoho Creator. When I enter a city name that exists in multiple locations within the same state, the map sometimes points to the wrong area even if I have entered the correct Pincode. Currently, it seems

• Archive Option in Conversation View

  Hello, I have a suggestion\request to add an "Archive Thread" button in conversation view of Zoho Mail. The best suggestion I have is to put an "Archive Thread" button next to the "Label Entire Thread" button in conversation view. Most users don't just

• Outlook/Hotmail Blocking Zoho SMTP IPs (S3150)

  We are currently facing a serious deliverability issue with Zoho SMTP while sending transactional OTP emails for our production application. Emails sent to Outlook / Hotmail addresses are being rejected with the following error: 550 - 5.7.1 Unfortunately,

• Outlook is blocking incoming mail

  Outlook is blocking all emails sent from the Zoho server. ERROR CODE :550 - 5.7.1 Unfortunately, messages from [136.143.169.51] weren't sent. Please contact your Internet service provider since part of their network is on our block list (S3150). It looks

• Zoho Social API for generating draft posts from a third-party app ?

  Hello everyone, I hope you are all well. I have a question regarding Zoho Social. I am developing an application that generates social media posts, and I would like to be able to incorporate a feature that allows saving these posts as drafts in Zoho Social.

• Temporarily rate limited due to IP reputation.

  We have suddenly started receiving the following Mail Delivery Status Notification: Diagnostic-Code: 4.7.650 The mail server [136.143.184.12] has been temporarily rate limited due to IP reputation. For e-mail delivery information, see https://aka.ms/postmaster

• IMPORTANT: It doesn´t search for letters with portuguese characters.

  Some of my articles have for example the word "vídeo". But if I search for "vídeo" it doesn´t find them. If I search for "video" it does find them. Idealy, it should find the articles either way. But if I have to choose, it would be better to find the

• IMPORTANT: It doens´t show full article name on search - Should add line break

  When we search for articles, it doesn´t show the full name. There should be a line break so the user can see the full article name, otherwise the user can´t know if that´s the article he/she is looking for. This is very important, otherwise the user has

• Zoho Books - Payment Gateway - Revolut

  Hi Books Team, My feature request if to include the popular platform Revolut as a payment collection option on invoices in Zoho Books. Please upvote if you are also looking for this option.

• Zoho Books | Product updates | January 2026

  Hello users, We’ve rolled out new features and enhancements in Zoho Books. From e-filing Form 1099 directly with the IRS to corporation tax support, explore the updates designed to enhance your bookkeeping experience. E-File Form 1099 Directly With the

• Kaizen #233 - Generating AI-powered Follow-up Emails Using CRM Functions and Widgets

  Hey everyone! Welcome back to another interesting post in the Kaizen series! Sales teams regularly capture interaction notes in CRM after speaking with prospects. However, drafting a follow-up email that reflects the conversation context can be repetitive

• Connect Bank in Zoho Books

  Can I connect UOB or Ariwallex in Zoho Books?

• Using MPN across multiple SKUs and inventory tracking

  I have several different SKU's that share a common MPN and would like to track inventory by MPN. SKU1 has MPN1 assigned SKU2 has MPN1 assigned Here is an example If I start with 5 of MPN 1 in stock I want each SKU1 and SKU2 to show as 5 in stock, If I

• Marketing Tip #1: Optimize item titles for SEO

  Your item title is the first thing both Google and shoppers notice. Instead of a generic “Leather Bag,” go for something detailed like “Handcrafted Leather Laptop Bag – Durable & Stylish.” This helps your items rank better in search results and instantly

• Feature Enhancement Request – Text Formatting Options in Item Description (Zoho Books/Quotes Module)

  Dear Zoho Development Team, Greetings from Radiant360 Integrated Technical Services LLC. We would like to bring to your attention a functional limitation we've encountered within the Item Table / Quote Description section of Zoho Books (and Zoho CRM Quotes).

• ZOHO Books Query

  Good day, Can someone please advise. I recently migrated from ZOHO Invoice to ZOHO Books. No that I want to use the inventory on Books I cant as all my items have transaction history. The person I spoke to at ZOHO said I need to create a new Company profile

• Best way to schedule bill payments to vendors

  I've integrated Forte so that I can convert POs to bills and make payments to my vendors all through Books. Is there a way to schedule the bill payments as some of my vendors are net 30, net 60 and even net 90 days. If I can't get this to work, I'll have

• inventory removal at packing list or shipment.

  currently our system is set to remove inventory at invoice. This is creating an inventory nightmare? Is it possible to change the settings to remove the item from inventory at either the packing slip stage or shipping the item.

• How to add employee and not invite them to log in?

  I want to add 50 employees, but invite them only when everything will be configured and ready. Is it possible? Should we create employee profiles and then convert them later? Thank you,

• Any Offline Developing Environements or IDE's for Zoho Creator

  Hi there, Is there any offline developing environment for zoho creator like the Eclipse for sales force.com? So that i could make my development faster. Its taking a laot of time to write save and verify the code in Zoho Creator online. Thanks in advance

• How is Your eCommerce Experience w/Zoho Inventory?

  First off, I'm SUPER grateful for the advent of Zoho Inventory and now the Zoho Commerce Suite. Overall, Inventory is a great product, especially for customers without an eCommerce presence. For eCommerce companies (especially those shipping more than ~10 packages/day), however, there are certain drawbacks that keep my clients from moving over to Zoho Inventory: Cons: 1. Invoice + Package Creation from Shopify/Other eCommerce Integrations: Zoho Inventory makes the somewhat perplexing decision to

• Next Page