Kaizen #96 Automatic Mail-Merge Document Creation Using Zoho CRM APIs

Efficient communication and personalized document generation are crucial for maintaining strong customer relationships in your business. Manual document generation can be time-consuming, repetitive and error-prone, decreasing productivity and customer satisfaction. You can solve this with automatic document generation by creating merged documents from predefined mail merge templates.

With Zoho CRM's mail merge templates you can create personalized documents, including forms, envelopes, and letters, by utilizing variables also known as merge fields. These templates enable you to merge data from variables, ensuring accurate information is incorporated into the documents without the need for manual data entry for each record. For additional information, please consult the guidelines on Managing Mail Merge Templates. 

In Zoho CRM, you can automate document generation using its mail merge template APIs. You can send, sign, and download customized documents automatically. 

Send Mail Merge API : To send emails to users using mail merge template. You can also attach files either as inline images or separate attachments with the email through the API.

Sign Mail Merge API : To sign and approve a merged document.

Download Mail Merge API: To download a mail merged document.

Let us discuss two use cases where these APIs are used. Assume you manage your business for a technological company, Zylker Technologies, using Zoho CRM. 

Prerequisites

• Create a connector with required scopes. For the below use cases a connector with the below scopes was created -ZohoSign.documents.ALL, ZohoCRM.modules.ALL, ZohoWriter.documentEditor.ALL, ZohoWriter.Merge.ALL, ZohoCRM.settings.mailmerge.CREATE

• For using sign mail merge API, you must initially access the Merge and Sign dialogue from the Writer UI.
  

Use Case 1: Using Mail Merge APIs for sending Letter of Intent for customers

 Let us consider a scenario where you want to send a LOI (Letter of Intent) to be signed by your customer. A Letter of Intent is a formal document that contains a preliminary agreement and commitment to move forward with the deal, outlining key terms and conditions. You can create a mail merge template for your LOI with merge fields from your Customer module. You can find mail merge templates in Zoho CRM UI under Setup > Customization > Templates > Mail Merge. Refer the below image for a sample LOI mail merge template. 

Sample Mail Merge Template for Letter of Intent

Note that the merge fields given in the mail merge template are fields from Accounts module (renamed as Customers) with additional custom fields.

You can automate sending the LOI to your customer using a custom button with an associated function for the Customers module. In this case, a custom button "send LOI" is added as shown in the screenshot below.

Screenshot of Customer module showing sendLOI button

The below function calls sign mail merge API which sends the merged letter of intent document to your customer for signing.  The customer will receive an email notification containing the document which can be signed using Zoho Sign. Sign mail merge API's response includes a Zoho Writer document link that can be used to track the signing status. In the below function, the system will send mail to the customer along with the mail-merged document for them to sign, and it will store the link to track the sign status in a custom URL field named Document Sign Details.  This field allows you to access and review the document from your record conveniently.

customerMap = zoho.crm.getRecordById("Accounts",customerId.toLong()); name = customerMap.get("Account_Name"); to_email = customerMap.get("customer_Email"); merge_template_name = "LOI"; //Replace with your mail merge template name info name; info to_email; input_json = "{'sign_mail_merge':[{'mail_merge_template':{'name':'" + merge_template_name + "'},'file_name':'letterofintent','sign_in_order':false,'signers':[{'recipient_name':'" + name + "','action_type':'sign','recipient':{'type':'email','value':'" + to_email + "'}}]}]}"; header_data = Map(); header_data.put("Content-Type","application/json"); response = invokeurl [ url :"https://www.zohoapis.com/crm/v5/Accounts/" + customerId.toLong() + "/actions/sign_mail_merge" type :POST parameters:input_json connection:"zylkercrm" ]; //Replace above connection name with your connection name info response; details = response.getJSON("sign_mail_merge").toJSONList(); link = ""; for each  detail in details { link = detail.get("details").get("report_link"); info link; } mp = Map(); mp.put("Document_Sign_Details",link); update = zoho.crm.updateRecord("Accounts",customerId.toLong(),mp); return "";

The system sends a merged document, as shown in the screenshot below, to the customer.

Final Merged Document sent to Customer

Use case 2: Using mail merge API for sending different types of SLA 

Assume that in Zylker Technologies, when you sell a product, your customer can opt for different types of after sales support . A check list field - Support Type - indicates type of support - Standard or Premium.  SLA document(Service Level Agreement) is a contract between you and your customer that defines level of service and the metrics used to measure the service.The service level provided to different customers will be different based on the kind of support they opted for and you need to send different SLA document based on this.  This can be achieved by maintaining two SLA mail merge templates. 

Similar to use case 1, a custom button can invoke the below function and in the function, a mail merge template is selected based on the type of service provided. The support_Type fields gets the value of the "Support Type" check list. Merge mail template is decided based on this field and send mail merge API is called to send the merged document. After sending the mail with appropriate mail merge template document, the function downloads the merged document and uploads it to the Attachments related list. 

Using download mail merge API, the merged document is obtained and then attached to the Contacts module with the attachFile function.

customerMap = zoho.crm.getRecordById("Accounts",customerId.toLong()); to_email = customerMap.get("customer_Email"); from_email = customerMap.get("Owner").get("email"); support_Type = customerMap.get("Support_Type"); if (support_Type == "Premium" ) { merge_template_name = "SLA_Premium"; } else  { merge_template_name = "SLA_Std"; } //Replace above merge template names with your merge template names input_json = "{'send_mail_merge':[{'mail_merge_template':{'name':'" + merge_template_name + "'},'from_address':{'type':'email','value':'" + from_email + "'},'to_address':[{'type':'email','value':'" + to_email + "'}],'subject':'Hi there','type':'attachment','attachment_name':'testdocument','message':'Big Deal'}]}"; header_data = Map(); header_data.put("Content-Type","application/json"); response = invokeurl [ url :"https://www.zohoapis.com/crm/v5/Accounts/" + customerId + "/actions/send_mail_merge" type :POST parameters:input_json connection:"zylkercrm" ]; //Replace above connection name with your connection name input_json = "{'download_mail_merge':[{'mail_merge_template':{'name':'" + merge_template_name + "'},'output_format':'pdf'}]}"; header_data = Map(); header_data.put("Content-Type","application/json"); //The merged document is stored to file_object file_object = invokeurl [ url :"https://www.zohoapis.com/crm/v5/Accounts/" + customerId.toLong() + "/actions/download_mail_merge" type :POST parameters:input_json connection:"zylkercrm" ]; //Replace above connection name with your connection name response = zoho.crm.attachFile("Accounts",customerId,file_object); return "";

The benefits of using the mail merge template APIs from Zoho CRM, which enable automated document generation, are highlighted in this article. These APIs enable the easy customization of the documents like Letters of Intent (LOIs), Service Level Agreements (SLAs), Request for Proposal (RFPs), etc. Businesses can increase efficiency, accuracy, and customer happiness by automating this procedure.

We hope you found this article useful. We will be back next week with another interesting topic. If you have any questions, write to us at support@zohocrm.com or let us know in the comment section. 

• Topic Participants

• Mable Mary M P

  

• Chad LeJeune

• Anamika Prasanth

  

• Blake Guilfoyle

  

• Pheranda Nongpiur

  

• 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

• What's New in Zoho Inventory | Q2 2025

  Hello Customers, The second quarter have been exciting months for Zoho Inventory! We’ve introduced impactful new features and enhancements to help you manage inventory operations with even greater precision and control. While we have many more exciting

• "Spreadsheet Mode" for Fast Bulk Edits

  One of the challenges with using Zoho Inventory is when bulk edits need to be done via the UI, and each value that needs to be changed is different. A very common use case here is price changes. Often, a price increase will need to be implemented, and

• Cloning Item With Images Or The Option With Images

  Hello, when I clone an item, I expect the images to carry over to the cloned item, however this is not the case in Inventory. Please make it possible for the images to get cloned or at least can we get a pop up asking if we want to clone the images as

• 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." 

• Stock count by bin location

  Is there a configuration to make a stock count by bin or area and not by product. these is useful to manage count by area Regards

• Server-based Appication API access for Social, Sites, Flow, Pages.

  Hello, I am trying to hook up API access for a number of apps and I have hit a wall trying to add these scopes to the API feed. We cannot find the correct way to list the scope for these Zoho apps; Social, Sites, Flow, Writer. Error on web-page comes

• Zoho Survey: Bulk Exporting Raw Data (CSV/Excel) from 100+ Individual Survey Projects

  Hi Zoho Community, I am currently managing a 360-degree evaluation process that involves 100+ individual survey projects (one separate survey for each employee being evaluated). I need to download the raw response data (CSV or Excel) for all 100 surveys.

• ERROR: Product type cannot be changed for Items having transactions.

  I have mistakenly added a product type as goods for an item that was a digital service. Now when HSN/SAC became mandatory, this brought my attention to this error I did. So I tried changing the product type but it displayed this error message Product

• Combine and hide invoice lines

  In quickbooks we are able to create a invoice line that combines and hides invoices lines below. eg. Brochure design         $1000 (total of lines below, the client can see this line) Graphic Design           $600 (hidden but entered to reporting and

• Include Notes in email templates for task

  Hi there,  I am setting up some automated email reminders via "setup-automation-workflow" to be send out when a task is being edited. I would like to include the "task notes" in the email. Is that possible? I do not find that field in the dropdown table when setting up the email template. Is it also possible to trigger the workflow rule when a new note is added to the task? In my opinion that should be quite essential, since a task update is often done by adding a new note to the task.... Also i

• [Free webinar] Custom domains for portals in Zoho Creator - Creator Tech Connect

  Hello everyone, We’re excited to invite you to another edition of the Creator Tech Connect webinar. About Creator Tech Connect The Creator Tech Connect series is a free monthly webinar featuring in-depth technical sessions designed for developers, administrators,

• Marking a meeting 'done'.

  I would like to somehow mark a meeting 'done' and placed under the contact's page rather than deleting it and having no record of it. Am I missing a button that does this?

• Partial payments for retainer invoices

  When a customer does not pay the entire retainer invoice there is no way to apply a partial payment. PLEASE add this function.

• Can I export to PDF in Zoho Learn

  I have seen help pages where export to pdf options are available but I do not see that option available from the application. I see that exprt is available in my free trial version but that is only to html pages. I need to be able to export my manuals

• Service line items

  Hello Latha, Could you please let me know the maximum number of service line items that can be added to a single work order? Thanks, Chethiya.

• Sending emails via Books

  Anyone else getting similar problems recently ??..... Hi, Your message to the following recipient was not delivered. Please find the details below.  Bounce Details: Bounced Address : someone@google.com Bounce Reason : other ; Status : 5.0.0 (undefined status) ; Daignostic-Code : smtp;542 someone@google.com Rejected ; Bounced Time : Sep 05, 2017 06:37 PM BST Regards, Zoho Team The email addresses were fine only a few days ago but are now being rejected ?

• PDF Generator Upgrade

  Hi Team, What will happen if I don't make any changes for existing template. Zoho just ask us upgrade but haven't tell the benefit. Zoho Corporation

• No Need To Fix Something That Is Working

  Zoho Books is a great financial tool which helps businesses to become more efficient and productive with day-to-day operations. As such, every change, upgrade, improvement needs to be carefully thought before implemented in the software and I'm sure Zoho

• Total Cost in reports showing zero

  The image below shows my issue. The column Total Cost should show the cost to our company based on hours logged and the employee's rate. For instance, if the person working on Subtask 1 is paid 20/hr, then Total Cost should display $160 ($20x8 logged

• Zoho Books (and other finance suite apps) - Retrospective Linking of Invoice and Sales Orders to Quotes.

  In some cases, Quotes and Invoies may be created sperately instead of using the convert feature. In this feature request I am asking for the Finance Suite team to consider adding a lookup field to reference the quote on Invoices and Sales Orders, or some

• Bring real app analytics into Zoho Creator apps with Zoho Apptics

  We’re kicking off the year with a release we’ve been looking forward to for a long time. After being in the works for a while, Zoho Creator and Zoho Apptics are now officially integrated, bringing in-depth product analytics directly into the Zoho Creator

• Early Access: Check Printing in Zoho Books

  Hello Everyone,   Are you constantly writing checks to pay your vendors?   We've got a great news to share with you! You can now pay your vendors by writing and printing a check directly from Zoho Books. The feature is ready and we'll be rolling it out to our customers in phases.  It is available in the  US Edition of Zoho Books and also in the Global edition, where the country is selected as USA and the currency is USD.   Here’s a summary of what’s possible:   1. Write and print a check. 2. Make

• ZohoMail's outbound webhook sends incorrect folderId and messageId

  I used a webhook (outbound) from within ZohoMail to send message details when a new message arrives that meets specific criteria. I received this data correctly. Now I want to get the attachment from this email message. When I made an api call using folder

• Use URL field to populate Image in a Email Template

  We have two records Record 1: Appointments (with a Lookup to Doctors module) Related Record 2: Doctors (with a URL field that is an image of the doctor) We would like to populate a CRM email template with the image of the URL field for the related doctor

• Ability to add VAT to Retainer Invoices

  Hello, I've had a telephone conversation a month ago with Dinesh on this topic and my request to allow for the addition of VAT on Retainer Invoices.  It's currently not possible to add VAT to Retainer Invoices and it was mutually agreed that there is absolutely no reason why there shouldn't be, especially as TAX LAW makes VAT mandatory on each invoice in Europe!   So basically, what i'm saying is that if you don't allow us to add VAT to Retainer Invoices, than the whole Retainer Invoices becomes

• Zoho Bookings Forge: A hands-on workshop series

  Hello all! We’re hosting a five-part, hands-on workshop series to help you optimize Zoho Bookings for your business. In these sessions, we’ll cover key features, practical use cases, and clear steps to get started or improve your current setup. Here are

• Delete button

  Hi, The delete button were hide into the three dot button. Can I display outside? why Zoho make this update?

• Zoho Vault CLI for Developers and Automations

  Hi everyone, If you're managing credentials in scripts, CI/CD pipelines, or automation workflows, Zoho Vault's Command Line Interface (CLI) can help you securely access and manage secrets directly from your terminal. Zoho Vault was launched in 2013 as

• Zoho Subscriptions -- Zoho Commerce integration

  Is there integration between Zoho Subscriptions and Zoho Commerce? I would like to create subscription plans in Zoho Subscritpions and list them for on my Zoho Commerce store.

• Synching changes to Stripe when changes are made in Zoho Billing

  We have a situation where we have merged customers in Zoho BIlling and then found out later that the payment in Stripe was not updated and still associated with the old customer record. The card gets updated and billed, but that payment is still associated

• How can I link Products in a Deal Subform to the Products Module

  Hello, I have a pricing subform on our Deals page and use a lookup field to associate a product with each line. I want to be able to look at a product page within the Products module and see a list of the deals connected to that product. I have this working

• Help Center and SEO: Any Benefit to My Domain-Mapped Website Ranking?

  First of, I love the Help Center which I've just decided to integrate into my website to replace its old-fashioned FAQs. So much more to achieve there now! Lots of new benefits to the site visitors and to me in terms of organizing and delivering all the

• Business Hours with lunch break

  Our business hours are: mon - fri 08:30 - 13:00, 15:00 - 18:30. How can I handle the lunch break? If I use 8:30 - 18:30 it obviously breaks SLA. Thanks

• Enable Free External Collaboration on Notecards in Zoho Notebook

  Hi Zoho Notebook Team, I would like to suggest a feature enhancement regarding external collaboration in Zoho Notebook. Currently, we can share notes with external users, and they are able to view the content without any issue. However, when these external

• Zoho Commerce

  Hi, I have zoho one and use Zoho Books. I am very interested in Zoho Commerce , especially with how all is integrated but have a question. I do not want my store to show prices for customers that are not log in. Is there a way to hide the prices if not

• Multi-currency in Zoho CRM Forecast and Reports

  As a company we have branches in 4 different countries with as many different currencies. Our Sales Teams would like to work with their local currency as much as possible. The Forecast module using only 1 currency is practically usable only by the sales

• Zoho Projects Android and iOS app update: Conditional layout rules for Tasks

  Hello everyone! Task conditional layout rules configured on the web app(projects.zoho.com) are now applied on the Zoho Projects Android and iOS app. Conditional layout rules can be set for the Add/ edit task form and it allows you to change the property

• How to account for vat with postponed VAT accounting

  Hi everyone, looking for some help with postponed VAT accounting, I use DHL express for my imports and they used to pay the VAT for me and then invoice me. I could then log this as a bill and the VAT element from import was recorded as input VAT, all

• Zoho CRM WooCommerce Integrtation

  Looking for a solution for my 50 client to show detailed analytics on source of traffic that led to events, leads, conversions. Hi all, I have not been able to find a workable guide or solution to how exactly step by step integrate the Zoho CRM with WooCommerce

• 500 internal server error on opening an iframe through a deluge script

  Hi Team I am trying to open an external url in an iframe through my deluge script which is associated to a custom button . By doing this i am getting an "Internal Server Error" . Please can you help me with this.

• Next Page