Tips and Tricks #19: The 3 C's of Data in Zoho Subscriptions

With Zoho Subscriptions, your customers can sign up for a plan by entering their details in the hosted payment pages. By default, customers will be required to enter certain basic contact information like their name and billing details. This information will be used to create new customers and subscriptions automatically in Zoho Subscriptions.

However, your business requirements may vary, and you might need additional information from your customers when they sign up. This can easily be achieved using custom fields. But, what if you had created a custom field just for internal use? Who'd be able to view these fields?

In this post, we'll help you understand how the custom fields you create can be viewed by you, your customers and your application. 

1. How you see your data

Let's say you create a custom field called "Customer Rating" and your business process hinges on this custom field. In this case, it's important that you have easy access to this field. Fortunately, with Zoho Subscriptions' column customization options, you can choose to display custom fields in a module's list view, thereby letting you view your custom fields without having to perform additional clicks. Column customization is available for the Customers , Subscriptions , Invoices and Credit Notes modules.

To do this, click the column customization icon in the list view of supported modules.

Apart from column customization, you can also tailor-make views for particular needs by creating custom view filters. These filters can be based on custom fields. The filters that you create can be shared with everyone in your staff or only with certain users and roles, based on your preferences.

Click the view filters dropdown, above the list view of a module and click + New Custom View. 

2. How your customers see your data

The custom fields that you create should only be shared with your customers on a need-to-know basis. For example, if you have a custom field called "Loyal Customer", you might not want to display it to your customers on their invoices.

In this section, we'll take a look at how and when you can show/hide custom fields for your customers in various places like hosted payment pages, the customer portal and your invoice templates. 

Hosted Payment Pages

Using custom fields in hosted payment pages is a great way to collect additional data from customers, right when they sign up to your service. To do this, go to Settings > Preferences > Customer > Custom Fields > + New Custom Field. Make sure to enable the Show in Customer Portal/Hosted Page option.

Now, the custom field will be visible to your customers in the hosted payment pages. 

Customer Portal

It's important to note that enabling a custom field in the hosted payment pages will also display the custom field in the customer portal. Your customers will be able to edit custom fields in their customer portal, if you allow them to do so.

While you cannot restrict access to editing custom fields alone, you can configure whether your customers can edit their contact details, which includes custom fields, from the client portal. To do this, go to Settings > Preferences > Branding > Portal Settings. Here, check/uncheck the Allow customers to edit their information option, based on your preferences. 

Email Notifications

The email notifications that are sent to your customers from Zoho Subscriptions will not include any custom fields by default. So, if there's a custom field that's essential for your customer to see in an email, it can be done by editing the email template and adding a placeholder for the custom field.

To do this, go to Settings > Email Notifications. Here, click on a template name to edit the template and select a placeholder for the custom field from the Insert Placeholder dropdown.

Now, when the email is sent, the placeholder will be replaced with the custom field's value. 

Invoices and Credit Notes

For the same reasons that you'd include a custom field in an email notification, you can also include custom fields in invoice and credit note templates.

To do this, ensure that the Show in all PDF option is enabled while creating or editing a custom field.

You can learn more about customizing invoice templates from our help document. 

3. How your application sees your data

This section is especially for third party applications like Zapier or your own SaaS application that works with Zoho Subscriptions primarily through the powerful REST APIs.

Zoho Subscriptions can be tightly integrated with your web application by sending and receiving data through API calls, Webhooks and Custom Functions.

For example, if your customer's subscription status changes from Live to Cancelled, you can configure a webhook to deliver this information to your web application's database. This webhook will contain a payload with the Status identifier. However, your web application's status identifier may be named differently, or in a different format. This is where modifying the payload comes in handy.

In Zoho Subscriptions you can modify a webhook's payload in a format that works best with your application. To do this, go to Settings > Automation > + New Webhook. Here, you can modify the payload of your webhook in the Body section.

That's it folks, we hope you've found this post helpful. We're always looking for feedback and suggestions, so feel free to rattle off in the comments below. Until next time!

Cheers,

Varun Steven

The Zoho Subscriptions Team

• Topic Participants

• Varun Steven

• Sticky Posts

• Tip #4 : Refer and Earn Workflow system for your Subscription Business

  Hello everyone, We've been coming up with a tip every week to address specific business scenarios which can be implemented for your business. In continuation to the previous post, this week we will be seeing about how you can implement the Refer and Earn Workflow system to acquire more customers. Why are Referrals important? Customer Acquisition is crucial for any business to sustain itself in a constantly evolving market. It involves persuading new consumers to purchase your products. Customers

• Tip #2 - Cancellation of Offline Subscriptions based on the Expected Payment Date

  Hello everyone, As you all know, we are coming up with a custom function workflow every week to address specific business scenarios. In continuation of this previous blog, this week we will be seeing about Cancellation of Offline Subscriptions based on the Expected Payment Date. Business Scenario: In general, for any business, the customers make payments via online as well as offline. In case of subscription where the automatic collection of charge is enabled (aka online subscription), the customer's

• Tip #3 : Send SMS Reminders for your Subscription Business

  Hello everyone, As you all know, we are coming up with a tip every week to address specific business scenarios. In continuation to the previous blog, this week we will be seeing how you can use SMS reminders for your Subscription Business. Using SMS messages for your Subscription Business: While managing your subscription business, more often than not, you need to keep your customers informed about upcoming renewals, payment reminders and cancellations. By keeping them informed in advance, you can

• Tips And Tricks - Announcement

  Hello everyone, Every business is unique and each of them follows a specific workflow. While managing your customers' subscriptions with Zoho, you might have some needs unique to your business. Custom Functions helps you address such needs. This is a start to a series of posts, where we will be coming up with a custom function workflow every week that addresses specific business scenarios. Watch this space for further updates! Also, if you have any specific business scenario which needs to be addressed,

• Tip #6 : Accessing external URLs from Zoho Subscriptions

  Hello everyone, We have been sharing a tip every week to address specific business scenarios which you can implement for your subscription business. Last week, we shared a tip about implementing the Approval Workflow system. This week, let's look at how you can access external URLs with the help of Custom Link. Business Scenario: Every business functions differently and has its unique requirements. At times, businesses might want to access other websites or applications by appending specific information

• Recent Topics

• Test Emails Show Sent "via zcsend.net" in My Gmail Account

  I noticed the following info... However, a few email service providers such as Outlook and Gmail will display that the email was sent by zcsend.net (Zoho campaigns’ server) on your behalf instead of just your from email address.  In order to prevent this, you can go for either of these options: Do not select the check box meant for DomainKey Signature which is listed under Unverified sender domains. Include our mail servers by advanced authentication method such as SPF/ Sender ID and DomainKey/ DKIM.

• 'UnAuthenticated Connection: zbooks_connection'

  I have a zoho connection in Zoho Books, the link name es zbooks_connection, but I like to validate if exist, by example if I use this line in my code: response=zoho.books.getTemplates("", "","zbooks_connection"); But I don't  have the connection I like

• Calling the new 'Custom API' feature from within a Custom Widget

  From what I've learned it is not possible to call an endpoint from the new "Custom API" feature within a Creator Widget. The SDK's doesn't support it yet, when calling it natively you end up with CORS issues or at least I couldn't get it working even

• Cannot post to Instagram. I get the error: Insufficient permission to publish on this page. Check with your page Admin to update permissions.

  We had another admin that left the company. Since he left, we get this error when posting to Instagram.

• Zoho desk desktop application

  does zoho desk has a destop applicaion?

• Ability to re-order Workflow Rules

  We really need the ability to re-order workflow rules within departments.  Either the ability to drag/drop them into a different order or something.

• Create an article template

  I have a question concern the Knolwedge Database from Zoho Desk. There is any possibility to create an article template ? Exemple of what I research : TODAY : I want to create a lot af articles with the same baseline > I create one article > I copy/paste

• Change of Blog Author

  Hi, I am creating the blog post on behalf of my colleague. When I publish the post, it is showing my name as author of the post which is not intended and needs to be changed to my colleague's name. How can I change the name of the author in the blogs?? Thanks, Ramanan

• Zoho FSM API Delete Record

  Hi FSM Team, It would be great if you could delete a record via API. Thank you,

• Instant Messaging Update | Now migrate your WhatsApp Business phonenumber from another BSP to Zoho Desk | Dec'23

  Hi All, Everything seems to move at lightning speed these days, and time is certainly flying by for the IM team. But we are delighted at how much ground we covered this year. 🚀 For one, we enabled WhatsApp business phone number migration so that you

• Upload ticket attachments via Drag-&-Drop

  Hello, if you want to upload a file to the ticket attachment you need to click the button and use the file browser to select and upload the desired file. In many cases, it would be much more efficient if you could simply drag the file to the browser window...

• Can we disable add to cart in Zoho Commerce?

  Hello, Our sales happen on the phone. During the call the customer is directed to our website to inspect the products together with the sales rep. So we need a way to present our inventory. I figured Zoho Commerce is a good fit for this use case. However

• Introducing WhatsApp integration in Bigin

  Greetings! In today's business landscape, messaging apps play a significant role in customer operations. Customers can engage with businesses, seek support, ask questions, receive personalized recommendations, read reviews, and even make purchases—all

• Zoho One account closure vs deactivation

  I wonder what are the best practices and guidelines around deactivating vs deleting Zoho accounts in organisations? Any practical considerations?

• Schedule Zoho CRM reports only on Business Days

  Hello, Is it possible to schedule reports only on business days ? We currently get daily sales reports on weekend which has no value since the sales team doesn't work on weekends. Thanks

• How to install Widget in inventory module

  Hi， I am trying to install a app into Sales Order Module related list, however there is no button allow me to do that. May I ask how to install widget to inventory module related list?

• How to track a contact or customer's past product purchases in Bigin Premiere?

  Hello there. I am the sole user of Bigin for a small company (chess club), and would like to track current and past purchases made by a contact (player) or company (family which includes the player). Players may register for multiple tournaments, take

• LENTITUD EN RECIBIR MAIL

  Buenas tardes, Estamos experimentando lentitud en la recepción de correos electrónicos.

• Items should display under specific warehouse

  I have configured the multi warehouse but it show all the items under all warehouse which is not correct according to our business logic, so i want that items should only display under that specific warehouse not under all the warehouses not even with zero quantity. Some items should be common but not all so is there any option for that purpose so i can specific the items to its warehouse. Regards

• Partial refunds

  I am trying to process refund for a one item invoice, however the refund is partial: i am getting this error while creating credit note, can anyone share some wisdom about this

• Best practice importing items and matching assemblies

  Hi, I was wondering what would be the best practice to import items and composite items (assemblies) From my backup, what should I import first? The items or the composite items? I am on Zoho one, using inventory and books. Kind regards, Sabine

• Bulk Fill In & Edit PO/Bill/SO/Invoice

  Hello, I am adding stock in bulk on a PO, the system is automatically populating the Rate (price) and Tax from the item data. Problem is that the bill rate is different from the rate on the item data, so I have to manually erase each and enter the price.

• Items Below Reorder Point Report?

  Is there a way to run a report of Items that are below the Reorder Point? I don't see this as a specific report, nor can I figure out how to customize any of the other stock reports to give me this information. Please tell me I'm missing something s

• Cancelled Transfer order problem

  Hello, We've canceled a transfer order, and we can't add the related items to a new Transfer Order. The system tells us that the bin doesn't have the required quantity, but when we check the item, it indicates that there are 2 units in the bin. It also

• Creating a Chart from a Report

  In Zoho Analytics, is it possible to create a chart from a Pivot View report? We are looking to use Zoho Analytics to replace Excel for Sales reports and would like to be able to show both the table and the chart together.

• Client Portal ZOHO ONE

  Dear Zoho one is fantastic option for companies but it seems to me that it is still an aggregation of aps let me explain I have zoho books with client portal so client access their invoice then I have zoho project with client portal so they can access their project but not their invoice without another URL another LOGIN Are you planning in creating a beautiful UI portal for client so we can control access to client in one location to multiple aps at least unify project and invoice aps that would

• 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

• Data Import | Zoho Analytics Custom Query Window Size

  Please increase the window size for the Custom Query Data Import. It's impossible to work with such a small query window.

• Name changed in settings for mailbox but still not changed when typed in To field

  In the email account secretary@ i have updaetd the new staff members details but the old members name still appears when I type secretary@ in the To field. I cant work out where Zoho is finding the old name from. I have deleted the browser cache. If I

• Cannot add my name to my domain name

  I want to have My name@mydomain.com and it says my name is linked to another account already. Please fix it since I do not have another account.

• Establishing new Zoho email account on laptop

  Good Morning: I am very long time Outlook business user and decided to try your email service last night and had established an account. I am trying to verify my account; how do I establish my Zoho email account on my laptop? I opened the account with

• unable to send message reason 550 5.4.6 unusual sending activity

  My email account can't send message. It shows unable to send message reason 550 5.4.6 unusual sending activity detected

• how to add email to existing organization i w

  I am already registered my organization and i have an email id. I need one more email id but i can't find anywhere .i want the cheapest email id . how to add ?

• e-mail bloqueado

  Estou com meu e-mail lucas@peplus.me bloqueado, preciso desbloquear para retorno de usos em minhas atividades.

• zoho labels api not working

  We're using n8n to automte email reply using zoho api. I'm facing issue with label api. I added the required scopes but its not working. i followed zoho api documentation but didn't work. also, where do i find/how do i create zoho oauth token mentioneeed

• Desk DMARC forwarding failure for some senders

  I am not receiving important emails into Desk, because of DMARC errors. Here's what's happening: 1. email is sent from customer e.g. john@doe.com, to my email address, e.g info@acme.com 2. email is delivered successfully to info@acme.com (a shared inbox

• Streams/Shared email doesn't show up in windows trident app. It works fine on MAC. Is there any difference between 2 install ?

  I can see streams/share email boxs on my MAC version of trident app but i can't see them in windows version of trident app. Is there any difference between 2 install? I try to find setting but not able to see any setting to add stream/share email boxes.

• add zoho account

  How to add a zoho mail to previous zoho account? I have two

• Zoho Desk Mobile App Year-End Roundup - 2025

  Dear Zoho Desk users, Greetings! As you gear up for the festive season, we are excited to share a quick journey into all that is released in 2025! Zia's generative AI capabilities Zia insights can be highly beneficial in helping agents manage daily support

• Narrative 17: The role of Zia AI in customer support

  Behind the scenes of a successful ticketing system: BTS Series Narrative 17: The role of Zia AI in customer support Overview Zia in Zoho Desk is a layered AI assistant that combines generative AI, prediction, and automation to support agents, automate

• Next Page