Hello Everyone!

The second half of May marked a new beginning. The old Zoho CRM UI finally has a retirement date, Zoho Projects is now accessible right inside Teamspaces, and the community came up with some noteworthy workarounds that you won't want to miss.

Let's get into it!

Zoho Projects can now be added directly into any Teamspace, allowing teams to manage records and project tasks simultaneously without switching back and forth between apps. Both client projects tied to your accounts and internal initiatives run right alongside your CRM modules. This feature is currently rolling out in a phased manner, starting with the Standard Edition customers on the US Data Center. The post walks through how it works, real use-cases for different team types, and the full setup guide.

You can now enable multiple LLMs simultaneously inside Zia's Record Assistant. A new dropdown menu inside the Record Assistant lets your team switch between active models instantly to compare AI responses or pick a different model on the fly. This multi-model compatibility also extends to the Execute Prompt action within the custom buttons. Finally, Smart Prompt has been renamed to Models under Zia Setup!

If you or your team are still on the old UI, this is your heads-up. The old interface is officially retiring on July 15, 2026, and everyone will be automatically moved to the Next Gen UI. You don't have to wait for the deadline, though. Switching early gives your team time to get comfortable before it's mandatory. The new UI brings Teamspaces, Team Modules, Connected Records, Connected Workflows, dark mode, and a lot more. The post has everything you need to make the transition smooth.

Zoho CRM Ultimate comes with a specialized version of Zoho Analytics Premium built in. If you already have a separate, standalone Analytics subscription, this update clarifies exactly what happens when you buy or upgrade your CRM. Lower tiers get upgraded, Enterprise stays as is, and standalone Premium tiers retain their full features. Crucially, the bundled Analytics is strictly scoped to CRM data, meaning you can no longer integrate other services like Zoho Books or Inventory without an add-on or an Enterprise upgrade. It is definitely worth a quick read if you use both tools.

@Sign wanted to decline specific line items on a quote without marking the whole deal as lost, allowing their team to track which products get removed most often. @Sarwan Singh and @Qscript Software Pvt Ltd suggested adding a custom "Line Status" field to each line item to mark it as Accepted or Declined. This keeps the full quote intact in the CRM for reporting while a Zoho Writer template filters out the declined items so customers only see what was accepted. @Haiku Technical Support also noted that while you could technically achieve this natively by coding a custom HTML inventory template, the Zoho Writer method is the most practical way to go.

Zoho CRM allows up to 5 aggregate fields across the subforms in a module, and once you've used them all, standard formula fields can't pull any more subform data. @Damien ran into exactly this. @Amit Prabhu shared a Deluge function that calculates the sum automatically and updates a regular field whenever the parent record is saved. @Haiku Technical Support offered an alternative for cases where you just need a visual summary, using a Client Script or a Related List Widget to show the live calculations on-screen without storing the data.

Every field change, every stage move, every ownership transfer is logged in your Deal's timeline, but extracting that data for reporting, audits, or offline review has always required manual effort. This Kaizen introduces a custom function triggered by a button on the Deal detail page that fetches the complete timeline using the v8 Record API, smartly handling pagination for long running histories. It formats the data into HTML, converts it into a clean PDF via Zoho Writer, and automatically attaches it back to the Deal, with a bonus CSV export script included in the repository for spreadsheet users.

A user cannot move a record to the next stage and asks why. The admin spends ten minutes decoding nested AND/OR conditions in Blueprint setup. This Kaizen ends that back-and-forth. Using the new Zoho CRM REST API source in Queries, you can build a Blueprint Criteria Viewer right on the record detail page that shows users exactly which nested conditions are blocking them, without ever leaving the record.

And with that, we wrap up this May's Zoho CRM Community Digest. Caught something cool we missed, or have a favorite from this edition? Drop it in the comments! We'd love to hear from you.

If you haven't already, don't forget to check out Part 1 of the May Digest to explore the earlier updates and discussions from the month and complete the roundup. We'll be back with more updates and community gems. Until then, stay tuned!