Zoho Inventory Community Digest October 2020 - a monthly rundown

Zoho Inventory Community Digest October 2020 - a monthly rundown




Hello all!

Hope you're all staying safe.

This month was quite interesting. It's hard to believe it's been seven months since we started working from home officially. As we push on, we're bringing you a lot of new updates as well as our expert sessions, webinars, and more in our community Digest. Let's take a look.

1. Ask the Experts

After a number of successful Ask the Experts sessions, we're coming to you with the latest topic of discussion: Purchase Management in Zoho Inventory.
Join us during this week's session on the 29th of October 2020 with all your questions on purchasing and receiving your goods through our app. We will be glad to discuss this and any other related topic in detail to suggest the best solutions and workflows for your business.
 
2. Feature spotlight

The Backorder feature was discussed heavily on forums and in support inquiries among our customers last month.

If you don't have the right stock to fulfill a sales order, this feature comes in very handy. It will help you convert this sales order directly into a backordered purchase order, keeping your sales order 'On Hold'. Once you receive the stock, you can simply convert list the packaging and shipment details to fulfill the sales order. Click here to learn how to create a backorder, and click here to find out more about backorders and their workflows.
 
3. Productivity guides

Check out our dictionary for inventory management to stay familiar with the modern terms being used in the supply chain world. Access our inventory dictionary. 
 
4. Zoho Inventory 101
 
  • This November, we have planned a webinar to discuss:
    'Using an Inventory Management System to control inventory and grow through marketplaces'

    The agenda of the webinar will be to understand: 
    - How to grow your business by going online with multiple marketplaces
    - How to leverage an inventory management application for multichannel selling
    - The Cart Rover integration with Zoho Inventory and its benefits to make sure you can explore the range of integrations available from their team
      Register to learn more about using an Inventory Management System. 

5. Mobile app updates

  • Android App: Now your sales team can directly find a customer's outstanding payments while creating a sales order. They can access information such as the customer's outstanding receivables and invoice details without searching for this data in the Customers module.
  • IOS App: You can now access the Sales by Sales Person's reports at any time from your Zoho Inventory mobile app.

6. Product updates

We have rolled out a few features in Zoho Inventory such as:
  • Payables Summary and Payable Details reports in Zoho Inventory under the payables section. 
  • The Picklist feature in Zoho Inventory will help you create a picklist for sales orders and assign these picklists to specific users.
  • You can now showcase your Zoho Inventory product listing in Google search results from your online store with the all new Google Shopping integration. This can help you run ads, design smart shopping campaigns, view ad analytics, and switch off the ad listings automatically when the products run out of stock in Zoho Inventory.
  • The Amazon integration now follows a new data protection policy where the customer addresses in the sales orders from Amazon will be considered PII (Personally Identifiable Information) with restricted access. These addresses will be viewable once you click on the 'Show Address' button and will be available only for a period of 30 days from the date of fulfilment. Learn more about this data protection policy in our help document.
  • Warehouses and locations in a Zoho Inventory organisation can now be restricted to specific users in their accounts. This can help limit the stock movement between warehouses, sales transactions, stock details, purchase transactions and much more to the assigned user. 

7. Beta updates

  • Our UK customers in the construction industry can now use the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) in beta. Contractors can deduct money from their payment to subcontractors and pass the amount to the HMRC with Zoho Books. 
  • The Barcode Generation feature is now available in beta, allowing our users to generate barcodes for their products and manage the right templates for printing barcode labels.  
Please feel free to reach us at support@zohoinventory.com to request beta access to these features in Zoho Inventory. 
  
Thanks for reading. Watch this space for more updates and stay safe!

Cheers,
Salman Nazar
Community Manager | Zoho Inventory

      • Recent Topics

      • 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

      • Inventory "Bulk Actions" button - add more fields to "Bulk Update > Select a field"

        Can we not get a lot more actions that are commonly used by customers into the "More Actions" button on the Inventory list? More fields listed in the Bulk Update > Select A Field? Possible Bulk update Fields Preferred Supplier ( to quickly move items

      • Bulk upload image option in Zoho Commerce

        I dont know if I am not looking into it properly but is there no option to bulk upload images along with the products? Like after you upload the products, I will have to upload images one by one again? Can someone help me out here? And what should I enter

      • Function #11: Apply unused credits automatically to invoices

        Today, we bring you a custom function that automatically applies unused credits from excess payments, credit notes, and retainer payments to an invoice when it is created. Prerequisites: Create a Connection named "zbooks" to successfully execute the function.

      • Tip #60- Exploring Technician Console: Screen Resolution- 'Insider Insights'

        Hello Zoho Assist Community! Have you ever started a remote session and felt the screen quality wasn’t sharp enough for detailed work? A new user recently explored Zoho Assist after installing the trial version and running a few initial tests. While the

      • Right Moment, Right Message, Right Operator: Never Miss a High-Intent Lead

        Ever been on a website or app, thinking “Should I buy this or not?” and suddenly a friendly message “Hi! How can I help you?” pops up at the perfect moment? That’s not luck. That’s timing done right. Engaging right visitors at the right moment, with the

      • CRM x WorkDrive: We're rolling out the WorkDrive-powered file storage experience for existing users

        Release plan: Gradual rollout to customers without file storage add-ons, in this order: 1. Standalone CRM 2. CRM Plus and Zoho One DCs: All | Editions: All Available now for: - Standalone CRM accounts in Free and Standard editions without file storage

      • Zoho CRM Workflow Automation: Activate & Deactivate Workflows Using API

        Zoho has now enabled: ✅ Activate / Deactivate workflows using API ✅ Schedule workflow activation & deactivation This is extremely useful for real-world automation use cases 💡 🧩 My Use Case I created a scheduled automation that: ☀️ Activates workflows

      • {Action Required} Re-authenticate your Google Accounts to Continue Data Sync

        Hello Users! To align with Google’s latest updates on how apps access files in Google Drive, we’ve enhanced our integration to comply with the updated security and privacy standards, ensuring safer and more reliable access to your data. With this update,

      • Function #53: Transaction Level Profitability for Invoices

        Hello everyone, and welcome back to our series! We have previously provided custom functions for calculating the profitability of a quote and a sales order. There may be instances where the invoice may differ from its corresponding quote or sales order.

      • Project-Based Inventory Consumption and Proforma Invoice in Zoho ERP

        While working with customers across different industries, we have identified a few functional questions and gaps that commonly arise—especially for project-based and service-oriented businesses. Many organizations, such as those in shipping, construction,

      • [Free Webinar] Zoho RPA - OCR, PDF Automation, & More

        Hello Everyone! Greetings from the Zoho RPA Training Team! We’re excited to invite you to our upcoming webinar on the latest release updates for Zoho RPA, where we’ll unveil powerful new capabilities designed to make your automation journey smarter, faster,

      • Zobot Execution Logs & Run History (Similar to Zoho Flow)

        Dear Zoho SalesIQ Team, We would like to request an enhancement for Zoho SalesIQ Zobot: adding an execution log / run history, similar to what already exists in Zoho Flow. Reference: Zoho Flow In Zoho Flow, every execution is recorded in the History tab,

      • Global Search Settings

        I'd love a way to remove some modules from being included in the global search. This would allow use to provide a better user experience, limiting the global search to only those modules that are regularly used removing any models used for background

      • Card Location in Zobot

        Hello, when using the “Location” card in a codeless builder Zobot, the behavior in WhatsApp is inconsistent. When asking the user to share their location, they can type a message, which will return the message “Sorry, the entered location is invalid.

      • Automation Series: Auto-create Dependent Task on Status Change

        In Zoho Projects, you can automatically create and assign a dependent task when a task’s status is updated. This helps teams stay aligned, ensures reviews happen on time, and reduces manual effort. In this post, we’ll walk through an easy setup using

      • Languages in Zobot

        Hello, I have found a list of supported languages for the Zobot. The information specifies the languages are supported in the following 3 features: SalesIQ supports 34 different languages in the following features. Resources (Articles, FAQs, Small Talks)

      • Composite items inside of composite items; bill of materials needed

        Hi Zoho and Everyone, I am evaluating whether Zoho Inventory will work for my small business. I grow and harvest herbs and spices but also get from wholesalers. I use all these items to make herbal teas, but also sell them as individual items on my Shopify store and Etsy. I discovered the composite item bundling and am wondering if I could get some assistance since there is no bill of materials: Our herbal company's best selling tea is a sleepytime tea. Sleepytime Tea can be purchased in three weights

      • Action required: Reauthorizing your Google account in Zoho Sign for automatic cloud backup to Google Drive

        This is applicable to users who have already configured automatic cloud backup to Google Drive. Hi there! Google has mandated reauthorization of all preconfigured third-party integrations to ensure only the necessary scopes are shared as an improved security

      • Zoho CRM Layouts

        I have customised all our modules, Leads, Contacts and deals, and within them, I have created lots of different layouts depending on the type of Lead or contact, for example. Since the new Zoho UI came out, they have all disappeared. I have gone into

      • Streamlining E-commerce Photography with AI Background Tools

        Hey Zoho Community, I’ve been messing around with ways to make product images less of a headache for fashion brands on Zoho Commerce. You know how boring generic backdrops can get, and how much time traditional photoshoots eat up, right? I tried out this

      • WhatsApp IM in Zoho Desk always routes to Admin instead of assigned agent

        Hello Zoho Experts, I connected WhatsApp IM to my Zoho Desk account. I only assigned my Customer Service (CS) agent to the WhatsApp channel, and I did NOT include Admin in this channel. However, every new WhatsApp conversation automatically gets assigned

      • hide resolution from help centre

        to my surprise, i just found out that the resolution text is public in the helpcenter, even if 'notify customer' is off. is there a workaround to that? how do others deal with this? How zoho support does this and I don't think its used by Zoho in the first place. the resolution is meant to be private, not public

      • Zoho Analytics + Facebook Ads: Performance Alerts for Active Campaigns

        Is it possible with integration of Zoho Analytics with Facebook Ads and set up alerts or notifications for active campaigns when performance drops? For example, triggering a notification if CTR goes below a defined threshold or if other key metrics (like

      • Multiple upload field CRM

        I desperately need the functionality to add more than one upload field to web to contacts form. How can I do this?

      • Sort by age

        It would be very helpful if there was a way to sort by age in the Age column. Please add this function if possible. Thanks!

      • Lookup Field Option Not Available in Customization

        Hello, I am trying to customize different modules (e.g., Work Orders, Systems, and others), but I am unable to find the Lookup field option in the layout customization. When I go to: Setup → Customization → Modules and Fields → Add Field The Lookup field

      • Scheduled sending of a poll and its results

        Is there a way to schedule sending a poll to all my users and have the results sent separately to the team?

      • Canvas View bug

        I would like to report a bug. When clone a canvas view from an existing canvas view, if the original canvas view have canvas button with client script. Then the new create canvas view will have canvas button, it is make sense. But when I try to delete

      • Integrating Zoho Suite and apps more with Linux

        I just got introduced with Zoho just couple of months ago, and I've already planned to contribute to it, even though it's not an open-source software. Still I have found it's potential to beat the tech giants and still being respective towards data privacy

      • Store Submitted Forms as PDF

        Hi there, Is there a method to store Form submissions as a PDF in workdrive for archival? I set the form to email the submission to the user and an internal inbox but I'd really love to store the final form as PDF in workdrive automatically. I can't seem

      • System Components menu not available for Tablet to select language

        I have attached a screenshot of my desktop, mobile, and tablet menu builder options. I am using 2 languages in my application. Language Selection is an option under the System Components part of the menu, but only for my desktop and phone(mobile). My

      • Separate Items & Services

        Hi, please separate items and services into different categories. Thank you

      • CRM->INVENTORY, sync products as composite items

        We have a product team working in the CRM, as it’s more convenient than using Books or Inventory—especially with features like Blueprints being available. Once a product reaches a certain stage, it needs to become visible in Inventory. To achieve this,

      • Add an option to disable ZIA suggestions

        Currently, ZIA in Zoho Inventory automatically provides suggestions, such as sending order confirmation emails. However, there is no way to disable this feature. In our case, orders are automatically created by customers, and we’ve built a custom workflow

      • What's new in Zoho Sheet: Simplify data entry and collaboration

        Hello, Zoho Sheet community! Last year, our team was focused on research and development so we could deliver updates that enhance your spreadsheet experience. This year, we’re excited to deliver those enhancements—but we'll be rolling them out incrementally

      • [Webinar] Solving business challenges- Handling the challenge of transitioning to Zoho Writer from legacy tools

        Moving to Zoho Writer is a great way to consolidate your business tools and become more agile. With multiple accessibility modes, no-code automation, and extensive integration with business apps and content platforms, Zoho Writer helps solve your organization's

      • Feature Request - Gift Cards or Gift Voucher Capability in Zoho Commerce

        Hi Zoho Commerce team, I'm comming accross more and more retail businesses who sell gift cards. As there is currently no way to manage this in Zoho Commerce, it is a blocker to addoption. This is particularly popular in Europe and North America. I recently

      • Highlight a candidate who is "off limits"

        Hello: Is there a way to highlight a candidate who is "off limits"?  I would like to have the ability to make certain candidate and / or Client records highlighted in RED or something like that.   This would be used for example when we may have placed a candidate somewhere and we want everyone in our company to quickly and easily see that they are off limits.  The same would apply when we want to put a client or former client off limits so no one recruits out of there. How can this be done? Cheers,

      • Closing off tasks automatically based on project status

        Is there a way to close off all open tasks when a project is set as Cancelled?

      • Next Page