Extension pointers #13: Handle cases with personalized solutions using custom actions

Extension pointers #13: Handle cases with personalized solutions using custom actions

In our last post, we detailed the steps involved in creating a custom action and the workflow from the developer and end user's side. Now let's look at a working example of how we can create a custom action and implement it in a Zoho CRM account to make the end user's work simpler.
 
You are a sales representative (the end user/extension user) handling cases and their solutions in a Zoho CRM account. While cases may arrive by phone, web, or email, you must log them with basic information, such as the subject, description, and priority.
 
Issues are typically recorded in cases modules using the Subject field, which contains a brief description of the problem. You may discover an immediate solution to the issue while manually logging the cases. In those cases, you must still manually feed the solution into the Solution field. How convenient would it be if the solution for a case could be auto-populated when a case with a common issue arises? We can streamline this process by creating a custom action.
 
Note: Throughout the following example explanation, the terms "sales representative", "end user", and "extension user" can be used interchangeably, but refer to the same person. The sales representative is the end user who installs and makes use of the extension features in their Zoho CRM account. 
 
Create a custom action as part of extension development that includes a custom UI for obtaining personalized solution inputs and an action that will update the solution in the Solution field of a case. After installing the extension, the end user can simply create workflows and associate the custom action with them. 
 
Because the sales representative who installs the extension will be dealing with the cases in their Zoho CRM account, they can easily create different workflows. Each of these workflows can be assigned criteria so that when the Subject field contains specific keywords typically used by the sales representative while logging, the custom action updates the personalized solution provided as part of that workflow custom action.
 
Let's go over the steps in order to achieve this. 
  1. Create a custom user interface (widget-connected app) that allows the user to enter their personalized solution inputs. 
  2. In the Zoho Developer console, create a custom action. 
  3. Associate the custom UI to the custom action. 
  4. Define an action that performs the function of updating a case's Solution field. 
  5. Create workflows (as an end-user perspective that meets specific subject criteria (e.g., if the subject contains keywords like "widget," "not," and ''loading," then set a personalized solution in the case) and associate a custom action to them.
 
Creating a custom UI to obtain an end user's personalized solution inputs
  • Create a custom UI to retrieve the end user's personalized input for the solution field and later be updated in a case based on the workflow the user creates.
Case handling.html code snippet
 
<html>
<head>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="../css/style.css">
  <script src="../js/lib/zsdk.min.js"></script>
  <script src="../js/custom.js"></script>
  <script src="../js/jquery-min.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<input type="text" id="solution" placeholder="Solution..."><br>
<button type="submit" class="submit_button" onclick="Util.save()">Save</button><br>
<script>
    $(document).ready(function(){
         ZOHO.embeddedApp.init();  
       });
   </script>
</body>
</html>
 
Case handling.js code snippet
 
Util={};
Util.save=function()
{
     ZOHO.CRM.ACTION.setConfig (
     {
               Caseid: "${!Cases.Id}",
               Solution : document.getElementById("solution").value
      })
}
 
  • The above javascript code snippet will fetch the current case's ID and set it to a variable "Caseid". The end user's inputted solution through the UI is also set to a variable "Solution".
  • These values will be passed as parameters to the custom function that will be associated with the custom action in the coming section.
Creating a custom action
 
1. Create a custom action called "Casehandling" using the Create an Action button under the Custom Actions option, available in the Components section of the Zoho Developer console. 



2. Provide a name for the custom action and a description if necessary. Click Next.



3. Associate the custom UI created earlier with the custom action by specifying the html page of the widget's connected app. Click Next.



4. Then write a Deluge function to perform the desired action by clicking the Create Function button. As shown on the right hand side of the page, the values obtained in the custom UI earlier will be passed as a JSON object parameter to this Deluge function, and then the functionalities can be performed based on these inputs from the custom page.


 
Case handling Deluge function code snippet
 
caseinfo = {"ID":config.get("Caseid"),"Solution":config.get("Solution")};
response = zoho.crm.updateRecord("Cases",config.get("Caseid"),caseinfo);
  • The above Deluge code snippet uses the current case ID and the solution input by the end user through the UI to update the personalized solution to the Solution field of the case using the updateRecord deluge task. 
  • Click Save to save the custom action.
Now that the functionality is defined, the extension can be published and installed.
 
Creating workflows in Zoho CRM as an end user

1. As an end user, install the extension.
2. Now create a workflow using Setup->Automation->Workflow rules. Create workflows for two commonly arising cases so that, as an end user, you can predefine some personalized solution inputs for these common cases. This will thereby update the solution to the case when the workflow criteria is satisfied. The two sample workflows handled for this example are:
When a widget is not loading or a 404 page not found occurs in the user's Zoho CRM account.
When a connector unauthorized error occurs.
3. First, define a workflow for "Widget not loading" case by specifying the when and condition criteria.



4. Now under "instant actions," you will find the custom action installed as part of the extension. Associate the case handling custom action with this workflow.



5. Enter the personalized solution in the custom UI displayed.


 
6. Go to the Cases module. Log a case with the Subject field, satisfying the workflow criteria.



This automatically updates the Solution field with the predefined solution entered by the end user for this workflow. 



Similarly, you can create multiple workflows for different cases for which you can define predefined solutions to make the case logging process easy. 
​

 
In this way, you can use custom actions to ease the end user's work by reusing templates created for them. We hope you find this information useful. Keep following this space for more insights!
 

 SEE ALSO

Next>>



      • 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 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

        • Marketer's Space: New to Campaigns? Some common early mistakes that might occur

          Hello Marketers, Welcome back to another post in Marketer's Space. If you're just getting started with Zoho Campaigns, things can feel exciting and slightly confusing at the same time. You're not alone. Most early frustrations come from setup gaps rather

        • This user is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details

          Hello, Just signed up to ZOHO on a friend's recommendation. Got the TXT part (verified my domain), but whenever I try to add ANY user, I get the error: This user is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details I have emailed as well and writing here as well because when I searched, I saw many people faced the same issue and instead of email, they got a faster response here. My domain is: raisingreaderspk . com Hope this can be resolved.  Thank you

        • Performance issue with too many notebooks or notebooks that are too large?

          I just migrated around 30 folders from Evernote. Most of these folders were created in order that the enex migration files would be < 500mb (requirement by Zoho Notebook). I want to now clean up many of these artificial notebooks mostly by combining them

        • Evernote (ENEX) import limitations

          I have been with Evernote since 2010, but the latest price increase is ridiculous. I am currently testing Zoho Notebook as a replacement. I am impressed so far - if it were not for critical need to import legacy Evernote notes, I would 100% migrate to

        • Workflow Rule - Field Updates: Ability to use Placeholders

          It will be great if you can use placeholder tags to update fields. For example if we want to update a custom field with the client name we can use ${CONTACT.CONTACT_FIRSTNAME}${CONTACT.CONTACT_LASTNAME}, etc

        • Need a Universal Search Option in Zohobooks

          Hello Zoho, Need a Universal Search Option in Zohobooks to search across all transactions in our books of accounts. Please do the needful Thanks

        • Implement Date-Time-Based Triggers in Zoho Desk

          Dear Zoho Desk Support Team, We are writing to request a new feature that would allow for the creation of workflows triggered by specific date-time conditions. Currently, Zoho Desk does not provide native support for date-time-based triggers, limiting

        • Why is my Lookup field not being set through Desk's API?

          Hello, I'm having trouble setting a custom field when creating a Ticket in Zoho Desk. The endpoint I'm consulting is "https://desk.zoho.com/api/v1/tickets" and even though my payload has the right format, with a "cf" key dedicated to all custom fields,

        • How exactly does "Reply assistance" work in Zoho Desk? What context is sent to the LLM?

          Hi, Im trying to better understand the technical behavior of the feature "Reply assistance" in Zoho Desk, and I couldn’t find detailed information in the current documentation. Specifically, I have questions about what data is actually being sent to the

        • Deletion Workflows

          Hello, Unless I missed it, we can't create deletion workflows. My usecase is to auto-delete junk leads. We have field called lead status, and an agent qualify all our new leads. When it's a junk lead she chose the correspondant value in the picklist. My goal is that the system delete them automatically. Is that possible? Planed ?

        • URGENTImpossible to book an appointement

          J'essaie plusieurs fois mais aucun créneau n''est disponible Message d'erreur lorsque j'essaie de sélectionner une date

        • Sendpulse SMTP/IMAP Issues

          It’s possible Zoho made some changes on their side. Sometimes, even if your regular password works, Zoho requires an app-specific password for external apps like SendPulse to connect via IMAP. You can create this in Zoho’s security settings and use it

        • Insane mail security

          I cannot access my email... anywhere. For some reason the password for the Mail app on my Mac is being rejected, it worked yesterday but now it doesn't? Ok let's try the web interface. I can access my general Zoho login with the password but if I want

        • UI issue with Organize Tabs

          When looking at the organize Tabs window (bellow) you can see that some tabs are grayed out. there is also a "Add Module/Web Tab" button. When looking at this screen it's clear that the grayed out tabs can not be removed from the portal user's screen

        • Task list flag Internal/External for all phases

          Phases are commonly used in projects to note milestones in the progression of a project, while task lists can be used to group different types of tasks together. It makes sense to be able to define a task list as either internal or external however the

        • HAVING PROBLEM WITH SENDING EMAIL

          Hi all, I'm unable to receive emails on info@germanforgirls.eu. I'm getting an error code 550. 5.1.1. invalid email recipients. Moreso, I would like info@germanforgirls.eu to be the default "send from" email and not solomon@germanforgirls.eu. Kindly see

        • Sharing my portal URL with clients outside the project

          Hi I need help making my project public for anyone to check on my task. I'm a freelance artist and I use trello to keep track on my client's projects however I wanted to do an upgrade. Went on here and so far I'm loving it. However, I'm having an issue sharing my url to those to see progress. They said they needed an account to access my project. How do I fix this? Without them needing an account.

        • Different Task Layouts for Subtasks

          I was wondering how it would be possible for a subtask to have a different task layout to the parent task.

        • Subscription went to default (@zoho.com) address instead for custom domain

          Hello! So I bought a lite sub to test things out, wanting to use my own domain. However, after passing through all the verification steps (completed now), it seems that the sub I bought was assigned to the default email that I already had with Zoho and

        • Canvas templates and font-family

          i dont understant why its always the smallest things that waste all of my time! why in some videos i see they have tamplates in the Canvas editor and i cant seem to fint it? and why oih why cant i cange the font? i just want simple Arial! help meeeeeeeeee

        • Re: Ca.gory groups and not all email addresses being added to a group emails

          Hi, I have added emails under 'Contacts' into categories but when sending a group email and putting the category name in not all email addresses go onto the email. I have refreshed the page, deleted and redone the info etc with no luck. I only found out

        • IMPORTANT

          Dear Zoho Support Team, I am currently experiencing an issue when trying to send emails from my Zoho Mail account. Each time I attempt to send a message, I receive the following error: "Unable to send message; Reason: 554 5.1.8 Email Outgoing Blocked."

        • Able to Send Emails from Zoho but Not Receiving Emails from Gmail

          Hello, I am experiencing an issue with my shopify domain email setup and would appreciate your help. Current situation: I can successfully send emails using Zoho. I can receive emails from some services (for example, Facebook). However, I cannot receive

        • Announcing new features in Trident for Windows (v.1.38.5.0)

          Hello Community! Trident for Windows just received a major update, with a range of capabilities that focuses on strengthening and enhancing communication. Let’s dive into what’s new! View complete technical email details. For those who need deeper visibility

        • Accounting of Amazon

          I have recently started selling on Amazon.in and I am facing issues with different types of transactions: What entry to do in case of return? If I had sent two products and customer returned both the products but I had received only one and got the claim

        • Compose Emails Faster Using Templates and Snippet

          Hello everyone, We have made an enhancement to the Send as Email option in Tickets. Agents can use templates and snippets to draft their response, which helps save time and maintain consistency. The Send as Email page will display the available templates

        • Customize Colors used on graphs and charts according to users desire.

          It would be great if we could customize the graph's colors as we see fit. I hate that yellow is always the default color!

        • Emails not integrating

          My emails from Hubspot did not integrtate over. How do I fix that?

        • Creating meetings from an email

          Hi. Similar to Outlook, it would be helpful if a meeting can be scheduled from an email so that the attendees need not be manually entered every time it's created.

        • 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.

        • Deprecation of the Zoho OAuth connector

          Hello everyone, At Zoho, we continuously evaluate our integrations to ensure they meet the highest standards of security, reliability, and compliance. As part of these ongoing efforts, we've made the decision to deprecate the Zoho OAuth default connector

        • RouteIQ for Zoho FSM

          Beste, Zou wel top zijn dat we een RouteIQ hebben voor FSM aangezien we constant moeten zien wat de beste route is voor onze monteurs. Nu moeten we een speciale aparte programma hebben om de beste route te berrekenen voor onze monteurs aangezien de planning

        • Let us view and export the full price books data from CRM

          I quote out of CRM, some of my clients have specialised pricing for specific products - therefore we use Price Books to manage these special prices. I can only see the breakdown of the products listed in the price book and the specialised pricing for

        • Changes to the send mail Deluge task in Zoho CRM

          Hello everyone, At Zoho, we continuously enhance our security measures to ensure a safer experience for all users. As part of our ongoing security enhancements, we're making an important update on using the send mail Deluge task in Zoho CRM. What's changing?

        • How to Invoice Based on Timesheet Hours Logged on a Zoho FSM Work Order

          Hi everyone, We’re working on optimizing our invoicing process in Zoho FSM, and we’ve run into a bit of a roadblock. Here’s our goal: We want to invoice based on the actual number of hours logged by our technicians on a job, specifically using the timesheets

        • Inclusion is the new engagement

          When in a very challenging situation, it helps to have peers or friends around you saying, “Everything will be okay.” They speak to you in common or shared language. But your inner voice comes to you in a truly uplifting language that stays close to your

        • DKIM verification for Squarespace website - Corrections to instructions

          Zoho Campaigns DKIM TXT record instructions for Squarespace show that Host field should show: 22111._domainkey.[domain name, e.g. mywebsite.com] However, after 72hrs, I had to reach out to Squarespace tech support, and they confirmed that the domain name

        • My client requires me to have custom pdf file names to except payment for invoices, how can I customize this before emailing.

          Hello! I love the program so far but there are a few things that are standing in the way. I hope you guys can code them in so I can keep the program for years to come. My client requires I customize the pdf file names I send in for billing. Can you please

        • Disable All

          I want to disable all the fields on the form when it loads.  I know there is a way to do this by listing all the fields as follows: disable Name; disable Address; disable City;  ... I have over 50 fields on my form and i am wondering if there is a single command or way to just disable all fields on load.   On load = disable All Thank you for any help.  

        • Next Page