Hello Everyone!

Second half of November brought several exciting updates, especially around Zia, making AI assistance smarter, faster, and more context-aware. We also feature engaging community snippets highlighting members who went the extra mile to help their peers. Dive into the Community Digest to explore all the details.

Product Updates:

Smart Prompt Upgrade: Record-Level AI Assistance and Support for New AI Models

Smart Prompt now provides deeper, contextual assistance through the new Record Assistant, offering quick summaries of conversations, records, and notes, along with AI-generated content suggestions. The Template Assistant helps craft email templates by expanding, rephrasing, or adjusting tone based on simple prompts. This update also adds support for multiple AI models, including Zia, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and others giving admins the flexibility to choose what best fits their organization. It is available for Professional and above editions across all DCs. Explore more about it in this post!

Zia Conversation Summary: Instant Context for Every Customer Interaction

Zoho CRM now provides a single snapshot of all customer interactions with Zia Conversation Summary. It consolidates recent emails, calls, meetings, and notes, giving reps, managers, and cross-functional teams a quick recap of what happened, what was promised, and what still needs attention. Zia also flags delays, missed follow-ups, sentiment, and intent for a complete view of each record. This feature works through Record Assistant and requires Smart Prompt permissions, available for Professional and above editions. Check out the post for full details.

Zia ICR Adds Zero Shot Field Prompting to Automate Data Extraction

Zia’s Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) now uses zero-shot field prompting with Visual Language Models (VLM) to extract data from images and update CRM fields without training or manual setup. It reads printed or handwritten text, handles rotated or custom-shaped images, and fills multiple fields at once, speeding up tasks like capturing RFQs, onboarding sellers, processing car registrations, and other routine operations. This update is available for Enterprise, Ultimate, CRM Plus, and Zoho One in US, EU, and IN data centers. Learn more in this post.  

Zoho CRM for Everyone: The NextGen UI Just Got Smarter

Users are loving the upgraded Nextgen UI! Navigate from a single sidebar, access Global Search and Quick Create at the top, and open Setup, Reports, and Dashboards in just one click. Filters and record views are grouped, and custom views appear as tabs for quick switching. The new layout improves visibility, reduces clicks, and gives you more screen space. Rolling out gradually for standalone CRM accounts, with CRM Plus and Zoho One support coming soon. Check out the full post for details.

Quick Wins:

Filtering Dropdown Data by Another Field

@Tom Mitchell wanted to restrict lookup fields in the Quotes module based on a specific criteria. Specifically, the Reseller lookup to show only Accounts marked as “Reseller,” and the Reseller Rep field to display Contacts linked to that selected Account. The solution provided by @Hugh Marshall, using lookup filters, was tailor-made for this need. With this approach, related fields display only the relevant options without requiring custom scripts. Check out the full post for all the details.

Running Two Actions After Mail Merge

@Sophie wanted to streamline their mail merge so the merged document saves to WorkDrive and to the original Deal record without having to run two separate merges. Each action worked individually, but getting them to run together was a challenge. @Sunderjan Siddharth explained that this can be handled by using a single custom function through “Merge and Invoke Custom Function,” or by triggering a workflow that runs a unified action after the merge, allowing both actions to execute in one smooth sequence. Check out this post to learn more on handling multiple post-merge actions.

Dev's Corner:

Control Which Fields Users See on Record Creation Pages:

@Naomi Cerny wanted to show only the fields they consider necessary on the record creation layout, while keeping all fields accessible afterward for edits [Ref].@Rodger Brehaut shared a separate post with an On Load Client Script that lets admins control which fields are visible to users during the record creation stage. If you want a simple way to control what users see on Create pages, take a look at this post!

Send Emails with Inline QR Codes and Dynamic Images

@David wanted to embed a dynamic QR code directly in an email template rather than sending it as an attachment. @Andres noted that inline images are natively supported only in mail merge templates, while @Haiku Technical Support suggested generating the image via a URL or embedding it using base64 (a way to convert a file into text so it can be included directly in the email body) in Deluge. Since URLs weren't an option in David’s case, the base64 approach offered a practical way to include true inline images. If you’re looking to embed images directly in emails, this discussion clearly explains the feasible methods.

Kaizen:

(Kaizen #217): Automation Tasks API

This Kaizen post talks about how the Automation Tasks API helps add accountability to workflows by auditing existing tasks, creating follow-ups, updating priorities, and cleaning up old tasks. Tasks can be triggered by events such as onboarding or lost deals, using execution time, static values, and merge fields. Automating these actions ensures teams stay on top of critical follow-ups while keeping operations running smoothly. Check out the full post to learn more.

(Kaizen #218): Field Updates API

This Kaizen post shows how Field Updates can automatically change key fields when a workflow triggers, helping teams prioritize important leads without manual checks. The example focuses on marking high-score leads as High Profit and tagging them instantly. It also outlines how to create, edit, and manage Field Updates through API v8. If you want a clean way to auto-update fields based on conditions, this post lays it out clearly.

And that’s a wrap for this fortnight’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. We’ll be back in two weeks with more updates and community gems.

Until then, stay tuned!