Zoho Desk Autumn Release - 2024 — Post 3

Zoho Desk Autumn Release - 2024 — Post 3

Continued from Zoho Desk Autumn Release - 2024 — Post two

Instant Messaging 

Mass WhatsApp messaging for efficient communication


Agents can send WhatsApp messages to multiple contacts at once, which is useful for various activities, such as onboarding and customer engagement programs. There’s also an option to skip sending messages to contacts who are already engaged in a conversation with another agent to avoid interruptions in the ongoing conversation.


Help document and availability

Sending mass WhatsApp messages to contacts | Standard and above



 


Add new contacts to Desk while sending WhatsApp messages and reply to IM tickets from the Tickets module

 

A new shortcut, +w, has been introduced to streamline sending WhatsApp messages directly from the Tickets module. When using +w, users can quickly initiate a WhatsApp message to the associated contact. If the message is being sent to a new contact, their details will be automatically recorded within the system, and autopopulated in the Contact's record. For example, if a new customer contacts the support via WhatsApp and their details are not yet in Zoho Desk, sending a reply will automatically create a new record in the Contacts module.

 

Help document and availability

Create a contact while sending WhatsaApp messages | Standard and above


Integrate Facebook messenger with Zoho Desk


Integrating Facebook Messenger with Zoho Desk allows businesses to efficiently manage customer communication through Meta's Facebook business pages. Once set up, the Messenger platform enables seamless interactions between customers and the business via various entry points, including Facebook Posts, the Meta business page, and the business's website.


Help document and availability

Integrate Facebook messenger with Zoho Desk | Standard and above




Integrate Instagram with Zoho Desk


Integrating Instagram with Zoho Desk enables businesses to manage customer communications through their Instagram business accounts. This integration allows seamless message exchanges between customers and businesses, with conversations originating from Instagram posts, the Meta business page, or a website widget. For example, a retail clothing brand can integrate its Instagram business account with Zoho Desk to manage customer inquiries directly from its Instagram posts or DMs.


Help document and availability

Integrate Instagram with Zoho Desk | Standard and above





Configure business hours for your IM channels


Business hours can be configured for various IM channels, including WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, and Line, ensuring that customer inquiries are managed efficiently within the designated timeframes. Setting business hours involves defining the times when a business is open and available to assist customers. This ensures that the support team operates in alignment with these hours.


Help document and availability

Setting conversation rules in instant messaging | Standard and above





Implement a customizable business messaging widget


Business messaging offers another channel for engaging with customers through customizable widgets available for Web, iOS, and Android platforms. By integrating a fully customizable chat widget into a website, businesses can provide real-time support and interact with visitors seamlessly. The chat window’s appearance, including its color scheme and logo, can be tailored to match the website’s design, ensuring a cohesive brand experience.


Help document and availability

Adding a business messaging widget to your website | Standard and above






Multi-WABA support for WhatsApp business platform


Supported multiple WhatsApp Business Accounts (WABA), allowing businesses to create channels for different brands or departments. Each business unit can manage its communication channels with a dedicated WABA to ensure efficient operations. Businesses with multiple WhatsApp accounts can set up and link as many channels as needed to provide a centralized platform and shared access to customer data for seamless information flow and operations.

 

Help document and availability

Support multiple WhatsApp Business Accounts | Standard and above







Add GC Bots to Telegram, FB Messenger, Line, Instagram, and Business Messaging channels  


Guided Conversation (GC) bots can be deployed in a variety of IM channels such as Telegram, FB Messenger, Line, Instagram, and Business Messaging channels. This provides customers with a self-service platform where they can interact with bots and support agents when needed.


Help document and availability

GC Bots to Telegram | GC Bots to Line | GC Bots to Instagram | GC Bots to Business Messaging channels | GC Bots to FB Messenger | Enterprise


GC Bots in FB Messenger



GC Bots in Instagram




 

GC Bots in Telegram




GC Bots in Business Messaging



GC Bots in Line




Manage agent visibility and notifications for IM

 

Agents can set their status as online or offline specifically for the Instant Messaging feature. This allows them to control their visibility and mute all IM notifications with a click, ensuring uninterrupted work during critical tasks.

 

Help document and availability

Managing user status in IM | Standard and above





Use webhooks in IM to automate tasks

 

Zoho Desk's instant messaging webhooks enable automation of event-driven tasks between messaging apps and business workflows. By leveraging IM webhooks, businesses can integrate multiple channels into their business workflows, creating a seamless conversational ecosystem that enhances the customer journey and meets their preferences. For example, an ecommerce platform can automatically share package delivery OTPs via WhatsApp, an insurance provider can send payment reminders, and a travel agency can deliver booking details—all triggered through the webhooks in IM.

 

Availability

Professional and above



 

 

Measure customer happiness rating for IM Channels


Collect feedback on customer satisfaction for interactions conducted through the IM channel. A customer's happiness rating helps to see what they think about the support they receive at the end of each response or after closing their ticket. The integrated analytics will also assist the business in monitoring the ratings received by the agents or given by their contacts and accounts across various time frames.


Help document and availability

Customer happiness rating for IM channels | Standard and above





Thread separation in IM tickets  

Users can enhance clarity in IM tickets with the help of thread separation. This feature distinguishes different conversation threads to make it easier for agents to manage and resolve issues effectively.


Availability

Standard and above






Integration 

Scheduling meetings from the ticket interface with Zoho Meeting integration


The Zoho Meeting integration enables agents to schedule and conduct meetings directly from the ticket interface. For example, if a customer submits a ticket requesting a product demo, the agent can create the meeting from the ticket interface, invite the relevant stakeholders, and also have the meeting recording and meeting details such as link, date, time, and venue available inside the ticket for easy access.


Help document and availability

Integrate Zoho Meeting with Zoho Desk | Standard and above



 


Track agent attendance and availability with the Agent Attendance Tracker extension

The Agent Attendance Tracker extension provides a comprehensive system for the support managers to monitor the agent's attendance. It addresses key operational challenges related to tracking and managing agents' break hours, attendance, and routine activities. Managers can track check-in and check-out timings and view detailed activity logs of their support agents. This is helpful in various ways:


  • Accurate break logging: Allows agents to define and log break times, maintain proper shift coverage, and ensure uninterrupted service for customers.
  • Streamlined check-in/out: Simplifies the process of checking in and out and enables precise tracking of work hours and real-time monitoring via the Agent Availability Report.
  • Custom statuses: Enables the creation of custom statuses for activities like training and meetings to provide detailed visibility into agents' time allocation and enhance accountability.

 

Help document and availability

Integrating Zoho Desk with agent attendance tracker | Standard and above

 


 


 



Also see our What's new page

Regards,
Varsha P | Zoho Desk - User Education


      • Sticky Posts

      • 2024 Email Authentication Standards: Elevating Security with Google and Yahoo

        In contemporary email communication, email authentication plays a pivotal role in mitigating email fraud, spam, and phishing attacks. Brace yourself for a new level of security. Starting February 2024, Gmail and Yahoo will be implementing robust email

      • Using Agent Email Address as From Address

        Currently, while replying to a ticket, it is possible for agents to choose their own email addresses as 'from' addresses. Although we built this just for that little extra flexibility, in hindsight, it hasn't figured much in conventional usage.  Almost all businesses prefer that responses to their customers' tickets be sent from the common support/service email address and NOT from those of individual agents. During personal interactions at events, some of you have even made passing mentions about

      • Edit and Delete options in Comments

        A lot of teams have been using ticket comments extensively to collaborate everyday. Notification Center further improved this experience by bringing real-time updates. As we continue to build more improvements to this experience, we've shipped a small-yet-important

      • Webinar 2: Supercharged customer support for growing business

        Join us for this webinar and learn how to step up your support game using a real-time communication platform to generate happier, more successful customers. In this live webinar, we will will discuss the importance of SalesIQ for your support team and how it can help you:  Understand your customers better and their journeys to proactively support and engage them even before they ask for help.  Integrating real time conversations into Zoho Desk’s Support, providing a conversational customer service

      • Customize Colors of your Customer Self Service Portal

        You asked for it. We heard you. We're happy to roll out the most sought after feature request, Customizing the Colors of your Customer Self-service Portal. Now you can set the color of your customer portal to mimic your company's web site, so that your customers visiting the portal will not feel alienated by the default theme.  Go ahead and configure the color of the header, tabs, fonts and background according to your needs. You can either choose between default color themes like Blue, Grey, Green

        • Recent Topics

        • Can no longer export as pdf

          In NOTEBOOK I am no longer able to export notes to pdfs as I used to be able to. When I hit that command it asks where I want to send it, but no matter what I chose there is no pdf attachment that shows up in order to send. Nothing happens.

        • Emails are going to notification folder and not in inbox

          emails are going to notification folder and not into inbox

        • How can I prevent the Zoho Vault extension from automatically logging me out?

          Hi, I want the Zoho Vault Chrome extension to never log out. How can I do this? It only allows me to log out for 1 week, and the same applies to the Android app.

        • Zoho CRM App - Links

          Hi  Is there are plan for making Custom Links available in the Zoho CRM Android App? I can't see them being added? Thanks Gene

        • Templates

          Trying to sort out / get rid of unwanted invoice templates, the error msgs are not at all helpful. Surely it's easy to amend the error msg by including a list of the names of the customers / vendors that use it, denying deletion or making it inactive

        • Contacts limit in basic vs standard - what counts? Are customers contacts?

          I’ve been using books for a number years for my small business. I only ever work with 20 clients at any given time. I do purchase services from a number of vendors to run my business, so there are some comtacts there too. I used to use the basic package,

        • Finding missing records

          I have a challenge and I am not really sure where to start with it. I can't find any similar threads on here, can anyone help: I have two forms, FormA and FormB. Both forms have records that contain a field called Job_Number. What I am trying to achieve

        • Prevent Unapproved Quotes from Exporting to Zoho CRM Finance Module

          Is it possible to prevent unapproved quotes in Zoho Books from being exported from Zoho Finance module inside Zoho CRM?

        • ZOHO BOOKS - RECEIVING MORE ITEMS THAN ORDERED

          Hello, When trying to enter a vendor's bill that contains items with bigger quantity than ordered in the PO (it happens quite often) - The system would not let us save the bill and show this error: "Quantity recorded cannot be more than quantity ordered." 

        • Updates for Zoho Campaigns: Merge tag, footer, and autoresponder migration

          Hello everyone, We'd like to inform you of some upcoming changes with regard to Zoho Campaigns. We understand that change can be difficult, but we're dedicated to ensuring a smooth transition while keeping you all informed and engaged throughout the process.

        • Process between CRM and Campaigns to ensure double opt-in contacts?

          I would like to ask for a few clarifications to ensure we fully comply with best practices and legal requirements: According to the documentation (Zoho Campaigns CRM sync – Default option), the best and recommended way to sync contacts is by using the

        • What's New in Zoho Inventory | August – October 2025

          Hello customers, The last quarter has been incredibly productive! We've released a powerful slate of new features and enhancements in Zoho Inventory designed to give you better control, greater efficiency, and expanded functionality across your inventory

        • Search not working!

          I have items in my notebook tagged but when I search for a tag nothing comes up! Any fix for this?

        • Let's Talk Recruit: Meet Zia, your all-in-one AI assistant (Part-2)

          Welcome back to Let’s Talk Recruit series. In Part 1, we introduced Zia and how AI is reshaping the way recruiters work. This time, we’re taking a closer look at how far Zia has come and how each update continues to simplify your everyday tasks. When

        • Zoho Developer - Feature Request Platform

          Zoho Developer is one of the most underatted platform in zoho ecosystem, however, it may just be what zoho needs to welcome more people to use Zoho Services. The more developers you have creating zoho creator applications and zoho extensions the more

        • Last/Previous month in relative date filter

          In the relative date filter, what is the difference between "Last 2 months" and "Previous 2 months"? So, if we are on 25-July, then is my understanding correct of the following: Last 2 months :=:      25-May~24 July Previous 2 months :=:     01-May~30-June Thanks.

        • Tags get removed from notes on mobile

          I don't know why this keeps happening even after all these app updates but if you log out and log back into the app or you reinstall it, all the tags you assigned to your notes get taken off, but if you go on the desktop version the tags are still there.

        • Show Zoom Link in Recipient's Calendar

          We set up meetings within a record, selecting the "Make this an online meeting".  We use Zoom. Most of the recipients go to their calendar (usually Gmail or Outlook, corporate) to join the Zoom meeting, but there is no Zoom link in the calendar. Can this

        • How to fetch custom fields for time entries in Zoho Project API v3

          In the previous Zoho Projects REST API, we were able to retrieve custom field details for time entries, including picklist options, using the endpoint: GET /restapi/portal/[PORTAL_ID]/timesheetcustomfields In the new Zoho Projects API v3, we tried using

        • VAT rates - exempt and out of scope

          Good Evening, UK based company here. I am a bit confused in respect of setting up VAT rates for exempt goods and services; at present I am simply leaving the VAT rate blank in the transactions in order to prevent any VAT appearing in the VAT return. When

        • Introducing Lead Capture: Empower exhibitors to capture leads effortlessly

          Events provide a great opportunity for exhibitors to generate awareness and engage with potential customers. Efficiently distributing attendee information to exhibitors through a seamless and secure way is of paramount importance. Introducing Lead Capture

        • Work Order Creation Issue

          Dear Team, I would like to inquire about the daily limit for Work Order creation in Zoho FSM. Yesterday (02/05/2025) at around 6:30 PM GST, I attempted to create a Work Order, but I have been unable to do so since then. Please find the attached image

        • Accessing shared mailboxes through Trident (Windows)

          Hi, I have a created a couple of shared mailboxes. The mailboxes are showing up on the browser based Zoho workplace, but I cannot seem to figure out how to access my shared inboxes through Trident (Windows). Am I missing something or is this feature not

        • URGENT: ChatGPT Extension Failing With “gpt-3 Access Error” (Priority Support)

          Appreciate support reviewing this urgently. I am a Priority Support member and need immediate clarification on a recurring issue involving the ChatGPT extensions inside Zoho Desk. Both extensions — including the version created and published by Zoho —

        • Zoho Desk iOS update: Custom buttons, follow/ unfollow option on tickets

          Hello everyone! In the most recent Zoho Desk iOS app update, we have brought in support to access the custom buttons configured on web app(desk.zoho.com). Using custom buttons you can seamlessly execute predefined actions directly from their mobile devices,

        • Zoho pdf suit

          Pl. design products with following feature: 1. Please add all features given in Ilovepdf website to work on pdf files. It is mandatory to use pdf in court work. 2. Courts have prescribed New Times Roman, pl. add this font as well 3. Indexing, signature

        • Zoho Not Working

          Today Zoho not wokring

        • Dynamically autofill fields with URL parameters

          I have a zoho form embedded in my organization's WP website. Our users find their account with a search tool, and then can select to open this page with the embedded form. The URL of the page holds the parameter that I need, but I cannot figure out how

        • User Automation: User based workflow rules & webhooks

          User management is an undeniable part of project management and requires adequate monitoring. As teams grow and projects multiply, manual coordination for updating users & permissions becomes difficult and can give way to errors. User automation in Zoho

        • Integrate Projects for Desk KB article release tasks

          Could you please look into the possibility of integrating project tasks for Zoho Desk article release processes? We are looking for an internal integration between Zoho Projects and Zoho Desk's KB article drafting, reviewing and releasing tasks. We could

        • Issue in Annual Leave

          We created a policy to credit 21 days at the Start of the Year An employee has taken 16 days of leaves thought the year, so we expect to see 5 Leaves remaining right? But Zoho People is Showing 12 Days of Leave Balance Available If we check the Leave

        • Use the searchBy parameter to find user by email address

          I'm trying to find a user is Zoho Desk via the Api. In the documentation I see that there is the possibility to add a searchBy parameter in the request. But I can't find how the search values should be formatted. I've tried multiple things and get either

        • Zoho CRM Community Digest - September 2025 | Part 2

          Hello Everyone! Mid-September vibes: fresh tips, smart hacks, and practical Zoho CRM updates all in one place. Let’s dive in. Product Updates: The All-New Address Field! The new Address field type makes it easier to capture complete addresses in one structured

        • Zoho Vault API: Create new Secrets

          Hello, I attempt to Post Secrets to the vault, since the encrypted entries are almost impossible to decrypt, since there is no documentation on how to decrypt them. Like with the lack of documentation on how to descrypt, there are missing information regarding on how to create new secrets/post secrets. Source: https://www.zoho.com/vault/api/#create-a-new-secret When I try to send JSON Informationen as a POST-Request I only receive the error message: {     "operation": {         "result": {             "error_code": "",

        • CRM and Finance Tab - Add Invoice "Subject " Column

          When On a contact in CRM, and you click the Zoho Finace tab, how can I put in the invoice subject line? Or even a custom field for this.  We need to see what that invoice is for, without opening it.   If we have tons of invoices we need a way to quick

        • Collections Management: #4 Before, During & After Payment Processing

          "Mark, I think the payment link isn't working. Can you send it again?" Staring at a message, Mark got on his phone. This was the third time the same customer had asked him that week. A few minutes later, another message came, "Hey, the invoice total seems

        • Account name not populating when importing contacts

          When importing a csv file to add contacts the account name is blank? Every other filed gets mapped and imported correctly, i.e contact name, phone number. However not the account name which I have mapped to "company" field in my csv file

        • Suggestion to improve zoho writer

          I am using your product, I believe it is very useful, however, i was writing a note and I needed to draw an arrow in different angles to explain a point and I couldn't. it would be helpful, to add draw functions to the zoho writer. thanks

        • webhook basic authentication

          II want to use a webhook to send out a SMS. Unfortunately Twilio does not use an authToken but basic authentication. I created the webhook as POST and get this url: https://{username}:{password}@api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/{account}/Messages?body=<BODY>&to=+155555555&from=+1555555555

        • Managing functions

          Can someone let me know if there are any plans to improve the features for managing functions in CRM? I have lots of functions and finding them is hard. The search only works on the function name and the filter only works on function type. I have created

        • Next Page