Augmenting subform capabilities

Augmenting subform capabilities

Greetings, everyone!
 
Finally, the day has come for us to announce some of the most anticipated, requested, and exciting updates to subforms in Zoho Creator.
 
As you're aware, subforms are an integral part of Creator forms, as they help in establishing proper modelling of the app, collecting rows of data, and setting up users to enter data that has a parent-child relationship. With this new set of updates, we've bought in a paradigm shift to subforms, as they'll be getting an all-new look for an improved user experience, along with new capabilities for solving challenges. This post will give you a sneak peek into these new subform enhancements.
 
Do you find it difficult to scroll subforms horizontally? Do you wish you could drag and drop subform rows? Do you want to manipulate subform fields via Deluge script? Then your wait has come to an end—continue reading to learn more on how you can now do all of this in subforms.
 

Subform list and pop-up view

As announced in the March 2023 post, the List view type of subforms will display the subform as a pop-up, and the current method of displaying subforms has been christened Grid.
 
To further understand how this can be helpful, let's put ourselves in the shoes of a supply chain manager. Their job requires them to regularly keep track of inventory lists in their warehouses.
 
Let's assume there's a form collecting warehouse details, like name, location, and stock inventory. For collecting the stock inventory details, a subform is present with these fields—Item No, Name, Manufacturer, Description, Cost Per Item, Stock Quantity, Inventory Value, Units Sold, Reorder Quantity, Reorder Date, and Person In Charge.

Now, the default view type will tire you out from scrolling back and forth horizontally, and results in a frustrating time-consuming process. We all long for a new way to avoid this and make data entry swifter.
 
To achieve this, make use of the new List option under  Subform->Field Properties->View Type.
 
List view, which looks similar to our list report, is a table-like subform without inline inputs. When you try adding or updating data in each row, a pop-up will be displayed listing out the fields with vertical scrolling, thereby ensuring a vastly superior user experience and more effective space management.



Crucially, it also helps to load subform rows quickly while editing records, by reducing the loading time.
 


While using an existing form as a subform, the form's exact structure will be replicated in the pop-up, to ensure consistency in the look and feel of the form. To understand this better, let's assume our form has a two-column layout, with Section and Note fields. Now the same customizations will be displayed in the pop-up, too! 



And that's not all—the new List view type is being extended to mobile apps, too. When it's enabled, the subform will be opened in the next screen, where users can add their data. This data will then be added as a subform row.

Custom sorting

Currently, the only sorting option in subforms is  field-based sorting, where you can choose a field based on which rows are sorted, either in ascending or descending order. Though this works well for basic cases, the need may arise in some cases to sort the subform in random order. With the new custom sorting support, you can effortlessly drag and drop subform rows to rearrange them.
 
To understand how it works, let's consider a task manager working on a To-Do List form, to plan activities for a current project. For this, they have a main form collecting project details, date-time, and milestones, and a subform for maintaining the to-do list with the following fields: Task Name, Description, Category, Status, Deliverables, Priority, and Deadline. Here, before submitting the list, they want to rearrange some tasks based on their daily routine.
 
To achieve this, they use the Custom sorting option under Subform->Field Properties->Sort type.
 
Now, with custom sorting, all they need to do to reorder the row sequence—both while adding and editing records—is simply drag and drop them in the required position.




The same order will be retained in reports or while opening the form for updating the list.  
Note: Custom sorting can be used both in List and Grid-type subforms.
 
Custom sorting will also be available on the mobile apps and you can effortlessly rearrange fields in subforms.

Deluge tasks for row-level actions

You can use a combination of workflows and Deluge scripts to help your subforms handle complex business logic. With that in mind, we formulated the idea of bringing in actions that help you take control at the row level of subforms.
 
In the past, you may have come across business scenarios which required you to hide/show or enable/disable a particular field in a specific subform row. Now, with new dedicated Deluge tasks, you can bid adieu to shortcuts and workarounds.
 
Note: Deluge tasks can be used both in List and Grid-type subforms.
 
Enable/disable
The new enable and disable subform Deluge tasks can be used to enable and disable specific fields.
 
Syntax: enable row.subform_field
             disable row.subform_field
Events: On add row, On delete row, On user input of subform field
 
Let's assume a Vehicle form has fields like Customer Name, Vehicle Model, and Date of Booking, and a subform to collect payment details with the following fields: Payment Date, Payment Method, Credit Card Number, Bank Account Number, and Transaction Ref Number.
 
Now, there are two payment options—Card and Netbanking. If Card is chosen, then the Credit Card Number field should be enabled and the Bank Account Number field should be disabled. Similarly, when Netbanking is chosen, then the Bank Account Number field should be enabled and the Credit Card Number field disabled.

Code snippet:
if(Payment_details.Payment_method == "Card")
{
 enable row.Credit_card_number;
 disable row.Bank_account_number;
}
if(Payment_details.Payment_method == "Netbanking")
{
 enable row.Bank_account_number;
 disable row.Credit_card_number;
}



Hide/show
The new show and hide subform Deluge tasks can be used to show and hide specific fields.
 
Syntax: hide row.subform_field
             show row.subform_field
Events: On add row, On delete row, On user input of subform field
 
Let's use the example of a rental property manager who needs to keep track of a list of properties that are available in every locality. For this, a form is used for collecting information like Locality and No of Vacant Properties, and a subform will be used to list property details with the following fields: Property Name, Address, Square Feet, Rent, Advance, Category, and Contact Number.
 
When the category is Brokerage, we need to hide the contact number of the landlord. We can use the new Deluge tasks to achieve this.
 
Code snippet :
if(row.Category == "Brokerage")
{
 hide row.Phone_Number;
}
else
{
 show row.Phone_Number;
}
     
     
-----

That's it from us on our subform enhancements! We expect these updates to be rolled out in the upcoming weeks. Once done, we'll pop in a comment below and also update our Release Notes page.
 
Don't forget—your feedback helps us make Creator better and stronger. We'd love to hear what you think about these updates. Please use the space below or send your feedback to support@zohocreator.com.
 
Regards,
Zoho Creator Team



    • Sticky Posts

    • Introducing Zoho Creator's 2025 Release Projection 2

      Hello Creators! I'm Prakash, from the Creator product management team, and today I'm delighted to unveil our next set of features as part of Release Projection 2 for 2025. With thoughtful analysis and planning, we've curated powerful new capabilities

    • Zoho Creator - 2023 Release Projection 1

      Hello everyone! A very Happy New Year to you and your family. Hope you're all good and having a great time using Zoho Creator to make your lives easier and your businesses prosper. 2022 was an action-packed year for us at Creator, and we hope to continue

    • Zoho Creator User Group meetups in a city near you! - Oct - Nov, 2023

      Greetings from the Zoho Creator team! We're hosting a series of Zoho Creator meetups in various cities across the globe, and we'd love to meet you there! Our meetups are a great opportunity to network with industry peers, exchange ideas and best practices,

    • Zoho Creator - 2023 Release Projection 2

      Hello everyone! Time truly flies when you're having an incredible journey, and today we mark the completion of an eventful and action-packed six months. It feels like just yesterday when we embarked on this adventure together with the launch of our new

    • Upcoming Updates - August 2022

      Hi all, Greetings from the Zoho Creator team! Today we've got news for you on some exciting updates. And rest assured— there’s more to come! In this post, we'll be going over the upcoming features and improvements for this month as mentioned below. A

    • Recent Topics

    • Collections Management: #2 Late Payment Automation

      "Sir, I'll process the payment by evening, please don't apply any late payment charges", the customer said while arranging papers on his desk. Sanjay stood there with a tired smile. He had already visited twice that week. Payment collection was one thing.

    • Create a table in the layout section of modules

      Dear Sirs, I would like to know whether is possible to create a table under new fields in layouts section of modules. In fact in this section there are single line, multi line, pick list, multi-select, date, formula etc. but I am unable to add a table

    • Nimble enhancements to WhatsApp for Business integration in Zoho CRM: Enjoy context and clarity in business messaging

      Dear Customers, We hope you're well! WhatsApp for business is a renowned business messaging platform that takes your business closer to your customers; it gives your business the power of personalized outreach. Using the WhatsApp for Business integration

    • Power of Automation :: Automatic Task Status Handling for Users

      Hello Everyone, A custom function is a software code that can be used to automate a process and this allows you to automate a notification, call a webhook, or perform logic immediately after a workflow rule is triggered. This feature helps to automate

    • Question - why no way to input a 'tool description' and 'tree of 'tools'

      Every business is different, with different business processes. To be truly useful Zoho MCP needs to have user editable tool descriptions (or ruleset) and a 'tool tree' so that the LLM is context aware when being used. For example, the tool description

    • Develop Zoho Meeting as a Full Native Application (Not a Browser Wrapper)

      Hello Zoho Meeting Team, Hope you are doing well. We would like to suggest an important improvement regarding the Zoho Meeting desktop application. At the moment, the Zoho Meeting app feels more like a mini browser window or an iframe that loads the web

    • Can I create a custom function for chart of accounts?

      I'm trying to add a custom function that should run whenever a record in the Chart of Accounts module is edited, but on the form for creating a new function, the module dropdown does not include the chart of accounts as an option.

    • billing

      hi, I am being billed $12/year, and I can't remember why. My User ID is 691273115 Thanks for your help, --Kitty Pearl

    • Unable to confirm Super Admin assignment — confirmation button not working

      I’m trying to change the roles within my organization. I am currently a super admin and would like to add another user as a super admin. When I attempt to confirm the action, a screen appears asking for my password to verify my identity. However, when

    • Automation#36: Auto-create time-entry after performing the Blueprint transition

      Hello Everyone, This week’s edition focuses on configuring a custom function within Zoho Desk to streamline time tracking within the Blueprint. In this case, we create a custom field, and request the agent to enter the spending time within the single

    • Feature Request: Reviews

      Any chance we could get a "Reviews" element to put on sites? It should be extremely simple to do. Basically just take the comments box and add an option for a star rating. At the very least, it would be nice to have more customization options for the comment box so the text could be changed from "Comments" to "Reviews". I've looked at a bunch of embeddable review widgets but nothing meets my needs so this would be a great feature to have added to the site builder.

    • Can we handle a support like (incident management) project in Zoho Projects?

      Hi, I have a new profile of a project whereby we provide "ticket" base support to a client. They have a request and ideally we would handle comms via a email exchange logged in Zoho. Today we use Zoho Projects for all out projects, which means that we

    • Trying to show the actual Terms & Conditions on PDF

      Hi, On Zoho forms I am trying to have the actual terms and conditions that the user needs to accept also show on the pdf that they receive after. Right now it only says "Agreed". Please help.

    • Installing EMAIL Setup in New Domain

      Respected Support team, I'm facing an issue with cloudflare in Pakistan, I want to setup Zoho Mail Setup but I Don't know how to enable Zoho mail setup without cloudflare. My Website https://stumbleguyzzapk.com/, https://fakservices.com/ is using CF,

    • Enhancements to Zoho Meeting Annotator

      Hello Zoho Meeting Team, Hope you are doing well. We would like to share a few improvement suggestions regarding the Zoho Meeting Annotator used during screen sharing. While the current version provides helpful annotation tools, there are several limitations

    • Zoho Social/Marketing Plus - Addition to "Monitor" function

      It would be very helpful if the Monitor function would allow us to add a column to monitor hashtags in addition to pages and mentions. This is a common and very valuable function in other social listening tools.

    • Zoho forms - > Zoho desk multiple agents

      Hi! I would like to use a standard form to be used when we hiring people, so we looked at zoho forms for that. Now we would like to get that info in to Zoho desk and their different users shall take care of this ticket simultaneous . So, what would be

    • Almacenamiento

      Hola, Quisiera saber como podría hacer para bajar el almacenamiento de 5gb a mis usuarios, en otras palabras los quiero ir limitando de la cuota real, y luego ir agregando poco a poco la cantidad hasta llegar a los 5gb que me dan en el plan free. 

    • Will I Get a Refund If I Downgrade Zoho Mail?

      Hello, We upgraded an email account for our new employee. However, the employee left after one month, and now I've reduced the number of Zoho Mail users from 7 to 6. Can we get a refund for the remaining portion of our annual payment?

    • JOB WISE INVOICE PROCESS

      I WANT TO ENABLE JOB WISE TRACKING OF ALL SALES AND PURCHASE

    • Introducing the revamped What's New page

      Hello everyone! We're happy to announce that Zoho Campaigns' What's New page has undergone a complete revamp. We've bid the old page adieu after a long time and have introduced a new, sleeker-looking page. Without further ado, let's dive into the main

    • Zoho Books - France

      L’équipe de Zoho France reçoit régulièrement des questions sur la conformité de ses applications de finances (Zoho Books/ Zoho Invoice) pour le marché français. Voici quelques points pour clarifier la question : Zoho Books est un logiciel de comptabilité

    • Name autocomplete

      Hi, During searching emails the web tool does not always propose the auto-completion of the saved emails. As a result I either have to go to contacts and look up the exact email, or the exact full name including the middle name and any dots, which is very annoying. For example I have a contact that I emailed in the past that has "First M. Last" <email@email.com> type of contact. When I start typing 'First' the email may or may not pop up in the autocomplete menu. Then if I start typing "first last"

    • How do i follow up my email campaign in-thread

      Is there a way to follow up the email campaign so that it is in-thread using zoho campaigns? eg customer gets original email with subject line "hello" then 5 days later follow up would be with subject line "RE: hello".

    • Announcing new features in Trident for Mac (1.29.0)

      Hello everyone! Trident for macOS (v1.29.0) is here with new features and enhancements to enhance your business communication. Let's take a quick look at them. Access shared mailboxes. You can now view and access shared mailboxes in Trident, which are

    • Books is extremely slow again today !

      Everything is running slowly even with 500mb connection speed

    • Cyclic dependencies in many-to-many relationships...

      I have an application which includes a form for companies, and a form for contacts. Each company can be assigned 1 technical and 1 administrative contact. I have this working okay so far, but I want to copy the scripts used so far to a new empty application. When I import the scripts it fails with a message that says: Problem encountered while creating the application Error in resolving form dependency:Cyclic dependency among the forms:[Company, Contact] What can I do to resolve this? After all,

    • Zoho API to create ticket

      I'm developing an integration to create tickets via API, but, locally it works (send and recieve requests). In production it also works sending requests, but, my file don't recieve any response data. My URL is available in Zoho API Console and I have

    • Automate Timesheet Approvals with Multi-level Approval Rules

      Introducing Approval Rules for Timesheets in Zoho Projects. With this automation, teams can manage how timesheets are reviewed and approved by setting up rules with criteria and assigning approvers to handle submissions. Timesheet, when associated to

    • Labels Part 2

       Hey Zoho Mail Team, On the labels window on the left-hand pane, alphabetize label name display, rather than displaying in order created.  This one should be easy. Thanks, Drew

    • Building Toppings #1 - Serving your needs with Bigin Toppings

      Hey Biginners! We're excited to kick off our Developer Community series on building toppings for Bigin, and our goal is to provide an accessible, beginner-friendly, and relevant path for every developer. Imagine creating tiny pieces of software that unlock

    • Can we create Sprint with tasks from Multiple projects?

      Hi Team, We were using Zoho Sprints for quite sometime. Currently we have started the process of Sprint method. We couldnt create the active sprint board with the tasks from multiple projects. I would like to know whether this is possible or Any timeline

    • Tip of the Week #74– Create automated workflows in MS Power Automate

      Zoho TeamInbox now connects directly with Microsoft Power Automate, letting you streamline everyday routines tasks such as from sending emails to managing threads, with automated workflows. About the integration Zoho TeamInbox integrates with Microsoft

    • Account validation

      Hello everyone, I registered my account on ZeptoMail to use the system, but the problem is that the verification period on Zepto's end has already passed and I have limited functionality.

    • Paste issues in ZOHO crm notes

      Hi, since a week or so I have issues with the paste function in ZOHO CRM. I use "notes" to copy paste texts from Outlook emails and since a week or so, the pasting doesnt function as it should: some text just disappears and it gives a lot of empty lines/enters.....

    • Is it possible to add a gradient color to a newsletter im designing?

      From where i sit it looks like you can only choose a single color but not combine 2 colors?

    • Account disabled

      I have an issue I need help with. Whilst trialing ZOHO CRM I created the following: Account1 (-------------) using m__ame@m__rg___s__i__.___.__ and 2 personal emails Account2 (-------------) using a personal email and 2 users _al__1@______________._o_.__

    • Blocked Email

      We are a Zoho One subscriber and use Yahoo as our MX provider. A few times each year, for the past four years, CRM blocks one or more of my Zoho One users from receiving internal email from CRM. This includes "@mentions" in all modules, and emails from

    • message var is empty in bot mention handler

      Hi, I'm encountering a problem: in my bot's mention handler, I want to retrieve the text the user typed when mentioning the bot. Example: On the #tests-cyril channel, I send this message: “@Donna hello how are you ?” I expect the system variable "message"

    • Remembrance Day to Remember – Recalling Values

      The phrase “at the eleventh hour” refers to the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, when the hostilities of World War I came to an end—but it still holds meaning today. Remembrance Day (Veterans Day in the US) is observed on November

    • Next Page