Zoho CRM Community Digest - July 2025 | Part 1

Hey everyone,

The start of July 2025 marked a special milestone: 200 posts in our Kaizen series! For those new here, Kaizen is a go-to series for Zoho CRM developers, where we regularly share best practices, tips, and expert insights to help you build better with CRM.

Reaching 200 wouldn’t have been possible without your support, curiosity, and encouragement. So, here’s to your curious brains and to this series never stopping!

Now, let’s dive into the product updates lined up for this fortnight.

Product updates:

Enhancements in Portal User Group creation in flow:

Zoho has revamped the portal user group creation flow to make it clearer and more user-friendly. The term “User Type” has now been renamed to “User Group,” and “Portal Tab Configuration” is now renamed to “Portal Module Configuration.” The setup flow has also been reorganized for better clarity. A new Settings tab has been added: if invites are sent via Email, it includes Portal Forms and Email Templates; if sent via Phone, you'll see an SMS Templates tab instead. 

You can see a complete before-and-after view of the changes in the post.

Smarter Scoring with Zia:

Zoho CRM now offers advanced scoring factors, including Zia Scores for all modules, making lead and record scoring smarter and context-aware. Scoring Rules under Automation now bring Manual and Zia Scores together in one place, simplifying the management of all factors, whether based on custom conditions or VoC-driven insights like sentiment, intent, or competitor mentions. Zia automatically applies the right rule using conditions you define, ensuring scores are relevant to each context. This update also enables Zia Scores to trigger automations across all modules. Check out the post to learn more.. 

Static Subforms are here!

Tired of repeatedly entering the same data structure in subforms? With Static Subforms, you can now predefine rows with fixed values, ideal for cases where your team consistently captures the same type of information across different records. This is especially handy when tracking items like tax breakdowns, standard fee structures, or routine checklists. It streamlines data entry, reduces errors, and saves time. Admins can lock these static rows or allow edits, offering both structure and flexibility. Read the full post to learn more.

Custom Views can now be deployed from Sandbox to Production!

That’s right! Zoho CRM now lets you create and test custom views inside your sandbox and directly push them to your live setup. No more manually recreating views after testing! Explore more about it in this post.

Community Discussion Highlights!

Quick Wins:

Export Just What You Need from Accounts Module:

@Ian B asked how to export specific information from the Accounts module. Take a look at this post where @Pheranda share a helpful screenshot to show exactly how it's done.

Avoiding Duplicate Accounts from Forms:

@Ian had a question about preventing duplicate account creation when someone submits a Zoho Forms application? @Max Tyack offered a solid solution using the Upsert Record option in the Zoho Forms integration, and even suggested creating a custom module to track submission, using workflows to update or create accounts only when needed. Take a look at the post to know more.

Tracking training and certification expirations in Zoho CRM:

@Patrick Meyers asked how to track customers' training certificates that expire after 2–4 years, while also keeping a log of every course taken. The goal was to capture registration details, certification dates, expiry dates, and trigger reminder emails three months before expiration while keeping past records intact. If you're looking to automate renewal and follow-up reminders in Zoho CRM, this post has some practical ideas worth exploring!

 

Functions:

Want to copy related records from a custom module into Deals automatically?

@Emma had a custom module for capturing some data but felt it would be better to capture this data using a separate layout in the Deals module. The data transfer involves notes, subforms, and attachments, and importing them through the back-up process requires updating the parent record ID properly. @Bhoomi Joshi offered a practical Deluge function that moves the record from custom module to Deals, copying over relevant fields including sub-form data, notes and attachments. Take a look at the post for the code!

Developer's Corner:

Searching Call Records by Phone Number with COQL API:

@Clark Janes was having trouble searching Call records by phone number using the calls/search Web API, encountering errors like INVALID_QUERY and FIELD_TYPE_UNAVAILABLE when using criteria or phone parameters. @Jeganprabhu recommended using the COQL API to query the Calls module directly using From_Number or To_Number fields to retrieve matching call records even without linked contacts.

Take a look at this post for details.


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!

• Topic Participants

• Swetha S

  

• Sticky Posts

• How to reach the official Zoho Support channels and avoid fake ones.

  Dear Customers, Thanks a lot for choosing Zoho! Our applications are built to help achieve your day-to-day business goals. We are committed to engaging with you, to understand and develop solutions that enhance your productivity.  We are happy and ready to help you use our services effectively. Understanding and avoiding fake support Just like using popular bank names and financial applications for phishing purposes, using Zoho and claiming to be providing Zoho Support or services with false numbers

• Function #35: Close all tasks associated with a lead and create a new task.

  Welcome back everyone! Last week, we learnt how to close all tasks of a deal depending upon the deal stage. This week, let's look at a custom function that lets you close all of the tasks associated with a lead while simultaneously creating a new task, like when you need to halt all progress towards a lead while the lead is not available at the moment but create a reminder task. Business scenario: The success of a company, in one way or another, is determined by the leads it gets. Each lead is just

• Zoho CRM Webinar - Redesigning Daily User Experiences with Canvas

  <br> Your users across roles use the CRM for day-to-day tasks that are necessary. Whether they perform their tasks on time, the right way, or at all depends on a lot of factors, including User Experience. Many businesses struggle with rigid layouts,

• Join us at the Canada ZUG Meetup: What’s New in Zoho CRM

  Hello Zoho Community! Start your year with fresh insights into Zoho CRM’s latest updates and tools. Whether you're a CRM beginner or a experienced user, this meetup is crafted to help you optimise your processes and leverage new features. Explore practical

• CRM Hack #2: Automate sending of birthday greetings to your customers.

    Hello everyone! What sets you apart as a sales person is your ability to add that personal touch to your business relationship with your customers. Sending a gift on a special day, or leaving a note wishing them on their birthdays, are small, yet significant actions that show your customers that you care. And these are actions done without any expectations :) You must be engaging with a lot of customers and it is highly unlikely that they all are your friends on Facebook or some social channel,

• Recent Topics

• Direct Feed (Bank)

  Is Direct feed integration for AlRajhi and ADCB bank supported by Zoho Books in GCC/Saudi

• Sales Order, Invoice and Payment numbers

  Hi zoho friends, it is me again, the slow learner. I'm wondering if there is a way to have it so the Sales order, invoice and payment numbers are all the same? It would be easier for me if they were the same number so there is not so many reference numbers

• MS Teams for daily call operations

  Hello all, Our most anticipated and crucial update is finally here! Organizations using Microsoft Teams phone system can now integrate it effectively with Zoho CRM for tasks like dialling numbers and logging calls. We are enhancing our MS Teams functionality

• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Report

  From data to decisions: A deep dive into ticketing system reports The customer satisfaction (CSAT) report helps teams understand how customers feel about their support experience, identify service gaps, and continuously improve the help desk. It turns

• Timeline Tracking Support for records updates via module import and bulk write api

  Note: This update is currently available in Early Access and will soon be rolled out across all data centers (DCs) and for all editions of Zoho CRM. The update will be available to all users within your organization, regardless of their profiles or roles.

• Shifts in Zoho People vs Zoho Shifts?

  Hello Zoho People Team, We hope you are doing well. We are evaluating the Shifts functionality within Zoho People and comparing it to the standalone Zoho Shifts product. We’ve encountered comments and discussions suggesting that the Shifts feature inside

• Disable fields in During action in Blueprint?

  Hi there. I've tried field disable (setReadOnly(true)) using client script and the event is onMandatoryFormLoad on detail page, assuming it'll work on blueprint fields, but it bears no result. Is this the expected behaviour? That we can't do this yet?

• Develop and publish a Zoho Recruit extension on the marketplace

  Hi, I'd like to develop a new extension for Zoho Recruit. I've started to use Zoho Developers creating a Zoho CRM extension. But when I try to create a new extension here https://sigma.zoho.com/workspace/testtesttestest/apps/new I d'ont see the option of Zoho Recruit (only CRM, Desk, Projects...). I do see extensions for Zoho Recruit in the marketplace. How would I go about to create one if the option is not available in sigma ? Cheers, Rémi.

• Best Email Backup Wizard in 2026

  While searching for an email backup solution, my main hesitation was reliability. As a user, I had already seen many tools that looked promising but failed when handling large mailboxes, skipped folders, or caused authentication issues during the backup

• Subforms and automation

  If a user updates a field how do we create an automation etc. We have a field for returned parts and i want to get an email when that field is ticked. How please as Zoho tells me no automation on subforms. The Reason- Why having waited for ever for FSM

• Allow Managers to Create Shifts for Their Departments in Zoho People

  Hello Zoho People Product Team, Greetings and hope you are doing well. This feature request is related to Zoho People - please don't move it to zoho one! We would like to submit a feature request regarding shift management permissions in Zoho People.

• Zoho Learn and Zoho CRM integration

  I would like to see an integration between Zoho Learn and Zoho CRM. 1. To be able to add articles in a related list in all modules 2. Zia to suggest related articles in a Deal or Case or Lead 3. Ability to read / search articles during a call / follow

• Maintain steady traffic to your domain: How Domain Aliasing helps

  Consider this scenario: An organization has its primary domain as administrator.com. Now it wants to shorten its domain to admin.com because it's simpler and easier to remember. However, changing the domain completely can cause the following problems:

• Why Sharing Rules do Not support relative date comparison???

  I am creating a Sharing Rule and simply want to share where "Last Day of Coverage" (Date field) is Greater than TODAY (Starting Tomorrow). However, sharing rules don't have the option to compare a date field to a relative date (like today), only to Static

• How do I migrate OLM file to Gmail?

  Migrating emails from Outlook for Mac to Gmail can be challenging because Gmail does not support OLM files directly. This limitation often causes confusion and delays, especially when users need quick access to important emails and mailbox data on a web-based

• CRM x WorkDrive: File storage for new CRM signups is now powered by WorkDrive

  Availability Editions: All DCs: All Release plan: Released for new signups in all DCs. It will be enabled for existing users in a phased manner in the upcoming months. Help documentation: Documents in Zoho CRM Manage folders in Documents tab Manage files

• Workflow rule only allows 10 workflow per module

  Apparently a Zoho professional edition only allows 10 workflow rules per module. This makes workflow allocation literally impossible while allocating potential to different members of the team. I have 15 licenses. Is there a way in which related alerts can be varied? In other words, is it possible to have different related alerts be triggered with different rule criteria. so if I say, if potential is 'x' then trigger related alert 'x' and if potential is 'y' then trigger related alert 'y' Thanks,

• IF Statement in Zoho CRM Formula Field

  Hi, I am attempting to write a formula field that will give me one result if one statement AND another statement are true, then a different value if the first statement AND a different statement are true, else 0. Stated differently: if account = destination

• CRM Percent custom fields: When will it show the % symbol and behave like %?

  1. Actually Percent custom fields fail to show the % symbol. 2. When in formulas Percent fields work like number: 100 x 5% = 5 ideal world 100 x 5% = 500 what happens actually 3. When importing Percent fields the % symbol has to be removed and the data

• Free Webinar: Zoho Sign for Zoho Projects: Automate tasks and approvals with e-signatures

  Hi there! Handling multiple projects at once? Zoho Projects is your solution for automated and streamlined project management, and with the Zoho Sign extension, you can sign, send, and manage digital paperwork directly from your project workspace. Join

• Automatically CC an address using Zoho CRM Email Templates

  Hi all - have searched but can't see a definitive answer. We have built multiple email templates in CRM. Every time we send this we want it to CC a particular address (the same address for every email sent) so that it populates the reply back into our

• Editing the Ticket Properties column

  This is going to sound like a dumb question, but I cannot figure out how to configure/edit the sections (and their fields) in this column: For example, we have a custom "Resolution" field, which parked itself in the "Ticket Information" section of this

• "Total Hours" on Employee Attendance Report

  I'm learning that in Zoho jargon, "total hours" does not include paid breaks. Or at least not the way that my setup is working. That seems a little weird to me, since most jurisdictions in the US don't differentiate between time spent on paid break and

• Fixed assets in Zoho One?

  Hi, We use Zoho Books and have the fixed asset option in it. I started a trial for Zoho One and I do not see that as an option. Is the books that is part of zoho one equivalent to Zoho Books Elite subscription or is it a lesser version? Thanks, Matt

• Integration with...

  Dear Zoho Commerce team, Please could you consider the integration within Zoho Commerce / Inventory and Qapla'? (https://www.qapla.it/en/) This app is better than Aftership in many ways: - Aftership integration require PRO plan and price start from more

• Repeat Column merge in ZOHO writer columns doesn't allow to set max columns per row

  I'm using ZOHO writer to merge data from a ZOHO CRM subform and I want it to make a table. We're using Insert Table for Column Repeat, because this is what we need. (Name of column (Teamname) and underneath that a list of names of teammembers). It works

• Generate leads from instagram

  hello i have question. If connect instagram using zoho social, it is possible to get lead from instagram? example if someone send me direct message or comment on my post and then they generate to lead

• Adding Markdown text using Zoho Desk API into the Knowledge Base

  Hi Zoho Community members, We currently maintain the documentation of out company in its website. This documentation is written in markdown text format and we would like to add it in Zoho Knowledge Base. Do you know if there is REST API functionality

• Create case via email

  Good Afternoon, I have just registered and am taking a look around the system. Is it possible to create a case via email.  I.e. an employee/client/supplier emails a certain address and that auto generates the case which then prompts a member of staff

• 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

• Locked Notebook

  Hi, I hadn't used my Notebook in some time and was refamiliarizing myself with it. I clicked a lock icon and now I can't unlock. When I hit the information or unlock icons I'm taken to a page with the notebook icon and a keyboard. When I type, nothing

• Unable to produce monthly P&L reports for previous years

  My company just migrated to Books this year. We have 5+ years financial data and need to generate a monthly P&L for 2019 and a monthly P&L YTD for 2020. The latter is easy, but I'm VERY surprised to learn that default reports in Zoho Books cannot create

• Hide fields only for creation

  Hello, I'd like to hide some fields only during the creation of a contact in Zoho CRM. In fact I have some fields that are automatically calculated thanks to an automation, so when my users create a contact I don't want them to fill those fields. I know

• Issues with Zoho Sheet in Mac

  I have downloaded the Zoho App from App Store but It is failing to Save As, Open & Download Operations. App Store

• Weekly Sales Summary

  Is it possible to generate a weekly report in Zoho Books to show -$$ amount of estimates generated -# of estimates generated by Salesperson -$$ amount of Sales Orders created -$$ amount of Invoices generated

• Subject character limit increase

  We have an occasional user case where subject lines exceed 500 characters which is the ZeptoMail imposed limit. While I understand long subject lines are not "best practice", these are particular notification emails with specific information for client

• Can I write a check in Zoho Books with no associated bill?

  This currently does not seem possible, and I have a client that desperately needs this function if I am able to convert them with Quickbooks. Thank you in advance for your reply. 

• OpenAPI Specs are just plain wrong

  The provided yml files for generating the OpenAPI specs are absolutely riddled with errors and inconsistencies. From missing fields on the objects, to just incorrectly named resource objects. I'm having to go through and manually changing the spec to

• About Meetings (Events module)

  I was working on an automation to cancel appointments in zoho flow , and in our case, we're using the Meetings module (which is called Events in API terms). But while working with it, I'm wondering what information I can display in the image where the

• Custom Footer – Zoho Writer Document

  Hello everyone, I’m having an issue adding a custom footer in a Zoho Writer document. I would like to insert my company information (including a logo + address) in the footer. The problem is that when I add these elements, the main content of my pages

• Next Page