Zoho crm digest

Zoho crm digest




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!


    • 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

    • Feature Request - Ability to Customise Contact Info Card on Ticket Details View

      Hi Desk Team, I've added a "Contact Priority" and "Account Prioirty" field and it would be very useful to agents if they could see that information in the Contact Info card on the Ticket Details view. It would be great if we could choose some fields to

    • Tax in Quote

      Each row item in a quote has a tax value. At the total numbers at the bottom, there is also a Tax entry. If you select tax in both of the (line item, and the total), the tax doubles. My assumption is that the Tax total should be totalling the tax from

    • Zoho Flow integration with Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp

      Hi there,  any plans of adding integrations with Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp into Zoho Flow? Seems that more and more business are delivering automated updates such as "your order is received",  "your order has been shipped" and so on via these two platforms. Not sure if Whatsapp has the API access needed i am pretty sure that Facebook Messenger has... Kind regards Bo Thygesen 

    • Multi-currency and Products

      One of the main reasons I have gone down the Zoho route is because I need multi-currency support. However, I find that products can only be priced in the home currency, We sell to the US and UK. However, we maintain different price lists for each. There

    • Campaigns unsubscribe/manage preferences links

      Hi, Where can I edit the unscubscribe and manage preferences link in the footer of the email. I would like it so that when you click 'manage preferences' an form opens up that allows the person to choose what type of emails they do and don't wish to

    • email address somehow still not verified (?!)

      L.S. After creating a new email template in CRM I was about to send a group email to my clients, then Zoho CRM announced that they would change the sender address to some kind of Zoho-e-ddress because my email address "has not been verified". Not only

    • Marketing Tip #17: Add credibility to your online store with Review Widgets

      One of the fastest ways to build trust in an online store is to show real customer feedback right where people are deciding to buy. Third-party widgets let you embed things like Google Reviews, Instagram feeds, or even a WhatsApp chat button. These add

    • adding several team members to an Opportunity

      How can we add several team members to one opportunity for collaboration? I have researched and only found something called Deal Team which I cannot find in my CRM to configure.

    • PDF Annotation is here - Mark Up PDFs Your Way!

      Reviewing PDFs just got a whole lot easier. You can now annotate PDFs directly in Zoho Notebook. Highlight important sections, add text, insert images, apply watermarks, and mark up documents in detail without leaving your notes. No app switching. No

    • Bulk update Profile Permissions

      Dears, What should we do if we add new forms or reports and need to update more than 20 permissions? Updating them one by one feels pretty harsh, doesn’t it?

    • Filter in fields from Jira extension

      We have installed the Jira extension so we can maken Jira issues from Zoho desk. In Zoho desk I can also see the Jira issue status for example but I can not filter on this field. I would like to setup an filter showing me the closed Jira issues. How can

    • Zoho Creator customer portal limitation | Zoho One

      I'm asking you all for any feedback as to the logic or reasoning behind drastically limiting portal users when Zoho already meters based on number of records. I'm a single-seat, Zoho One Enterprise license holder. If my portal users are going to add records, wouldn't that increase revenue for Zoho as that is how Creator is monetized? Why limit my customer portal to only THREE external users when more users would equate to more records being entered into the database?!? (See help ticket reply below.)

    • Link Contacts to Billed Accounts

      Hello, I want to do a survey on all my customers of 2025. For that I want to select all contacts linked to accounts who where billed in 2025. How to I create this link to I can then use Zoho Survey with this database of contacts?

    • Historical Sales Info - Blend with Finance Invoice Line Items, Access in CRM and Desk

      My company has been using Zoho One since 2021, with sales data going back through 2020. However, we have been in business much longer, and we have historical sales information that we want to have at our fingertips when talking with customers (usually

    • Pre-Zoho Sales Info - Best Way to Add to Desk / CRM

      My company has been using Zoho One since 2021, with sales data going back through 2020. However, we have been in business much longer, and we have historical sales information that we want to have at our fingertips when talking with customers (usually

    • CRM function REST API response format

      Is there a way to control the JSON response returned by the CRM function REST API? If I call a function using either OAuth or an API key it returns a 200 OK response with a string in the format shown below. I am using a particular feature of an external

    • Using MPN across multiple SKUs and inventory tracking

      I have several different SKU's that share a common MPN and would like to track inventory by MPN. SKU1 has MPN1 assigned SKU2 has MPN1 assigned Here is an example If I start with 5 of MPN 1 in stock I want each SKU1 and SKU2 to show as 5 in stock, If I

    • Unable to Access Application:

      Whenever I try to access my application from the desktop, say I am editing it and want to test something in the desktop environment I get: An error has occurred. An internal error has occurred. Please check the URL , or try refreshing the page I can edit

    • Cannot see Application from Lookup field

      Hi all, I am trying to access data for an application on our account via a lookup field; however, the application doesn't appear in the dropdown at all. Can anyone shed any light on this, please? I have asked Zoho support; however, they're just as confused,

    • Cannot see correct DNS config for mail after moving domain to another provider

      I have moved my domain from one provider to another and after that zoho mail stopped working (expected). Problem is, zoho mail admin panel still shows (10 hours after move) that all records are correct while I haven't changed anything in my domain DNS

    • Zoho CRM Meetings Module Issues

      We have a use-case that is very common in today's world, but won't work in Zoho CRM. We have an SDR (Sales Development Rep) who makes many calls per day to Leads and Contacts, and schedules meetings for our primary Sales Reps. He does this by logging

    • Zoho Books integration sync from Zoho CRM does not work

      Hi Zoho Community & Zoho Support We just tried to get a sync some products into Zoho Books from CRM using the native sync and we're getting an error: "It looks like some mandatory fields you're trying to map are empty. Please provide valid field names

    • P & L Sub-categorized accounts

      How can I show sub-categorized Income and Expense accounts on the P & L report?

    • Report showing Bill Details with Project and Sales Invoice Number

      Hi There, I am hoping that someone can help, I am looking for report that can show the bill and expense details along with project its as assigned to and the invoice number that the sales has been raised in. The goal is I can filter a customer/project

    • Advanced Payment for Inventory Items with serial numbers

      Hello, We sell equipment that we track the unique serial numbers on using Sales Orders. We can charge the customers an advanced payment, then the balance on delivery. We cannot figure out a way to do this in Books/Inventory: - Cannot part invoice a SO

    • Is it possible to restrict ZCRM user to see only custom views created by administrator

      I have segmented data in my CRM and I want to allow different users to be able to see only parts of it based on some criteria. I've tried to create and share a custom view, but then there is always an option for user to see all open lead for example.

    • Issues Logging into ZOHO

      Hello, one of my coworkers is having issues logging into ZOHO, she has requested a code when entering and the email is correct but she has not received the code. can you help us with this?

    • Google Fonts Integration in Pagesense Popup Editor

      Hello Zoho Pagesense Team, We hope you're doing well. We’d like to submit a feature request to enhance Zoho Pagesense’s popup editor with Google Fonts support. Current Limitation: Currently, Pagesense offers a limited set of default fonts. Google Fonts

    • Add Popup Rejection Metrics to Reports

      Hello Zoho PageSense Team, We would like to request improved reporting for popup interactions. Current Limitation: PageSense currently provides conversion data, but there is no clear visibility into: Popup rejections Popup closes (✕ button clicks) Dismissals

    • Ability to Reset / Reinitialize Popup Cookies

      Hello Zoho PageSense Team, We would like to request the ability to manually reset popup cookies. Current Limitation: At the moment, it is not possible to initiate a new popup cookie from the our side. Visitors who rejected or closed a popup will not see

    • Control Popup Cookie Expiration Duration

      Hello Zoho PageSense Team, We would like to request an enhancement related to popup cookie management. Current Limitation: Currently, PageSense popup cookies remain active for 365 days, and this duration cannot be modified by us. If a visitor closes or

    • Clone / Export Popup Design Across PageSense Projects

      Hello Zoho PageSense Team, We hope you’re doing well. We would like to request an enhancement that allows popup designs to be reused across different PageSense projects. Problem Statement: Currently, Zoho PageSense allows popups to be duplicated only

    • Are there settings for hyperlinks?

      Clicking a hyperlinked cell in Sheet creates this little pop-up with the actual hyperlink inside. Is it possible to have a 1-click link where if you click the cell it opens the link directly with no pop-up?

    • Automatically include all ticket attachments in the ticket resolution email

      Hello Zoho Community, We are implementing Zoho Desk in a real customer-facing production environment and have run into a limitation that is becoming a blocking requirement for our clients. The problem When a ticket is closed or resolved, Zoho Desk sends

    • Keep Zoho People Feature Requests in the Zoho People Forum

      Hello Zoho People Product Team, Greetings. We would like to submit a feature request regarding the handling of feature requests themselves, specifically for Zoho People. Issue: Feature Requests Being Moved to Zoho One Zoho People feature requests are

    • Zoho Sheet for Desktop

      Does Zoho plans to develop a Desktop version of Sheet that installs on the computer like was done with Writer?

    • Finding text within a ticket: Expand All or Search this Ticket

      The auto-collapse feature within a ticket is nice for screen scrolling, however it makes it difficult to find text within the ticket if the email is collapsed. In fact you cannot find text if it is collapsed. I would like to propose a feature that allows

    • Books & Desk. Client mapping

      Hi, I’ve been using Zoho Books for several years and am now looking to improve my customer service. I'm experimenting with Zoho Desk and want to sync and map my client data from Zoho Books. However, it seems that mapping requires both contacts to have

    • String handling

      If I cut a currency string from a quote and try and paste it into the Deal "Amount", it will fail unless I manually delete any commas. Dollar signs are no problem, but comma's seem to fail. Please correct this Input Validation error.

    • Feature Request - Allow Customers To Pick Meeting Duration

      Hi Bookings Team, It would be great if there was an option to allow customers to pick a duration based on a max and minimum amount of time defined by me and in increments defined by me. For example, I have some slots which are available for customers

    • Next Page