Featurecast Story 17 - IM via the Desk mobile app

Featurecast Story 17 - IM via the Desk mobile app

IM'ing (Instant Messaging) Feature Story Series 

Featurecast Story 17 - IM via the Desk mobile app

Carry your support desk wherever you go! 



We're delighted to introduce you to our Zoho Desk's IM mobile software development kit (SDK). Zoho Desk is the first app to integrate the instant messaging SDK.

These days, comprehensive mobile app development means there are apps for just about everything: shopping, travel, fitness, gaming, entertainment, and much more. There are also many business apps to support productivity, planning, and communication. There are multiple factors that have contributed to the growing popularity of mobile apps, including convenience, the growth of broadband network availability, and the increasing power of mobile devices.

It's also important to realize that apps are so popular because they empower people to take control of their lives and manage their work more effectively. Let me illustrate this with a short story.

Mobile apps empower business users

Once upon a time, a busy professional named Kia had many tasks to complete every day. She found it challenging to keep track of everything and often felt burned out at the end of the day. One day, she discovered a mobile app that promised to simplify her life and make things easier.

At first, Kia was hesitant to use the app. She wondered whether setting it up and learning how to use it would be worth her time and effort. But eventually, she decided to try it, and she was pleasantly surprised by how helpful it was.

The app allowed her to track her tickets, set reminders for important tasks, and manage her activities. As she continued to use the mobile app, Kia found that it saved her a lot of time and stress. She no longer had to worry as much about deadlines because she felt more organized and in control of her life.

At Zoho Desk, we love to make it easier for people to succeed at work! So, if you're like Kia and feel overwhelmed by your daily job, why not try the IM mobile SDK for your business communication needs?

Integrated messaging boosts mobile app development

Technology must constantly evolve to maintain a modern appearance and keep up with changes in users' requirements. That's why we've provided the SDK with access to the IM features on your Desk mobile apps.
 
We have introduced the easy click-to-send option, enabling you to send templates through the Desk mobile app.
 
You can seamlessly integrate your favorite messaging apps, such as WhatsApp, Telegram, LINE, WeChat and Facebook Messenger with Zoho Desk. You can also choose templates and send them to your mobile device's preferred platform.

Desk's IM mobile SDK offers advantages for customer support

Real-time communication

Instant messaging allows rapid communication between customers and support agents, leading to quicker issue resolution and improved customer satisfaction.

Convenience

Customers can access support anytime using their mobile devices, allowing them to get assistance without waiting on hold or sending emails.

Multimedia support

Many messaging apps support multimedia content such as images, videos, and documents. This enables customers to easily share screenshots or videos of their issues, which can help support agents understand and resolve problems more effectively.

Chat history

Messaging apps often maintain chat histories, allowing customers and support agents to refer to previous conversations. This can help track the team's progress toward resolving issues or enable them to review past solutions to similar problems.

Multiple conversations

Support agents can simultaneously handle multiple customer inquiries through instant messaging, increasing efficiency and reducing customer wait times.

Notifications

Instant messaging apps can send notifications to users, alerting them when a support agent responds to their message. This ensures that customers stay informed and engaged throughout the support process.

Integration

Many instant messaging apps integrate with other business tools and systems, such as CRM software or help desk platforms. This streamlines support agents' work and enables better customer interaction management.

Let's review IM SDK features 

Sessions view

The sessions view will list the chat sessions and show the available options for switching between conversation views and integrated channels. Users can also apply status-based filters.

Conversation view

The conversation view shows all the conversations in that chat session with a clean in-and-out message bubble UI. You can also perform chat-specific actions, such as ending a chat, reopening chat sessions, and blocking or unblocking chats. The compose-message view also supports canned messages and pre-approved template messages. By typing the hotkey "#," you can invoke the saved canned messages from your library.

Themes and fonts

You can choose brand colors and fonts in light or dark themes.

Settings

Set the date and time format, the default contact image type, and your contact avatar or the first letter of your name.

Options

You can control the contacts' names, messages in a conversation, URL handling, attachment selection, and presentation style.

Push notifications

The client apps can receive push notifications.

Privacy

Our mobile SDK was developed with a focus on ensuring privacy and data protection. Any data that is of concern is sent to the client app via the error listeners and direct callbacks.

Database encryption

Database encryption is functional in Android and iOS.

Benefits of using the mobile SDK

    •    Facilitating teams' communication and productivity
    •    Remaining "top of mind" with customers
    •    Ensuring ease of use
    •    Capturing data

I hope you found this story helpful. Start using the IM SDK via the Desk mobile apps to accelerate your business communications and provide comprehensive support to your customers.

There's more to come, so please watch this space for more IM feature stories.
 
Until next time,


Kavya Rao
The Zoho Desk Team

      Zoho Campaigns Resources


        • Desk Community Learning Series


        • Digest


        • Functions


        • Meetups


        • Kbase


        • Resources


        • Glossary


        • Desk Marketplace


        • MVP Corner


        • Word of the Day


        • Ask the Experts


          • Sticky Posts

          • Register for Zoho Desk Beta Community

            With the start of the year, we have decided to take a small step in making the life of our customers a little easier. We now have easy access to all our upcoming features and a faster way to request for beta access. We open betas for some of our features
          • Share your Zoho Desk story with us!

            Tell us how you use Zoho Desk for your business and inspire others with your story. Be it a simple workflow rule that helps you navigate complex processes or a macro that saves your team a lot of time; share it here and help the community learn and grow with shared knowledge. 
          • Tip #1: Learn to pick the right channels

            Mail, live chat, telephony, social media, web forms—there are so many support channels out there. Trying to pick the right channels to offer your customers can get pretty confusing. Emails are most useful when the customer wants to put things on record. However, escalated or complicated issues should not be resolved over email because it's slow and impersonal.  When you need immediate responses, live chat is more suitable. It's also quick and convenient, so it's the go-to channel for small issues. 
          • Welcome to Zoho Desk Community - Say hello here!

            Hello everyone! Though we have been here for a while, it’s time to formally establish the Zoho Desk Community; we’re really happy to have you all here! This can be the place where you take a moment to introduce yourself to the rest of the community. We’d love to hear all about you, what you do, what company or industry you work for, how you use Zoho Desk and anything else that you will like to share! Here’s a little about me. I am Chinmayee. I have been associated with Zoho since 2014. I joined here
          • Webinar 1: Blueprint for Customer Service

            With the launch of a host of new features in Zoho Desk, we thought it’ll be great to have a few webinars to help our customers make the most of them. We’re starting off with our most talked about feature, Blueprint in Zoho Desk. You can register for the Blueprint webinar here: The webinar will be delivered by our in-house product experts. This is a good opportunity to ask questions to our experts and understand how Blueprint can help you automate your service processes. We look forward to seeing

          Zoho CRM Plus Resources

            Zoho Books Resources


              Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                Zoho Projects Resources


                  Zoho Sprints Resources


                    Zoho Orchestly Resources


                      Zoho Creator Resources


                        Zoho WorkDrive Resources



                          Zoho CRM Resources

                          • CRM Community Learning Series

                            CRM Community Learning Series


                          • Tips

                            Tips

                          • Functions

                            Functions

                          • Meetups

                            Meetups

                          • Kbase

                            Kbase

                          • Resources

                            Resources

                          • Digest

                            Digest

                          • CRM Marketplace

                            CRM Marketplace

                          • MVP Corner

                            MVP Corner




                            Zoho Writer Writer

                            Get Started. Write Away!

                            Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                              Zoho CRM コンテンツ



                                ご検討中の方

                                  • Recent Topics

                                  • IMAP mail after specify date

                                    Hi My customer's mail server is on premise and mail storage is very huge. So It never finish sync. and finally stop sync. Cloud CRM have a option like zoho mail sync mail after some date.
                                  • Claude + MCP Server + Zoho CRM Integration – AI-Powered Sales Automation

                                    Hello Zoho Community 👋 I’m excited to share a recent integration we’ve worked on at OfficehubTech: ✅ Claude + MCP Server + Zoho CRM This integration connects Zoho CRM with Claude AI through our custom MCP Server, enabling intelligent AI-driven responses
                                  • Notes badge as a quick action in the list view

                                    Hello all, We are introducing the Notes badge in the list view of all modules as a quick action you can perform for each record, in addition to the existing Activity badge. With this enhancement, users will have quick visibility into the notes associated
                                  • Search Bar positioning

                                    Why is the Search bar on the far right when everything is oriented towards the left?
                                  • Import Error: Empty values for mandatory fields - Closing Date

                                    Hello, I've tried multiple times to import a CVS Potential list from another Zoho account. But the error message I get is: Empty values for mandatory fields - Closing Date There are valid dates in this field, so I don't understand why this error messages
                                  • Adding custom "lookup" fields in Zoho Customization

                                    How can I add a second “lookup” field in Zoho? I’m trying to create another lookup that pulls from my Contacts, but the option doesn’t appear in the module customization sidebar. In many cases, a single work order involves multiple contacts. Ideally,
                                  • Feature Requests - Contact Coloured Picklist Visibility & Field Visibility During Ticket Creation

                                    Hi Desk Team, I have 2 feature requests for you. Since Coloured Picklists are now available in Desk, It would be great if the colours were visible on the Related Details (Contact Information) when creating a ticket. In the screenshot below, I have 2 fields
                                  • How to integrate XML with Zoho CRM

                                    Hi, I have an eCom service provider that gives me a dynamic XML that contains order information, clients, shipments... The XML link is the only thing I have. No Oath or key, No API get... I want to integrate it into Zoho CRM. I am not a developer nor
                                  • 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. 
                                  • 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
                                  • text length in list report mobile/tablet

                                    Is there a way to make the full text of a text field appear in the list report on mobile and tablet? With custom layouts, the text is always truncated after a certain number of characters.
                                  • 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?
                                  • Export all of our manuals from Zoho Learn in one go

                                    Hi, I know there's a way to export manuals in Zoho Learn, but I want to export everything in one go so it won't take so long. I can't see a way to do this, can I get some assistance or is this a feature in the pipeline? Thanks, Hannah
                                  • 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
                                  • Shift-Centric View for Assigning and Managing Shifts 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 the shift assignment and management view in Zoho
                                  • 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
                                  • Next Page