In every business it is very important to keep track of the updates so that you don't miss out any vital information. Say for example, in sales it's crucial to track the "deal stage" or "lead status" to get an idea of the entire progress or traversal of a deal or lead. In Zoho CRM, you can track the history of such picklist values each time it gets updated. In addition to this, you can also see the changes in the related fields and its values with respect to a record's transition to different stages.

Lets take a few examples to understand this further. 

Enable picklist history tracking

You can enable tracking for one picklist field per module. The history tracking for the mentioned field will be enabled across all the layouts. In the Picklist History related list, we will display 5 default fields namely picklist values, duration, modified time, modified by, and moved to. Aside from this, you can include 10 additional fields.

1. Log in to your Zoho CRM account.
   
2. Go to Setup > Customization > Modules and Fields.
   Module refers to the Leads, Accounts, Contacts, etc. tabs.
3. Click the desired module and select a Layout.
   
4. In the Layout editor, go to the required picklist field, click the Settings icon and select Edit Properties.
   
   
5. In the Pick List Properties page, select the Enable history tracking for picklist values checkbox.
   
   
6. In the Picklist History Tracking page, select other Fields you want to view.
   Note that the fields which are marked as Encrypted will not be listed here.
   
   
7. Click Done.
   

Note: You can select up to five user lookup fields for history tracking.

View history tracking

You can view the tracking history of a record as well as the other selected fields right under the record's related list.

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You can also select the fields to be shown in the picklist history related list and unselect the unwanted fields.

Downgrade flow for picklist tracking

The behavior of the picklist history tracking feature during a downgrade depends on the type of downgrade. Below are the detailed scenarios:

1. Customer-initiated downgrade:
   
1. If the downgrade is initiated by the customer (and not due to license expiry or end of the grace period), the history tracker data will be deleted permanently and immediately upon downgrade.
   
2. Downgrade due to license expiry:
   
1. In cases where the downgrade occurs because of license expiry, a 60-day grace period will be applied.
   
2. During the grace period, all data, including the history tracker, remains intact.
   
3. After the 60-day grace period ends, a scheduler will be initiated to delete all higher-edition features, including the history tracker data.
   

Note: Please ensure to back up your history tracker data before initiating a downgrade to avoid any permanent data loss.

Points to Remember

• Zoho CRM provides smart filter options with which you can filter the records based on the duration.
  
• The tracked data will be available in the Data Backup section, so you can access it anytime.
• History tracking for picklist values option is not supported in the Tasks, Calls and Meetings (Activities) modules.
  
• If the tracking option for a picklist field is disabled or if the picklist field with the tracking option enabled is deleted, then all the tracked data will be lost permanently.
  
• Tracking will not be enabled for the picklist field created in other modules from Leads, Quotes, and Sales Order using "Also create for" option.
  
• While selecting fields in the related list column, you will not be able to select any field that is encrypted. See also Encrypting a field.