Zoho CRM Community Digest - July P1 | 2025

Zoho CRM Community Digest - July P1 | 2025



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!


    • 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,

    Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


      • Recent Topics

      • Share work items across projects and users

        Hello everyone, We're thrilled to introduce a new feature in Zoho Sprints: "Share work item" Collaboration across projects and users is now easier with the introduction of the Share work item feature. You can now share work items with users who are not

      • Payment Terms Changing Upon Invoicing

        Hello! Our standard payment terms for 95% of our customers are Net 30, and all of our customers that these terms apply to have that setting n their customer profile. However, over the last week or so, when an invoice is generated the majority of these

      • How do I get a refund for email seats?

        Hi, I've been using Zoho for awhile and have been paying for 2 seats. Recently, I created another 9 seats, but I also found out that Zoho does not support cold emails, so these 9 seats created for this purpose became useless. It's within 24 hours that

      • Work Orders / Bundle Requests

        Zoho Inventory needs a work order / bundle request system. This record would be analogous to a purchase order in the purchasing workflow or a sales order in the sales cycle. It would be non-journaling, but it would reserve the appropriate inventory of

      • Narrative 1 - The significance of a business account

        Behind the scenes of a successful ticketing system - BTS Series Narrative 1 - The significance of a business account Setting up a proper business account is a crucial step that is often overlooked when launching a ticketing system for your service company,

      • Changed hosting for domain, Zoho mail stopped working.

        I have changed hosting fro my domain and from that time my zoho email stopped working

      • we need to add a Customer Number field to the PDF document templates

        Hello everyone. We are currently using Zoho Inventory for our small business operations and have found it to be a valuable tool. However, we’ve encountered a specific requirement: we need to add a Customer Number field to the PDF document templates (such

      • Joining Two Reports

        Hello Guys, I have three modules: - Orders - Custom module - Clients - Contacts - Basic Pay I am using the order module to store the revenue share amount for each order which will be paid a sales rep The Orders are child or clients so I am pulling a report

      • Power of Automation :: Notify users Automatically when @Mentioned in Tasks Description

        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

      • Recording a payment in foreign currency not allowed

        Hi, my base currency is CHF. I made an invoice in EUR, which have been paid with an extra amount (which are the fees I guess). When I record that payment from the invoice page, I can select the EUR bank account. But the amount received is above the invoice

      • Introducing WhatsApp integration and quick editing capabilities in Zoho Sign

        Hi there, Zoho Sign already helps users collect signatures via email and SMS, and we're happy to announce that you can now send documents and authenticate recipients right through WhatsApp. Some of the key benefits include: Communication with recipients

      • Order Wise Expense Tracking and Reporting Possible?

        Hi, We are a manufacturing firm and take up several orders at the same time. Each order will be associated with a single sales order and then once completed to a single invoice. When recording expenses, is it possible to associate each expense with a

      • Zoho Flow Needs to Embrace AI Agent Protocols to Stay Competitive

        Zoho Flow has long been a reliable platform for automating workflows and integrating various applications. However, in the rapidly evolving landscape of AI-driven automation, it risks falling behind competitors like n8n, which are pioneering advancements

      • Layout Rule Fields Appear in "Verify Details" Pop-up — Confirmed Working

        Hey everyone — just wanted to share a quick discovery. I created a Layout Rule in the Deals module that makes two fields show up (and required) when the stage is set to Closed Won or Closed Lost — one pick list and one text field. To my surprise, those

      • Can you please let us know how we can use Zoho for multi store?

        Hello Team, Can you please let us know how we can use Zoho for multi store because when we connect our plugin to Zoho and we create a product and then on another store when we create product with same name then product already exist error occurs, so how

      • Zoho One Home Dashboard - My Tasks (Projects) & My Overdue Work Items (Projects) have no data.

        The title basically covers the situation. I've set up the dashboard cards, and for a while, they were showing data. Now, they are both blank. Is anyone else experiencing this, or has anyone else experienced this, and if so, is there a fix?

      • Zakya - Release in North America?

        At Zoholics it was pitched like Zakya was already released in North America. However, when looking for it I couldnt find it. There isnt an integrated app available in Zoho. I figured maybe it was being released at Zoholics. Now over a month later, its

      • Custom Field Mapping in Outlook

        I have 10 custom fields in Zoho is there a way to create and map them to the outlook contact?

      • Custom module - change from autonumber to name

        I fear I know the answer to this already, but thought I'd ask the question. I created a custom module and instead of having a name as being the primary field, I changed it to an auto-number. I didn't realise that all searches would only show this reference.

      • Enhanced Zoho CRM and Office 365 calendar synchronization features!

        Dear customers, We're excited to share some significant improvements to our Office 365 calendar synchronization features, aimed at providing you with more control and a more personalized experience. What’s new Choose your Office 365 calendar: During the

      • Problemas de usarmos no Brasil

        Somos usuários a exatamente um ano do Zoho Recruit, agora migramos para o Zoho One. Temos enfrentado por diversas vezes problemas da ferramenta não estar realmente preparada para funcionar corretamente na lingua portuguesa. Problema esse não específico

      • CERTIFICADO DIGITAL - BRASIL

        Olá, Temos o ZOHO ONE e no Sign vemos de forma simples a assinatura digital, temos nos BRASIL certificado digital, de no CERTISIGN homologado pelo GOVERNO do BRASIL, há possibilidade de gerar a assinatura diante deste certificado?

      • Zoho Duplicate Reference Numbers

        I have 2 accounts through zoho. On one account if I enter a bill with the same number as a previous bill I get a warning message saying that there is already a bill with this number. However on the other account I do not get this message. How do I turn

      • integration between Zoho Site and Zoho Learn

        integration between Zoho Site and Zoho Learn so that when a user registers on the Zoho Site, their account is automatically created in Zoho Learn!! the use case i have pro plan in zoho site and zoho learn and i have puted the zoho learn domain in zoho

      • Automation #6 - Prevent Re-opening of Closed Tickets

        This is a monthly series where we pick some common use cases that have been either discussed or most asked about in our community and explain how they can be achieved using one of the automation capabilities in Zoho Desk. Typically when a customer submits

      • Not able to list or add contacts

        I am not able to get a list of contacts via api request. Tickets for example are listed via api even without orgId, so it shoud be similar. What is missing to reach the requirement. My aim ist to add a contact via API and then add a ticket with the contact

      • See contrat information from an account under the ticket

        Hi there, How can I program something to display created and selected contract on the ticket itself so my agents see it and can support correctly according to the contract and SLA ? Thank you :)

      • Weekly time log view

        The Weekly Time Log view is pretty nice. My users really like it when I show it to them. They like being able to pin ongoing tasks. Anyway, it's sort of hard to find. It is grouped with the Add Time Log button as a pull down. In my opinion, it should

      • Any Impact of Amazon Listings API on E-commerce Integration?

        Amazon sent the following message about changes to their APIs. Our only Amazon app / integration is Zoho Inventory's eCommerce for Amazon US, so the message below in bold gives us concerns about if Amazon's warning is referencing Zoho's Amazon US integration.

      • Working with Products that are non-tangible

        How does one create a 'service' in products? Is there a way to disable inventory functions for things like Sofware as a service? The services module doesn't look to be much help either. Not sure how to do this in CRM

      • ePOD Devices

        Has anyone tried and tested and devices that deliver ePOD (electronic proof of delivery)? We would like our drivers to use an ePOD device to get the customer signature The app should then be capable of updating the sales order to show delivery.

      • API Integration

        Why are we unable to do API Integration for Job borads

      • Remind/Recall Document API

        When I recall a document through the Sign API, I would like to be able to specify the reason that gets sent in the user notification email. Same with including a unique message when sending a document reminder through the API. Is there a way to include

      • Zoho Books API Creating Invoice and Address API

        I'm trying to create an invoice with zoho books api and i get the following error: Error creating invoice in Zoho Books: { message: 'Request failed with status code 400', details: { code: 15, message: 'Please ensure that the "billing_address" has less

      • Convert Multiple PO in 1 Bill

        Does anyone know how to convert multiple POs in 1 Bill? Thank you

      • merge the Multiple POs to single PO if Vendor of PO"s --in Zoho Inventory

        HI Merge the Multiple POs to single PO if Vendor of PO"s are Same ----in Zoho inventory Please provide any work around to achive this .

      • How to add categories to community

        In my Community, I would like to add several Categories but I don't readily see how this is accomplished. Currently, I have one category in my community with several forums. But I would like to add more categories. Thanks.

      • Knowledgeable Image Quality is very poor, any recommendations how to improve this?

        Hi All, We are looking at migrating our current knowledge base to Zoho so it can be kept in one location. Our current KB utilises a lot of images to try and make it easier for users and less wordy. Unfortunately, when I upload an image within an article,

      • Assistance Required: Displaying Dynamic HTML Table in Zoho Creator Dashboard Page

        I am currently stuck while creating a custom dashboard page in Zoho Creator. I want to display a designed HTML table showing Teacher Registration data with this condition: If Total Allowed Leaves < 10, display those teachers in the table. Page Scripts

      • Visibility of Custom Questions in the Question Pool

        A colleague is adding our own questions in the question pool for our Employee Engagement survey, but I can't see the questions she has entered, even after refreshing the webpage. Are the custom questions in the question pool only visible to the one who

      • Next Page