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

      • Workflow for "Expenses" module?

        Hi there, over the last 2 years, Zoho Expense has seen tremendous growth and we are happy with it. But, sometimes it is frustrating to see things are being implemented halfheartedly, or so it seems. For example, There is the possibility to create workflows
      • Markup instead of discount??

        Is it possible to have the discount field on an invoice or estimate be a markup instead? It's the very same functionality that I am looking for - to be able to markup an individual item by either a $ or a % and have that cost added (instead of subtracted) to the item cost.  Currently, I use the tax feature to accomplish this, but it's very awkward to have "Markup 15%" listed after the subtotal. Plus, if I want to markup items at different rates, I end up with several "markup" lines in the totals
      • Allow Mapping of Zoho Desk Knowledge Base Categories to Multiple Departments in Zoho SalesIQ

        Hello Zoho Team, We hope you're doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the Zoho SalesIQ integration with Zoho Desk, specifically regarding the way Knowledge Base (KB) articles are mapped and displayed across departments. Current Limitation
      • Announcing new features in Trident for Windows (v.1.27.4.0)

        Hello Community, Trident for Windows is here with exciting new features to elevate your communication and enhance productivity. Let’s dive into what’s new! Smart Sign-in. You can now sign in to Trident with Smart Sign-in. With this new addition, you can
      • Inactive Items - Make Less Prominent by Default

        Currently, when one marks an Item as "Inactive", it really doesn't do much of anything to hide it or get it out of the way. Search and reporting within Finance should, by default, hide inactive Items from standard reports, searches, etc. If one specifically
      • Add Lookup Field in Tasks Module

        Hello, I have a need to add a Lookup field in addition to the ones that are already there in the Tasks module. I've seen this thread and so understand that the reason lookup fields may not be part of it is that there are already links to the tables (
      • Time Entry : Auto fill fields Hours minutes seconds

        Hello world, Do someone know a script (for workflow rules) which fill automatically fields hours spent, minutes spent, seconds spent when we fill Executed time and End time Formula should start from (End time - Executed time) Thx in advance
      • Zoho Forms - edit the settings of the Zoho CRM field to change the integration with CRM

        I've created a Zoho CRM field in my form to pre-populate selected CRM details into the form, following the instructions here https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/crm/integrations/zoho/zoho-forms/articles/zoho-forms-crm-integration#Step_2_-_Add_Zoho_CRM_Field_in_the_form
      • Ability to add notes to an appointment and add notes/attach docs to a consultation

        As an idea for the future, it would be helpful to be able to add notes to an existing appointment--there is a place to add notes for the customer, but I don't see one for the appointment. It would also be helpful to be able to add notes or attach documents
      • Im trying to white list domain dynamically in zoho desk extension

        Im trying to white list domain dynamically in zoho desk extension. But it show error Error: {errMsg: 'No entry found in plugin-manifest whiteListedDomains for requested URL'} syntax "config": [ { "displayName":"Shopify Admin API access token ", "name":
      • Zoho Payroll: Product Updates for India - May 2025

        This May, we are glad to unveil new capabilities in Zoho Payroll that simplify your payroll activities. Here's the list: Let Employees Choose Their Tax Deduction Method for One-Time Payments Calculate variable earnings based on percentage of CTC Carry
      • Bulk Update Tasks/Task Lists/Milestones

        Is there a way to bulk update tasks/task lists/milestones? We have several projects that are in the same template, and our staff complete them tasks at a time - and would like to go in an bulk update all related tasks/task lists/milestones at once. But you can't do this. I remember in an old version you could export your tasks, update the excel doc and reimport. But it doesn't seem like that option is available anymore. Can someone provide a solution/idea? Otherwise we are spending a lot of time
      • Sync failed: Invalid Date value

        Hi, I have a local .sqlite database. After importing one table through the Databridge, and produced my dashboards, I cannot sync. I get an error regarding the date column: [Line: 2 Field: 4] (2018-07-12) -ERROR: Invalid Date value The data found at the
      • Office 365 is marking us as "bulk"

        All of a sudden (like a couple of days ago) all of our customers who are on Office 365 are getting our mails in their junk email. This is not the case with Gmail or other random mail servers, nor between us. We got a 10/10 score on mail-tester.com. Also,
      • Zoho Assist

        Hi, We are using zoho assist unattended access in some windows server 2012 and recently the agent lets you connect but not let you do anything on the remote machine. Sometimes you can click on something but nothing happens. There's a issue with this new
      • Modify workflow from "ON CREATE & EDIT" to "ON CREATE" only

        Salut, Is there a way to easilly change my choice of trigger of workflow from on create & edit to on create only, or do I have to re-do the whole worklow from scratch ? Sylvain
      • Access custom modules via API?

        Is it possible to access a custom module in Zoho Inventory via the API? I can not find any reference to this in the API docs.
      • Welcome to the Zoho Service Plus community

        Hey everyone, We are excited to welcome you to be a part of the Zoho Service Plus community. Here's a quick overview of what Service Plus is all about and how the community can help us work together. What's Zoho Service Plus? Zoho Service Plus is a unified
      • Restrict Zoho Cliq Webinars and Announcements to Admins Only

        Hi Zoho Team, We hope you're doing well. We would like to raise a feature request regarding in-app announcements in Zoho Cliq, such as the recent webinar popup about the Cliq Developer Platform: While these announcements are useful, they are not always
      • Track ZohoForm Conversion using Postmessage event

        Hi, I’ve been using a third-party lead tracking tool to capture leads from my website along with their source. Earlier, with the HubSpot form, the third-party script was able to detect the postMessage event that iframe forms typically send back to the
      • Share Notebook with group created in Zoho One

        I have created a group in Zoho One for a section in my company. Is it possible to share a notebook with that Zoho One Group? Currently, it seems only possible to share to emails. Unfortunately for large teams, this will mean we are constantly having to
      • Create Tasks in arbitrary Zoho Project triggered from CRM [Zoho Flow]

        Community, hello What I'm trying to do is to create a Zoho Project when a Deal is created in CRM and then to be able to add tasks to this Project also from Zoho CRM with the trigger (Blueprint/ Workflow). I succeeded in creating Project using Zoho Flow,
      • Outlook Add-in security times out needs to login 10 times a day

        hi we've just switched the Zoho. We use Azure SSO. All users have stopped using it. Sometimes it asks every 5 minutes. What should I lot at to solve this?
      • Simplify Zoho API integration with Deluge’s invokeAPI task

        Hello all! Happy New Year! As we kick off 2025, we’re excited to share some of the latest updates to enhance your Deluge experience. While Deluge already offered robust API integration capabilities, we’ve taken it to the next level with the introduction
      • Simplify Zoho API integration with Deluge’s invokeAPI task

        Hello all! Happy New Year! As we kick off 2025, we’re excited to share some of the latest updates to enhance your Deluge experience. While Deluge already offered robust API integration capabilities, we’ve taken it to the next level with the introduction
      • Attention: Display Issues on Chromium Browsers with Intel® Core™ Ultra Processors

        Dear Customers, We've recently identified a display-related issue that may affect some of our Zoho Assist users, particularly technicians using devices powered by Intel® Core™ Ultra Processors. What’s Happening? If you're running a Chromium-based browser
      • [WEBINAR] Smooth year-end closure with Zoho Books (KENYA)

        Hello there, This webinar is for all Kenyan businesses looking to wrap up their financial year smoothly! Join our free session to learn how Zoho Books can simplify your year-end process. What to expect from this webinar: - All the latest updates in Zoho
      • Is the "schedule 10 mass emails/module" limit a per user or per organization limit?

        For scheduling emails out of Zoho CRM, there is a 10 scheduled mass emails per module limit according to Zoho documentation (https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/crm/faqs/emails/articles/how-to-schedule-mass-emails-in-zoho-crm). Is this limit per user or
      • How do I show file uploads in my Zoho Creator approval workflow?

        As far as I can tell I'm not able to add the file upload field to the approval workflow show fields list. As a work around I'm making a plain text field that links to the files URL. But I'm not sure how to get a link to that url that will me to preview
      • Zoho Bookings - variable appointments

        Hello, I am looking to see if its possible for zoho bookings to recognise booking slots in the calendar or a way to do this. I would like appointments only booked in at certain times of the day and this could vary per host. I have provided a calendar
      • Limited review (/questions) for Bookings 2.0

        Hi all, I'm writing this review of Bookings 2.0 for two reasons: 1) it may be of interest to others, and 2) I'd like to be corrected if I'm wrong on any points. It's a very limited review, i.e. the things that have stood out as relevant, and particularly
      • Best Practices - Extensions for Zoho Finance Suite

        With Sigma, the extension developer platform, you can create custom extensions that enhance the functionality of Zoho Finance apps like Zoho Books, Zoho Billing, Zoho Inventory, Zoho Expense, and Zoho Invoice. Here’s how to get started: Sign up: Create
      • QR code image is not exported in PDFs

        The new QR code field works fine when I include it in a report template and I choose the print option: https://creatorapp.zoho.com/<username>/<app_link_name>/record-print/<report_link_name>/<record_ID>/ But when I try to save the document to a .pdf file
      • Zoho Form to Zoho Form Integration

        I've created an application form that asks for references. I would like the submission of the application form to trigger a form to the reference using the email id and name entered in the first form. In the reference form that is triggered I need to
      • CRM: related table using module queries, are links possible?

        Hello. I was exploring the possibility of using a module query to get a filtered related list. For example, I'm using a Canvas custom details page and if an account has an open deal I'd like it to appear at the very beginning of the account page, with
      • 【開催報告】名古屋 ユーザー交流会 Vol.1 2025/6/6 Zohoで社内システム管理を実現するユーザー事例の共有

        ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。コミュニティチームの藤澤です。 6/6(金)に名古屋 ユーザー交流会 Vol.1を開催しました。当日は11名の皆さまにご参加いただきました。 本投稿では、当日実施したセッションの様子と投影資料をご紹介します。会場にお越しいただけなかった方も、ぜひご覧ください。 ユーザー活用事例セッション:Zoho CRM Plusによる引合~見積~受注までのプロセス統合 日本アイリッヒ株式会社の清水裕さんに登壇いただきました。以下に一部抜粋して掲載しています。ぜひご覧ください。 セッションの後半は、清水さんの環境を投影いただき、実際の画面上で操作しながらご説明いただいたため、本記事では掲載しておりません。予めご了承ください。
      • Better reorder point functionality?

        1. How about having item reorder point warehouse level instead branch? 2. Considering committed stock and to be received quantity also as reorder point calculation? 3. Considering associated items as committed when sales order created on composite i
      • Batch tracking updates

        I applaud the Zoho team for their recent updates to batch tracking information and even though I have 'chatted' to the Zoho team, I'm still batteling to understand the reasoning on the below. We buy stock in bulk and it is received into the Bulk Warehouse.
      • Custom Button in Shipments

        Custom buttons feature is very much needed in shipments. Please work on this feature request!
      • Zoho Support is Dysfunctional & Don't Know Their Own Support Hours

        Seeking clarification on Zoho support hours and contact numbers please. We have been trying to phone Zoho support on +61 2 8066 2898 at 9:20am AEDT for the second day in a row, and gotten a message on Zoho's support line: "support is open monday through
      • Next Page