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,

    Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


      • Recent Topics

      • How to delete attachments form Zoho mail accounts

        I can't find a way to delete attachments from Zoho mail messages, either individually or in bulk. Searches here are providing conflicting results and often talk about workspace, whereas I am only interested in how to delete attachments that are seen with
      • Unable to fetch ticket by custom field value

        I'm trying to set up a Flow to fetch a ticket based on a custom field value. This seems like it should be pretty straightforward, but it's not working for me. I keep getting an error saying Zoho Desk says "Extra query parameter 'cf_creator_record_id'
      • Zoho Inventory - Composite Items - Assembly - Single Line Item Quantity of One

        Hi Zoho Inventory Team, Please consider relaxing the system rules which prevent an assembly items from consisting of a single line item and outputting a quantity of 1. A client I'm currently working with sells cosmetics and offers testers of their products
      • What's New in Zoho Inventory | Q2 2025

        Hello Customers, The second quarter have been exciting months for Zoho Inventory! We’ve introduced impactful new features and enhancements to help you manage inventory operations with even greater precision and control. While we have many more exciting
      • Zoho POS App Hanging Issue – Sales Becoming Difficult

        The Zoho POS app frequently hangs and becomes unresponsive during billing, making it very difficult to complete sales smoothly. This commonly happens while adding items, during checkout, or at payment time, especially during peak hours. These issues cause
      • Writing by Hand in "Write" Notes

        Hi there! I just downloaded this app a few moments ago, and I was wondering if there was a way to write things by hand in "Write" mode instead of just typing in the keyboard. It would make things a bit more efficient for me in this moment. Thanks!
      • "Spreadsheet Mode" for Fast Bulk Edits

        One of the challenges with using Zoho Inventory is when bulk edits need to be done via the UI, and each value that needs to be changed is different. A very common use case here is price changes. Often, a price increase will need to be implemented, and
      • SAML in Zoho One vs Zoho Accounts

        What is the difference between setting up SAML in Zoho Accounts: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/accounts/manage-your-organization/saml/articles/configure-saml-in-zoho-accounts ... vs SAML in Zoho One?: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/one/admin-guide/custom-authentication/setting-up-custom-authentication-with-popular-idps/articles/zohoone-customauthentication-azure
      • Zoho Inventory. Preventing Negative Stock in Sales Orders – Best Practices?

        Dear Zoho Inventory Community, We’re a small business using Zoho Inventory with a team of sales managers. Unfortunately, some employees occasionally overlook stock levels during order processing, leading to negative inventory issues. Is there a way to
      • Deactivated Zoho One account can sign in

        I am concerned by the fact that deactivated users in Zoho One have the ability to sign in even after their account has been deactivated (not deleted). these inactive identities have no access to individual Zoho apps or data. based on my experience they
      • How can I reset the password for a user in Zoho Projects

        We need to reset the password for a user in Zoho Projects. I am the admin portal owner and there was nothing to be found to do this. very confusing.
      • How can I add a comment to an existing ticket via API?

        I need to add comments/notes to the history of an existing ticket using the API without overwriting the original ticket description. Thanks!
      • Marketer's Space: Proven tips to improve open rates – Part III

        Hello Marketers! Welcome back to another post in Marketer's Space! This is the final post in the "open rate series". In the first and second parts, we discussed topics ranging from sender domains to pre-headers—but we're not done yet. A few more important
      • MCP no longer works with Claude

        Anyone else notice Zoho MCP no longer works with Claude? I'm unable to turn this on in the claude chat. When I try to toggle it on, it just does nothing at all. I've tried in incognito, new browsers, etc. - nothing seems to work.
      • Zoho Social - Feature Request - Reviewer Role

        Hi Social Team, I've come across this with a couple of clients, where they need a role which can review and comment on posts but who has no access to create content. This is a kind of reviewer role. They just need to be able to see what content is scheduled
      • Zoho Books/Inventory - Update Marketplace Sales Order via API

        Hi everyone, Does anyone know if there is a way to update Sales Orders created from a marketplace intigration (Shopify in this case) via API? I'm trying to cover a scenario where an order is changed on the Shopify end and the changes must be reflected
      • Zoho Inventory / Finance Suite - Add feature to prevent duplicate values in Item Unit field

        I've noticed that a client has 2 values the same in the Unit field on edit/create Items. This surprised me as why would you have 2 units with the same name. Please consider adding a feature which prevents this as it seems to serve no purpose.
      • Kaizen #224 - Quote-driven Deal Reconciliation Using Zoho CRM Functions and Automation

        Hello everyone! Welcome back to another instalment in the Kaizen series. This post covers quote-driven deal reconciliation, emphasizing Functions and Automation to address practical sales challenges. Business Challenge Sales organizations often mark deals
      • BARCODE PICKLIST

        Hello! Does anyone know how the Picklist module works? I tried scanning the barcode using the UPC and EAN codes I added to the item, but it doesn’t work. Which barcode format does this module use for scanning?
      • Zoho Inventory - Allow Update of Marketplace Generated Sales Orders via API

        Hi Inventory Team, I was recently asked by a client to create an automation which updated a Zoho Inventory Sales Order if a Shopify Order was updated. I have created the script but I found that the request is blocked as the Sales Order was generated by
      • How do I create an update to the Cost Price from landed costs?

        Hi fellow Zoho Inventory battlers, I am new to Zoho inventory and was completely baffled to find that the cost price of products does not update when a new purchase order is received. The cost price is just made up numbers I start with when the product
      • Zoho OAuth Connector Deprecation and Its Impact on Zoho Desk

        Hello everyone, Zoho believes in continuously refining its integrations to uphold the highest standards of security, reliability, and compliance. As part of this ongoing improvement, the Zoho OAuth default connector will be deprecated for all Zoho services
      • VoC in Zoho CRM is now data savvy: Explore response drilldown, summary components and participation in CRM criteria

        VoC has all the goods when it comes to customer intelligence—which is why we're constantly enhancing it. We recently added the following: A customer drilldown component that shows you the list of prospects and customers behind a chart's attribute Expanded
      • How do I bulk archive my projects in ZOHO projects

        Hi, I want to archive 50 Projects in one go. Can you please help me out , How can I do this? Thanks kapil
      • Passing the CRM

        Hi, I am hoping someone can help. I have a zoho form that has a CRM lookup field. I was hoping to send this to my publicly to clients via a text message and the form then attaches the signed form back to the custom module. This work absolutely fine when
      • Can I add Conditional merge tags on my Templates?

        Hi I was wondering if I can use Conditional Mail Merge tags inside my Email templates/Quotes etc within the CRM? In spanish and in our business we use gender and academic degree salutations , ie: Dr., Dra., Sr., Srta., so the beginning of an email / letter
      • Zoho Browser??

        hai guys, this sounds awkward but can v get a ZOHO BROWSER same as zoho writer, etc. where i can browse websites @ home and continue browsing the same websites @ my office, as v have the option in Firefox, once i save and close the browser and again when i open it i will be getting the same sites. If u people r not clear with my explanation, plz let me know. Thanks, Sandeep  
      • Let’s Talk Recruit: LinkedIn Cheatsheet

        Welcome to the first edition of Let’s Talk Recruit for 2026. We are kicking off the year by revisiting one of the most asked about topics in Zoho Recruit. How our LinkedIn integrations actually work and how recruiters can get the most value from them.
      • Zoho Forms API

        Is there any way to get all form entry list using API? Looking forward to hear from you
      • Ability to Set Client Name During Portal Invitation

        Hi Zoho Team, We would like to suggest an important enhancement to the Zoho Creator Client Portal functionality. Zoho Creator recently introduced the option to set a client’s display name in the Client Portal settings, which is very helpful for creating
      • Move email between inboxes?

        Is it possible to move emails from one team inbox to another? We would like to be able to have a single "catch-all" inbox for incoming requests, and then move the email to the appropriate department inbox. I was hoping we would be able to accomplish this
      • PDF Attachment Option for Service Reports

        Hello Team, I would like to check with you all if there is an option to attach PDF documents to the service reports. When I try to attach a file, the system only allows the following formats: JPEG, JPG, and PNG. Could you please confirm whether PDF attachments
      • 【Zoho CRM】データ一覧画面でのメモのバッジ機能リリースのお知らせ

        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。2026年度もゾーホーユーザーコミュニティをどうぞよろしくお願いいたします! 今回は「Zoho CRM アップデート情報」の中から、新機能のデータ一覧画面でのメモのバッジ機能をご紹介します。 目次 概要 メモのバッジ機能について メモの作成について メモに関する様々な処理について 最近追加したメモについて メモのバッジの非表示について クライアントスクリプトの対応 概要  メモのバッジ機能について 既存の活動バッジに加えて、すべてのタブのデータ一覧表示画面に、各データごとに利用できる「メモのバッジ」(キャプチャ内の赤枠部分)が新たに導入されました。
      • is it possible to add more than one Whatsapp Phone Number to be integrated to Zoho CRM?

        so I have successfully added one Whatsapp number like this from this User Interface it seems I can't add a new Whatsapp Number. I need to add a new Whatsapp Number so I can control the lead assignment if a chat sent to Whatsapp Phone Number 1 then assign
      • Can’t find fsm in zoho one

        Every other app is available to me in Zoho one except fsm
      • Posibility to add Emoticons on the Email Subject of Templates

        Hi I´ve tried to add Emoticons on the Subject line of Email templates, the emoticon image does show up before saving the template or if I add the Emoticon while sending an Individual email and placing it manually on the subject line. Emoticons also show
      • Task Deletion Restriction & Strict Stage Control

        Hello Zoho Community, We have the following two issues currently pending and under testing, for which we require a workable and reliable solution: 1. Task Deletion Restriction We are testing ways to ensure that staff users are not able to delete tasks
      • Unable to mass update a picklist field

        Hello, I have the records within our Accounts module divided between two account types: Parent Accounts & Member Accounts. I am attempting to mass update accounts from one picklist value to the other (within other specific criteria in our custom fields)
      • Process checklist in CRM

        Hi We've created a new sales process that I'm mapping into the CRM - issue I have is that some of the tasks / milestones I would like to capture require very simple tick box responses but there are quite a few under a variety of sub categories so I don't
      • CRM project association via deluge

        I have created a workflow in my Zoho CRM for closing a deal. Part of this workflow leverages a deluge script to create a project for our delivery team. Creating the project works great however, after or during the project creation, I would like to associate
      • Next Page