Automation#31: Automate Splitting Names for New Contact Records

Automation#31: Automate Splitting Names for New Contact Records


Hello Everyone, 
This week, we present to you a custom function, which allows you to split the first and last names from the user's email ID based on the separator used in the ID.
Having grown into a large firm, Zylker Techfix aims to optimize its processes, data management, and organization. By default, contacts are created by extracting the customers' names from the email addresses and saving them in the "Last Name" field in the Customers' module. 


To create an organized directory, Zylker Techfix wanted to separate the first and last names from the email address using the (.) separator in the email ID. 
This custom function allowed them to achieve this with their contacts. Now, you can organize your contacts within Zoho Desk too.
Follow the steps below to configure the custom function within the workflow rule.

Prerequisites
1. Create a connection.
  1.1 Go to Setup(S) and choose Connections under Developer Space.
  1.2 Click Create Connection.
  1.3 Select Zoho OAuth under Default Connection.
  1.4 Set the connection name as deskcontact.
  1.5 Disable the toggle for User Credentials of Login User.
  1.6 Under Scope, choose the below scope values:
Desk.contacts.UPDATE
Desk.contacts.READ
  1.7 Click Create and Connect.
  1.8 Click Connect and click Accept.
Connection is created successfully.

Create a Workflow Rule
1. Go to Setup(S), choose Workflows under Automation. 
2. Under Workflows, click Create Rule.

In the Basic Information section,
3. Select Contacts from the drop-down menu under Module.
4. Enter a Rule Name and Description for the rule.
5. If you want to activate the rule right away, select the Active checkbox. Else, create the rule and activate it later.
6. Click Next.
 
In the Execute on section, follow these steps:
7. Select Create.   
8. Click Next.
 
9. In the Criteria section, add criteria if required. click Next.
 
10. In the Actions section, click the + icon and select New next to Custom Functions.
11. Under Basic Information, enter Name and Description for the custom function. Choose Contacts under Module.
12. Under Argument Mapping, give a desired Method Name. Map the arguments as below: 
       12.1 In the Argument Name field, type contactId and select Contact ID under the Contacts Section.                                
13. In the script window, insert the Custom Function given below:
  1. //------------- User Inputs ----------
  2. orgId = "60xxxxxxxx0"; //replace with your Org ID
  3. operator = "."; 
  4. //---------------------------------
  5. logs = Map();
  6. try {
  7. contacts = zoho.desk.getRecordById(orgId,"contacts",contactId, "deskcontact");
  8. firstName = contacts.get("firstName");
  9. lastName = contacts.get("lastName");
  10. if(lastName.contains(operator))
  11. {
  12.        if(operator.contains(".")){
  13.          lastName = lastName.subString(0,lastName.indexOf("@"));
  14.        }
  15.        firstName = lastName.subString(0,lastName.indexOf(operator)).trim();
  16.        lastName = lastName.subString(lastName.indexOf(operator) + 1);
  17.        updateContact = zoho.desk.update(orgId,"contacts",contactId,{"firstName":firstName,"lastName":lastName},"deskcontact");
  18.    }
  19. }
  20. catch (errorInfo)
  21. {
  22. logs.insert("errorInfo":errorInfo);
  23. }
  24. info "logs: \n" + logs;

  26. if(logs.containKey("errorInfo"))
  27. {
  28. throws "Error happen in the CF execution";
  29. }
NOTE
a. In Line 2, Enter your OrgId with  "  ".
To access OrgId, go to Setup (S) >> Developer Space >> APIs >> API Authentication.
14. Click Save to save the custom function.
15. Click Save again to save the workflow.
Context
Once configured, this function splits the first and last names for incoming new contacts. This custom function applies to new contacts and new incoming tickets.

​
We hope this custom function helps you manage your contacts efficiently. Share your feedback and connect with us for more tips and insights. 
See you next week!
Regards,
Lydia | Zoho Desk

    • 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

    • Recent Topics

    • My notes from the past 2 months have disappeared

      Hola, necesito ayuda urgente. Hoy, al iniciar sesión en mi Zoho Notebook como todos los días, me llevé una gran sorpresa al descubrir que todas mis notas de los últimos dos meses habían desaparecido. Estas notas son muy importantes para mí, ya que uso

    • How can I load a network into the cliq desktop app?

      I have both the standard cliq log in for my org and I am part of a cliq network. In the browser I can choose which I log in to. However, in teh desktop app if I log in it will alwasy load my org's cliq. Can I switch this to the network I have create

    • Ability to modify what displays in calendar invite?

      I am a long time calendly user and want to make the switch to bookings.  I understand that there is not currently a meets/hangouts integration, is one on the roadmap? Is there anyway I can modify the calendar invite to include the meet link?  I can add it to the emails no problem, but I would also like it to display on their calendar.  Is there some work around I can do to get it on the calendar?  Also am I able to modify the calendar event title?

    • Issue with Booking Confirmation Page Not Displaying, Leading to Customer Anxiety and Unnecessary Support Calls

      I am writing to express my growing concern regarding the confirmation process in Zoho Bookings, particularly the inconsistent display of the confirmation page after a successful payment. As a mobile service provider, I rely on Zoho Bookings platform for

    • Is it possible to turn off all capabilities for a customer to schedule, reschedule or cancel an appointment?

      Is it possible to turn off all capabilities for a customer to schedule, reschedule or cancel an appointment? I would like to set it up so only staff can schedule appointments. Is this possible?

    • Is there a way to generate a virtual meeting for a group service in Zoho Bookings?

      Are virtual meetings not supported for group services/meetings? I have integrated Zoom with one-on-one services, but I need a way to create an online group meeting. Thanks

    • Tracking Snippet not working in Zoho Marketing Automation!

      First off, the fact that you have to wait about 12-24 hours for every response is terrible. How are we supposed to conduct business? Second, we have been trying for several days to get the Tracking Code Snippet in marketing automation to work, to no avail.

    • Introducing VeriFactu Support in Zoho Books

      Hello users, Spain has introduced the VeriFactu system under Real Decreto 1007/2023 to ensure integrity, traceability, and anti-fraud compliance in e-invoicing. Starting January 1, 2026, all B2B invoices must be reported to Agencia Estatal de Administración

    • Where we can change the icon in social preview

      Hi, we changed our logo, and the image that appear in preview (ex : when we post a appointment link somewhere) is still our old logo. I did change our logo in the org setting. https://bookings.zoho.com/app/#/home/dashboard/settings/basic-info?clview=false

    • Zoho Bookings changes Lead Source

      Hi. i would like to know if there's a way for Zoho Bookings to not change the lead source when booking a lead for an appointment as the lead source will be used in a report. Scenario: Lead source: Website after booking an appointment Lead source: Zoho Bookings Thanks. Dan

    • Need to set workflow or journey wait time (time delay) in minutes, not hours

      Minimum wait time for both Campaigns workflows and Marketing Automation journeys is one hour. I need one or the other to be set to several minutes (fraction of the hour). I tried to solve this by entering a fraction but the wait time data type is an integer

    • Suggestion: Associating Assets with Company in Zoho FSM

      Hello Team, I would like to share an idea based on practical experience. Currently, all assets in the Zoho FSM Asset module are linked to a specific contact person. I would like to know if it is possible to associate assets with a company instead. This

    • Zoho Inventory / Finance Suite - Extend Visibility of File Names on Attachment Fields

      Hi Inventory / Finance Suite team, I noticed recently that when you add an attachment field to a module in Inventory, only the first 8 characters of the file name are visible on the details view. 8 characters is not a useful amount and there is plenty

    • AI Interview Insights: Turn Recorded Interviews into Quick Transcripts & Summaries

      Evaluating interviews shouldn’t require replaying long recordings or taking manual notes. With AI Interview Insights, you can now review complete transcripts and AI-generated summaries of your One-way (Recorded) interviews right inside Zoho Recruit. This

    • Edit Pinned Comments in Zoho Desk

      It's great that private comments can now be pinned to the top of the ticket but what would be extremely helpful would be to allow for the pinned comment to be edited vs. having to find the comment in the ticket to edit it.

    • Many Notes Becoming Unusable

      Hello. The Notebook app is becoming unusable. I'm getting odd-looking results from my searches. Some of the notes, after clicking on them, show an update button that does absolutely nothing. Not sure what has happened, but it would be nice to get this

    • Kaizen #218: Actions APIs - Field Updates

      Hello all!! Welcome back to a fresh Kaizen week. In the previous weeks, we covered Workflow Rules APIs, Actions APIs - Email Notification APIs, and Tasks Update APIs. This week, we will continue with another Actions API - the Field Update API in Zoho

    • How Contract Types and Templates Form the Backbone of Zoho Contracts

      Every contract in Zoho Contracts starts with two essential elements: Contract Type and Template. These are not just administrative steps. They define how every contract in your organization is created, governed, and managed over time. Let us look at the

    • E-Invoicing in Belgium with Zoho Books

      Starting January 1, 2026, Belgium is introducing mandatory electronic invoices (e-invoicing) for all B2B transactions between VAT-registered businesses. This means that invoices and credits notes must be exchanged in a prescribed digital format. How E-Invoicing

    • Proposal for Creating a Unique "Address" Entity in Zoho FSM

      The "Address" entity is one of the most critical components for a service-oriented company. While homeowners may change and servicing companies may vary, the address itself remains constant. This constancy is essential for subsequent services, as it provides

    • Zoho Books Finance Modules Not Accessible in Zoho CRM Mobile App

      We have integrated Zoho CRM with Zoho Books using the Zoho Finance Suite integration. In the CRM web version, we can see the Finance modules (Estimates/Quotes, Invoices, Sales Orders, Items, Payments) and are able to create invoices and quotes directly

    • Greek character in Deluxe script

      Hi, We have been using a script since 2022 which replaces characters in Greek contact names using replaceAll. Since this morning, all the Greek characters used in the script have turned to question marks. I tried retyping the characters, copy-pasting

    • CRM Related list table in Zoho analytics

      In Zoho Analytics, where can I view the tables created from zoho crm related lists? For example, in my Zoho CRM setup, I have added the Product module as a related list in the Lead module, and also the Lead module as a related list in the Product module.

    • Work Order Assignment for Engineers Handling Their Own Requests

      I’m setting up FSM for a business where there are multiple engineers, but each engineer handles their own process end-to-end receiving the service request, creating the work order, and completing the field service job. I noticed that I must create an

    • Zoho Flow Credits

      Hi , I would like to ask the reason why every time I added plus credit but few days later I will return back to default? (as below I add credit to 3000 but today It change back to 1000) Most important is, when the credit fully used, not any reminder to

    • Connecting zoho creator to zoho writer to send prefilled documents

      i will paste the worflow below // Get user's submitted data from the form userSalary = input.Current_Salary; userCIBIL = input.CIBIL_Score; userEmail = input.Email; userName = input.Name; // You need to get the Document ID from the URL of your Zoho Writer

    • Zoho Creator to Zoho Writer for prefilled documents...

      In response to the question about connecting Zoho Creator to Zoho Writer for prefilled documents, I wanted to share a working implementation that demonstrates how to use the record_id parameter with the Zoho Writer Merge API. This allows Writer to automatically

    • Managing functions

      Can someone let me know if there are any plans to improve the features for managing functions in CRM? I have lots of functions and finding them is hard. The search only works on the function name and the filter only works on function type. I have created

    • Introducing our latest privacy enhancement - Hiding email IDs in Zoho Cliq Networks

      Hello everyone, Zoho Cliq Networks offers a powerful collaboration platform that allows businesses to create dedicated digital workspaces for external vendors, partners, or individuals you want to communicate with professionally without adding them to

    • zoho performance

      OVERALL CONFIGURATION OF ZOHO PERFORMANCE Quarterly performance review Self rating and scoring Manager rating and scoring

    • Zoho Social API for generating draft posts from a third-party app ?

      Hello everyone, I hope you are all well. I have a question regarding Zoho Social. I am developing an application that generates social media posts, and I would like to be able to incorporate a feature that allows saving these posts as drafts in Zoho Social.

    • When will it be possible to edit Subform records via either views or tabular reports?

      Hey there, data maintenance often requires mass update of quite a lot of records. While this is a piece of cake via either List view or Zoho sheet view, the same cannot be carried out for subform records yet. When one of the two options will be made available?

    • Zoho CRM mobile app update: Reports module for Android app

      Hello everyone You can now access the Reports module in your Zoho CRM Android app. With this update, you can view any report created in CRM web app in your mobile app. <br> Once you open the report, you can tap on any record to view its details.

    • Onboarding

      Hello Team, Im yuktha working as HR at Ossisto Technologies. We are currently utilizing zoho for onboarding candidate. right now facing issue with onboarding Attaching the screenshots for your reference

    • Move attachments from one module to another with Deluge

      I have created a button that works just like the convert button for my custom modules. I would like this custom function to move any attachments in this record to the new module. I can't seem to find any documentation on how this can be accomplished.

    • Archiving Contacts

      How do I archive a list of contacts, or individual contacts?

    • How do I change a form's name? Why isn't this more intuitive?

      Can someone please let me know how to change a form's name?

    • Updating Secondary Contact (CCs)

      We use Zoho Forms to capture the user request and integrated with Zoho Desk to raise tickets. Active Microsoft login is captured in our Zoho forms and registered as Primary contact in Zoho desk ticket. We also an have an option to raise ticket on behalf

    • Control Over Zia Generative AI Reply Assistance Behavior

      Hello, I would like to request an enhancement to the Zia Generative AI feature, specifically concerning the Reply Assistance within Zoho Desk. Current Issue: When replying to a ticket, the Ticket Properties section is automatically replaced by the Zia

    • AI feature in Zoho Desk suggesting answers based on past ticket threads

      Hi I would like to suggest something that would be very useful : instead of suggesting answers based on the Knowledge Base, I think it would be great if Zia could analyze the history of all customer and agents threads, to suggest answers in new tickets.

    • Next Page