Introducing Zia Strategy Influencer for Zoho CRM

Introducing Zia Strategy Influencer for Zoho CRM

(Last Modified on 22/08/2023): The Strategy Influencer feature is now available to all customers.

Hello everyone,

We are glad to launch Zia Strategy Influencer, an AI-derived strategy prediction analytics in Zoho CRM, for administrators, which provides prescriptive and descriptive insights on your organization's business trends and patterns. Using Zia's AI capabilities, it helps you understand the different factors affecting your business positively and negatively to take necessary corrective actions. It provides these insights in the form of 5 exclusive components to plan strategies, find anomalies affecting the target, and identify top contributing fields towards your goals.
 

Why Zia Strategy Influencer? 

Designing and implementing effective goals are key for your business to flourish. To set your goals, it is important to have a clear understanding of your organization and the respective metrics that impact its goals. Zia Strategy Influencer leverages the power of AI and provides a holistic picture of where your business stands with respect to your goals, as well as what you can do to achieve and exceed them.
 
The below gif provides you with a basic idea of how Zia Strategy Influencer can help you :


 Let us now explore the feature in a detailed manner.

Zia Strategy Influencer

Let us consider that you want to set a target for the total revenue from your deals in your organization. You would need relevant insights about your organization to set and achieve the most suitable target. You can create a Zia Strategy Influencer analytics as shown on the screen below :  
 


  • Strategy Influencer Name -  Define the name of the Zia Strategy Influencer
  • Select metric -  Select the module for which the Zia Strategy Influencer is to be created. Then select the criteria for which the prediction is to be done, in this case, the ''Sum of Amount''.
  • Associated date field -  Define the date field based on which the prediction is to be done for the intended time period, for example, this week. In this case, it is "Closing date'', and hence all the records having closing dates this week will be taken into consideration as part of the contributing factors.
  • Objective -  Select whether the increase in value should be considered as a positive or negative trend. For example, in this case, where the measure we have chosen is "Sum of Amount", you can select the increase in value to be positive, since an increase in value in this case would mean more revenue. Else, if we had another case, where the measure would have been "Sum of Lead Conversion Time", then an increase in value would mean the lead conversion consumed more time. In such a case, you can select the increase in value to be negative. 
Once you create it, Zia will scan through your existing records in the Deals module and provide you with insights by predicting an overall target and the various contributing factors that impact it. Let us now dive into how your Zia Strategy Influencer insights are displayed.
 

Components of Zia Strategy Influencer

The insights in the Zia Strategy Influencer are provided across 3 major components namely :
  • Target Contributors
  • Anomaly Finder
  • Gap Analyzer
  • Predictor
  • Prescriptor

Target Contributors 

The target contributors component breaks down and lists the individual contributing factors that impact the overall target to be achieved. It provides you with details of the expected target that each individual contributing factor needs to achieve, in combination with the rest of the contributing factors, for you to hit your overall target.
 
It also displays how much has actually been achieved against the expected target value for each contributing factor. This helps you analyze your performance and incorporate necessary actions required to achieve your target.



Apart from these, it also displays trend icons that represent the impact of those contributing factors on your overall target, either positive or negative. And in case you feel the predicted target or any of the contributing factors do not align with your actual business scenarios, you can manually adjust them in the target contributors component based on your requirements. Strategy influencer accordingly adjusts the main or contributing targets based on where you adjusted the value. 
 








You can edit your overall target, any of the individual contributing factors, the expected values for each factor, and also select which contributing factors should be part of your target contributors component.
 
Note : You can select only up to 15 contributing factors in the target contributors component.

Anomaly Finder

There might be cases when you wouldn't have achieved your desired target and it might have a significant negative impact on your business. On the other hand, there might also be instances where you would have well exceeded your expected performances. In such cases, it becomes important that you know the factors that were mainly responsible for these positive or negative deviations.
 
 
The anomaly finder component lists down the contributing factors from the target contributors component, that had caused a significant positive or negative trend relative to the predicted overall target. The anomaly finder provides details including the reasons for the anomaly, the expected and the achieved targets, and also the impact amount on the target, for the selected time period.
 
These insights help you in determining the reasons for the anomaly, analyzing the impacted aspects of your business, and implement suitable strategies to achieve your business targets.
 
Note : If all of your actual values met with the expected values of your target contributors component and your overall target is met for the duration, then the anomaly finder will report no anomalies for that duration.

Gap Analyzer 

The Gap Analyzer component identifies disparities between the projected and the real target values for a specific date, week, or month. It elaborately displays the reasons for gaps during a particular period of time based on the value of the gap. 


Predictor

The predictor provides you with the top picklist and lookup fields that contributed the most towards formulating the contributing factors that impact your overall target. This enables you to get a clear idea of the categories that impacted your target the most.
 


The predictor component displays the predicted and achieved targets for individual field values of the top-contributing picklist and lookup fields identified by Zia and its impact during different time duration. Similar to the target contributors component, you can edit individual contributing factors as per your needs. In this case, the "Customer Type" field is displayed.
 
It is also possible to include another top picklist or lookup field identified by Zia, by cloning the predictor component. In this case, we can additionally include the "Industry" picklist as well.
 
 



Notes :
  • The predictor component identifies up to 4 top picklist/lookup fields out of which you can use a maximum of 2 picklist/lookup fields for your predictions.
  • There can be a maximum of 15 values for each picklist/lookup field.
  • If there are no picklist/lookup fields that contribute to the target, the predictor component will not be generated.

Prescriptor 

The prescriptor component combines predictive and descriptive analytics for a target. It covers three main areas: 

  • what should be done each day to achieve a predicted target for a week/month/year

  • what went wrong in the previous data

  • what can be done to improvise in upcoming days if a daily target is missed.







Updating the Zia Strategy Influencer 

The overall target, the contributing factors, and the values do not auto-update themselves based on everyday business performance. You will have to retrain Zia to update the Zia Strategy Influencer with the latest insights.
 

 
The Retrain Zia option recomputes your data and updates your analytics with the latest insights. The option to retrain will be available once in every 15 days.

How is Zia Strategy Influencer different from Forecasts?

Both forecasts and business projections are used for futuristic predictions and goals. For both forecasts and strategy influencer, Zia suggests targets. But in the case of forecasts, it lets you set your own or Zia suggested targets and the corresponding prediction criteria to track organization performance.
 
While in the case of strategy influencer, it rather provides you a predicted target and insights on the factors affecting the target for the metric in an organization selected by you. It also allows you to play around these influencing factors in combination with other factors and their effect on the target. The strategy influencer is more like a referential information for you to know how to achieve your targets.
 
You can, in fact, make use of the insights from the Zia Strategy Influencer analytics to design suitable forecasts for your organization's needs. To make this easier, we will also be enhancing forecasts by tightly integrating strategy influencer with it.
 

How is Zia Strategy Influencer different from Prediction Builder and Recommendation?

Zia's prediction builder lets you build custom predictions for your business. It provides predictions based on the field in any module specified by you. In the case of Zia's recommendation, it uses AI to study and analyze customer behaviors and trends to provide relevant product recommendations.
 
The difference lies in the fact that both the prediction builder and recommendation provide record-level insights, i.e. based on the module and field selected, the predictions and recommendations are provided with respect to each individual record that is part of the selected module. These predictions are used when you need record-specific predictions, for example, when you want to refer to predictions for a specific customer based on their unique behaviors and patterns.
 
While in case of Zia Strategy Influencer, it provides organization-level analytical insights to achieve the target based on the module and field selected. You can use Zia Strategy Influencer when you need predictions, and prescriptive and descriptive insights for your organization as a whole.
 

Feature Requirements

  • You need a minimum of 5000 records spread across at least one year in your organization for Zia to assess your goals.
  • This feature is available only for customer accounts in Enterprise and Ultimate edition accounts with more than 20 users.
  • Only users with an Administrator profile can access this feature.
  • This feature is available only for English language users. The super admin and other admin users need to be English users.
 
We look forward to your feedback on your Zia Strategy Influencer experience. To explore the feature in detail, please refer to this help documentation.

    • Recent Topics

    • Cash payments before invoice date

      We have been using zoho books for our hospitality business for some time and have been very happy with the system. However in 2025 an update was pushed through and we are now not able to record payments for invoices before the invoice date. the case scenario

    • Copy / Duplicate Workflow

      I have workflows setup that are very similar to each other. We have a monitoring system watching servers, and all notifications - no matter what client it is about - will come from a  noreply@ address which is not very helpful in having it auto assigned to the right account. I have setup a workflow that will change the contact name of the ticket (currently it would say noreply@) to the correct customer which is based on the subject line, as that mentions which server the alert it is about. I need

    • Transfer between two customers (Peters Rental account to Peters Private account)

      we are a Property Management company. Our customers have to accounts (registered as two customers - Peter Rental and Peter Private On the rental account all income and costs fron rental activities are noted. On the private account all private are noted

    • Automation#18: Automatically Fetch Values from Contacts to the Tickets Module

      Hello Everyone, Welcome to this week's edition, where you can seamlessly sync fields from the Contacts to the Tickets module. For efficient business operations, it's crucial to have details mapped across different modules. Zylker Secure offers antivirus

    • Charge multiple invoices

      We use auto-charge/recurring invoicing for 100's of clients. If we create a single manual invoice we can charge it to the credit card for these clients with the CC added to their recurring invoices. If a client has multiple outstanding invoices, is there a way to make one charge for all of the invoices instead of a separate charge to the cc for each invoice?

    • Handling/tracking escalation management in Zoho

      Hi all, I am working on finding a tool to register and track our escalation management process. Specifically, this is about client escalations, typically related to project delivery issues. The idea is that we could have some sort of form with core questions

    • Global Choice List share ownership

      I have created several forms that use one or more Global Choice Lists. These lists have been published to Org. I would like to allow one or more admins to edit the choices in these lists. Any help appreciated. Geoff

    • Setting up property management in Zoho Books

      Hi, I run a property management business that manages property complexes. There are multiple owners, some owning more than one property on the same complex. My role is to manage the fees they pay for maintenance of common areas, such as the swimming pool

    • How to prevent users from switching price lists in an order?

      Hi, I have Zoho Finance integrated with Zoho CRM. My team will be placing orders through the CRM using the Finance module. When creating a new customer I will assign it a price list, I don't want the sales rep to switch to a different Price List, other

    • Mollie Connect in Zoho Books

      Have noticed that Zoho Books is missing the most popular payment provider in Europe: Mollie. Knowing that Mollie has a solid Java SDK, why is this not yet implemented in Zoho Books for European customers?  More info: https://docs.mollie.com/oauth/ov

    • Unable to change Lookup field from Multi Select to Single Select

      I am trying to change a Lookup field in my Zoho Creator form from Multi Select to Single Select, but I am unable to find any option to do this.

    • Simple Callback Notifications Needed

      My team are terrible at remembering their CRM callbacks, often due to how long in the future they are set for. Is there a way i can set an e-mail notification for when a callback is due? For example we set it for 9am one day and five minutes before they

    • Personal Data (RODO), Cookies / Trackers - ePrivacy

      I have noticed several issues that should be addressed on the customer support page. Zoho Desk provides the support portal, but it currently lacks the following options: A GDPR and personal data processing consent checkbox before logging in, located in

    • How to set a multi-lookup field as mandatory?

    • Allow Multiple Scheduled Appointments with Zoho Support

      Dear Zoho Team, I hope you're doing well. First, thank you for introducing the option to schedule support calls via the Zoho CRM booking link. This has been a fantastic enhancement, eliminating the need for back-and-forth coordination when scheduling

    • Audit Log for Zoho One Admin Panel

      Dear Zoho One Team, We would like to request the addition of an Audit Log feature in the Zoho One Admin Panel. This log should provide visibility into any changes made within the Zoho One admin panel and directory, including but not limited to: Adding,

    • Personalize your booking pages with Custom CSS

      Greetings from the Zoho Bookings team! We’re introducing Custom CSS for Zoho Bookings, designed to give you complete control over the look and feel of your booking pages. With this new feature, you can upload your own CSS file to customize colors, fonts,

    • Bug: OAuth 2.0 State Parameter fails with Pipe Delimiters (RFC 6749 Non-Compliance)

      I've discovered a bug in how Zoho's API Console handles the OAuth 2.0 authorization flow when the state parameter contains pipe characters (|), and I'm hoping the Zoho team can address this in a future update. The Issue Zoho's OAuth 2.0 implementation

    • Custom Function to increment a value by one

      Hi, I'm trying to find a solution to set up a counter on CRM records that tracks how many times certain actions have taken place. As a specific example: We have a field on Deals called "Times Close Updated". This starts at 0 on record creation. I'd like

    • Customer address in Zoho Bookings

      Hello,  Is it possible to add customer address information to the Zoho bookings appointment screen? Or have it pull that information automatically from the CRM? We are wanting to use this as a field management software but it is difficult to pull the address from multiple sources when it would be ideal to have a clickable address on the appointment screen that opens up the user's maps.  It would also be advantageous for the "list view" to show appointment times instead of just duration and booking

    • Access token generate from the refresh token not working for API

      Dear Sir/Madam, When I use my refresh token to obtain new access_token, that token return INVALID_TOKEN when the same API is called. I made sure that my api site is correct and match the auth web site. However the original access_token work fine.

    • why does my campaign move back to draft?

      Every time I try to send my email campaign, it reverts back to Draft status.. this has happened three times in a row..how do i find out what the problem is? Thanks

    • Service and Parts Line Item Limitations

      Hi FSM Team, We work with clients who deliver large-scale field service projects. In many cases, a single work order can contain 200+ service and parts line items. Currently, Zoho FSM limits work orders to 30 service and parts line items. While this works

    • 【Zoho CRM】やりとりの要約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。 今回は「Zoho CRM アップデート情報」の中から、新機能のやりとり要約機能をご紹介します。 Zoho CRMのやりとりの要約は、Ziaが生成する機能で、データに関連付けられた最近のやりとりを簡潔にまとめて提供します。 メール、通話、ミーティング、メモなどを1つの明確な要約にまとめ、重要なポイント、過去の話し合いの要点、結果、次のステップを表示することで、日常的な課題に対処します。 Ziaの強みは、単なる要約にとどまらず、内容の解釈も行える点です。やりとりの要約では、顧客との会話に潜む遅延、フォローアップ漏れ、約束、期限、感情、意図を特定します。

    • Recent post analytics not very useful

      Hi, I'm enjoying some aspects of the Zoho Social. like being able to schedule posts to multiple channels. However, the recent posts analytics is disappointing. For example, I put up a reel on Instagram and Facebook yesterday. Instagram insights shows

    • Zoho Commerce and Third-party shipping (MachShip) API integration

      We are implementing a third-party shipping (MachShip) API integration for our Zoho Commerce store and have made significant progress. However, we need guidance on a specific technical challenge. Current Challenge: We need to get the customer input to

    • What happens to the files created by user, whose account is deleted.

      Hello, I created a folder in the My folders names "Quote" I shared the same with my colleague. She created some files and folders in that folder over the period of 1 and half year. Now she left company, and I deleted her account from Zoho. What happens

    • Internal Error When Accessing Team Inbox.

      All our users are seeing this error in teaminbox. Because its a critical tool kindly resolve this issue ASAP.

    • Sharing URLs and direct access

      Hello, I am storing my team's email signature images on Workdrive. I am creating a public image download share and adding “?directDownload=true” so that the image can be accessed without the Workdrive interface. A few questions: 1) Can we generate friendly

    • Zoho Mail Android app update: Calendar enhancements

      Hello everyone! In the most recent version of the Zoho Mail Android app update, we have introduced various new enhancements for the calendar module. Let's explore what's new. Drag and drop events to update the date and time We have enhanced the calendar

    • Enhance Delay Configuration in Zoho Flow

      Dear Zoho Flow Support Team, We are writing to request an improvement to the delay configuration process within Zoho Flow. Currently, users are required to manually enter the exact delay duration (e.g., "2 days") in the delay block. This can be time-consuming

    • Contratação ProdutivosX

      Bem-vindo(a) ao processo de contratação da ProdutivosX. Este formulário tem como objetivo coletar informações essenciais para análise de perfil profissional, alinhamento de competências e possível integração ao equipamento ProdutivosX. A ProdutivosX é

    • Enhance Sign CRM integration

      Hello all, I'm working on a custom Deluge script to enhance the integration between Zoho CRM and Sign by using a writer merge template for additional flexibility. I want to replicate the post-sign document integration that exists between CRM and Sign

    • Unified WhatsApp Number Management in Zoho Desk and SalesIQ

      Dear Zoho Desk Support Team, We are currently utilizing both Zoho Desk and Zoho SalesIQ for our customer support operations. While both platforms offer WhatsApp integration, we are facing challenges due to the requirement of separate WhatsApp numbers

    • Problem using Zoho Desk API

      Goodmorning, I am trying to use the Zoho Desk API to create a dashboard in Grafana, but I am having a problem. Following the instructions in the API documentation, I created the API Console application (server-based application). Then I created the string

    • Email Field Validation Incorrectly Rejects RFC-Compliant Addresses (Forward Slashes)

      I've encountered a validation issue with Zoho Creator's Email field that rejects RFC-compliant email addresses containing forward slashes, and I'm hoping the Zoho team can address this in a future update. The Issue When entering an email address containing

    • Customer ticket creation via Microsoft Teams

      Hi all, I'm looking to see if someone could point me in the right direction. I'd love to make it so my customers/ end users can make tickets, see responses and respond within microsoft teams. As Admin and an Agent i've installed the zoho assist app within

    • Plug Sample #15 - Enable Human-Like, Contextual Interactions in SalesIQ with Zia Agents

      Zia Agents are conversational AI assistants designed to understand user intent and respond intelligently, helping businesses automate conversations and offer personalized support at scale. While Zia Agents are yet to be publicly released, access is currently

    • Best way to schedule bill payments to vendors

      I've integrated Forte so that I can convert POs to bills and make payments to my vendors all through Books. Is there a way to schedule the bill payments as some of my vendors are net 30, net 60 and even net 90 days. If I can't get this to work, I'll have

    • Seamless Round-Trip Navigation for Related Blocks (Detail View)

      As highlighted previously in this post (and here, here, here, and here), we still lack a fundamental capability for seamless navigation in Related Blocks. The popup that appears when adding a related record doesn't exist for viewing/editing existing records,

    • Next Page