Kaizen #126 - Circuits in Zoho CRM - Part 1

Hello everyone!

Welcome back to another week of Kaizen!

Today, we will discuss an exciting topic—Circuits in Zoho CRM.

For starters, we will discuss what Circuits are, how beneficial they are for businesses, different views of a Circuit, and the different states and flow controls.

In the next post, we will discuss associating a Circuit to a blueprint, workflow, and a button, testing and execution, and see a Circuit in action with an interesting use case.

What are Circuits in Zoho CRM?

We use different microservices to accomplish our business needs, but most of the time, we are forced to switch over to multiple places.

With Circuits in Zoho CRM, you can integrate multiple microservices in a single platform and create automated workflows, all within your CRM!

For example, consider that you have an e-commerce application that involves multiple processes like tracking inventory, payment processing, fulfilling and tracking orders, generating receipts and reports, etc.

Typically, you would code this entire logic and use it to fulfill your business needs. But, with Functions in Zoho CRM, you can write the logic for each of these individual processes and simply orchestrate them using Circuits.

So, for the above example, you can simply create an automated workflow using Circuits and use the functions in the right order. That's not just it! You can re-use these functions elsewhere, too.

Another simple example of a Circuit is when you want to automating sending SMS alerts to users when an event occurs. How this is different from a workflow is that in this circuit, you can have a function that triggers an SMS alert, and also a function that sends an email to the user when the SMS alert ails. This involves circuit's functional states and a decision making state.

Like this, the use cases of circuits are endless.

Advantages of Circuits

• Automate your routines
  Convert all your manual routines to automated workflows to save time. Avoid the need to trigger or interrupt applications to control the system flow, as you can create smooth-sailing, smart workflows that control themselves.
• Scale fast
  Handle any number of requests hassle free as your workflows get executed on cloud. While Zoho Circuit dynamically allocates resources on need, you can focus more on building your applications rather than managing them.
• Update in minutes
  Building the business logic of your applications in workflows empowers you to update the applications quickly. Swap or reorganize the components easily and build the modified applications in minutes.
• Low-code
  Create a circuit effortlessly with the visual drag-and-drop interface, which makes it easier for the users with minimum coding knowledge.
• Developer-friendly
  Circuits help you manage parallel processes, service integrations, spot failures, retry, and view logs, within minutes. Developers can focus on the business logic and not worry about these factors.
• Orchestrate CRM Functions
  Use various CRM functions on your circuit to integrate multiple third-party apps and Zoho CRM seamlessly. Write functions once, and orchestrate them in circuits to solve different business needs.
• Automate IT and business processes within CRM
  Create a circuit, associate it with a workflow, blueprint, or button, and automate your entire business process. With high availability, scalability, and fault tolerance, circuits ensure the performance of your workflow remains consistent even with changing states and an increase in frequency.
• Diagnose errors and view audit logs
  A detailed log of each execution provides the status of each state's task execution, the payload and parameters passed, and the responses and exceptions generated.
• Use Existing Functions
  From picking functions you've already tried, tested, and are up and running in your CRM account, to using a circuit within another circuit, this flexibility opens up possibilities of handling so much of your out-of-the-box requirements in a single space.

How are Circuits different from Workflow Rules and Blueprints?

Circuits is simply an orchestration of functions with powerful state management capabilities, along with in-built flow controls to automate the business process.

Workflow rules help us automate repetitive tasks and standardize business processes within the CRM system.

Workflow rules are useful in simple automations that the sales person does on a regular basis, like sending an email after record creation.

Builder View and Code View of a Circuit

Builder View

This view offers an easy drag-and-drop interface to build your circuit. The left pane in this view comprises all the states that can be added to a circuit.

The right pane comprises Configuration and Input/Output.

The Configuration tab lets you give a name to the state, choose its type, and select its next state.

The Input/Output tab allows you to control how JSON data must flow from one state to another through Paths.

Paths are strings beginning with $ that identify the components within the JSON. Specific parts of a JSON can be accessed by denoting their attributes in Input Path, Result Path, and Output Path.

This tab contains the following.

1. Input Path

Input path selects parts of the input JSON to pass to the state. You can also pass parameters to the input as a collection of key-value pairs. The values of Parameters can either be static or parts of the input JSON selected as a Path. For example, if your state's input is

{

"Entry1": {...},

"Entry2": {...}

}

then, you can apply the input path as $.Entry2 within the state definition. So, only the data inside the "Entry2" object will be passed as input to the state.

2. Result Path

After the input is processed by the state, Result Path selects what combination of the state result and the actual state input has to be passed to the output.

3. Output Path

Output Path further filters the data from the Result Path to pass it as state output.

Code View of a Circuit

In Code View, you can define your state machine in a simple JSON-based, structured language. Once a circuit is created, a sample workflow with the pass state as 'State 1' is created by default.

States of a Circuit and Flow Controls

Circuits offer a cascading structure to different states in a business process, allowing you to write functions that each feed their output into the next one, or any other one you pre-define, individually. You can also reroute, pause for a certain period, or feed it in batches to enable just about any sort of action.

Simply put, Circuits have different 'functional states' and 'flow controls' that allow you to automate execute your business process.

Flow Controls

Flow Controls let you control the flow of your circuit. To achieve this, Circuits make use of different states that allow you to make the execution, 'Wait' for another state, 'Pass' the input of a state to another, use 'Success' and 'Failure' to stop the execution of the Circuit.

The different states available are:

• Pass: Transfers the input from one state to another.
  
• Branch: Decides between branches of execution based on input.
  
• Parallel: Performs simultaneous executions.
  
• Wait: Inserts a delay for a specific time. The maximum wait time is 30 days.
  
• Batch: Implements multiple group executions. You can have a maximum of 10 jobs per batch.
  
• Success: Terminates an execution, returning 'Success'.
  
• Failure: Terminates an execution, returning 'Failure'.
  

For more details on states, refer to this article.

Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM states help you execute business logic in circuits with respect to the data available in CRM.

You can write functions in the built-in editor or orchestrate existing ones, get the details of a record as an input to other the states, get the details of your org, user, CRM variables and use them in your Circuit.

You can also trigger another Circuit within a Circuit using the 'Circuit' flow control.

'Function' State

Use this state in your Circuit to use an existing function in CRM. Depending on your need, you can configure the input and output, and control data flow in your circuit. Only the functions that are REST API-enabled are shown here.

'Circuit' State

You can use another Circuit in one of the states and configure the flow accordingly.

'Record' State

This state fetches the details of a particular record in a module in CRM. You can choose to pass a portion or all of this state's result as an input to the next state in the circuit. Note that the information displayed will be based on the scope provided to the user.

Depending on where the Circuit is associated(Blueprint, Workflow, Button - Create/Clone/Details/Edit View pages, individual record, mass action), the response of the Record State differs.

'Org' State

This state gives you the details of your CRM org that you can use in your circuit.

'User' State

Use this state in your circuit to get the details of the current user in your org and process this information in other states.

'Org Variable'

This state gives you the details of all CRM Variables in your org.

Error Handling

When you use any of the Zoho CRM states, you can also perform error handling as these functional states tend to have runtime errors.

On TimeOut

When a functional state runs longer than the expected time, timeout errors occur. For handling timeout errors in code view, the field value "errorType": "Error.TimeOut" will be added.

On Execution Failure

When a state's execution fails due to some exception that cannot be processed, it can be handled using execution failure. In code view, key-value "errorType": "Error.ExecutionFailure" is appended.

Custom Error

You can also have custom error handling for your states.

Configure Exception Type and Exception Value to set the error handling options based on the error code or error message delivered by the state's output.

Retry the function in case of failure or timeout, set the Attempt (number of retries) and Delay (wait time after failure for every retry attempt).

In case of failure, if the retries fail to fix the error, the State will Fallback the error output to the Next state in the Result field.

We hope you found this post useful. Stay tuned for part 2!

Let us know if you have any questions or suggestions.

Cheers!

Shylaja S

• Topic Participants

• Shylaja S

  

• Ash-Tech.co.il

• Pheranda Nongpiur

  

• Nicolás

• Sam Stemp

• Sticky Posts

• Kaizen #217 - Actions APIs : Tasks

  Welcome to another week of Kaizen! In last week's post we discussed Email Notifications APIs which act as the link between your Workflow automations and you. We have discussed how Zylker Cloud Services uses Email Notifications API in their custom dashboard.

• Kaizen #216 - Actions APIs : Email Notifications

  Welcome to another week of Kaizen! For the last three weeks, we have been discussing Zylker's workflows. We successfully updated a dormant workflow, built a new one from the ground up and more. But our work is not finished—these automated processes are

• Kaizen #152 - Client Script Support for the new Canvas Record Forms

  Hello everyone! Have you ever wanted to trigger actions on click of a canvas button, icon, or text mandatory forms in Create/Edit and Clone Pages? Have you ever wanted to control how elements behave on the new Canvas Record Forms? This can be achieved

• Kaizen #142: How to Navigate to Another Page in Zoho CRM using Client Script

  Hello everyone! Welcome back to another exciting Kaizen post. In this post, let us see how you can you navigate to different Pages using Client Script. In this Kaizen post, Need to Navigate to different Pages Client Script ZDKs related to navigation A.

• Kaizen #210 - Answering your Questions | Event Management System using ZDK CLI

  Hello Everyone, Welcome back to yet another post in the Kaizen Series! As you already may know, for the Kaizen #200 milestone, we asked for your feedback and many of you suggested topics for us to discuss. We have been writing on these topics over the

• Recent Topics

• Backorder quantity change

  New Purchase Order × Almost there, but... Quantity of items in this purchase order is greater than the quantity that can be backordered from that sales order. Why can't I change the quantity of a backorder purchase? It looks like a normal order form and I would like to use it as one because I increased the amount and added some items. 

• How to Associate multiple contacts with deal in Sales Inbox

  Hello, I have many deals that have multiple potential customers associated with a single deal, for example an engineer and a manager. The manager is the Deal's primary contact in CRM and the Engineer is added to the deal in the "Contact Roles" Associated

• Adding Taxes to paid consultations in Zoho Bookings

  I created a 'paid' consultation under Zoho Booking and integrated it with payment gateways for online/instant payment before a booking is done. How can I add 'taxes' to the price of consultation? I can add taxes to other Zoho apps (liks Books, Checkout,

• WorkDrive and CRM not in sync

  1/ There is a CRM file upload field with WorkDrive file set as the source: 2/ Then the file is renamed in WorkDrive (outside CRM): 3/ The File in CRM is not synced after the change in WorkDrive; the file name (reference) in CRM record is not updated (here

• "code": "500","description": "Account not exists", mail api

  I have been through all the steps and have a functioning Oath access_token etc etc... I then GET https://mail.zoho.com/api/organization And get my zoid then GET http://mail.zoho.com/api/organization/<hidden>/accounts and get the account details, which

• RTL Support for Webforms in Zoho CRM

  Dear Zoho CRM Support Team, We are writing to request an enhancement to the webform builder functionality within Zoho CRM. Currently, to create a webform in a right-to-left (RTL) language, the entire CRM instance must be set to RTL, which can be inconvenient

• Imported contacts succesful but contacts do not show up in Contacts

  I imported +300 contacts. I can see them in import history. When clicking on a contact in import history I see all the imported contact details for any given contact. So import seems to be successful.   However the imported contacts do not show up in the contacts tab. Not in All contacts, and not in a filtered view where they absolutely should show up. The search function also does not find any imported contact.   Help?

• Update on V2 API End-of-Life Timeline

  Dear Users, Earlier this year, we shared the launch of the V3 APIs and requested users to migrate from the older V2 APIs by December 2025. We have received valuable feedback from our users and partners regarding their migration timelines. We are happy

• Rich Text For Notes in Zoho CRM

  Hello everyone, As you know, notes are essential for recording information and ensuring smooth communication across your records. With our latest update, you can now use Rich Text formatting to organize and structure your notes more efficiently. By using

• Saving sent email campaign as PDF

  I'm looking to add all campaigns sent to an archive folder in sharepoint. Is there anyway to accomplish this in Zoho Flow ? I'm falling at the first hurdle ... can I automatically save a sent campaign as a PDF to a folder location ?

• Zoho Voice lance BYOC (Bring Your Own Carrier) : intégrez votre opérateur

  Pour accompagner sa croissance, une entreprise a besoin d’une infrastructure téléphonique flexible et évolutive. Les solutions de téléphonie s’adaptent aux exigences du centre de contact, tout en intégrant aisément les opérateurs locaux de votre choix.

• Digest Novembre - Un résumé de ce qui s'est passé le mois dernier sur Community

  Bonjour chers utilisateurs, Avec l'arrivée du dernier mois de l'année, il est temps de résumer les activités de novembre dans la communauté Zoho France. Ce mois-ci, Zoho Webinar se dote de deux nouvelles intégrations ! La première est avec Zapier : connectez

• 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

• Export Invoices to XML file

  Namaste! ZOHO suite of Apps is awesome and we as Partner, would like to use and implement the app´s from the Financial suite like ZOHO Invoice, but, in Portugal, we can only use certified Invoice Software and for this reason, we need to develop/customize on top of ZOHO Invoice to create an XML file with specific information and after this, go to the government and certified the software. As soon as we have for example, ZOHO CRM integrated with ZOHO Invoice up and running, our business opportunities

• 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

• Lead Blueprint transition in custom list view

  Hi, Is It possible to insert the Blueprint transition label in a custom Canvas list view? I am using Lead module. I see the status, but it would be great if our users could execute the Blueprint right from the list view without having to enter the detailed

• Announcing new features in Trident for Mac (1.30.0)

  Hello everyone! We’re excited to introduce the latest updates to Trident, bringing you a more seamless, intuitive, and secure communication experience. Let’s take a quick look at what’s new. Work with PST/EML files more efficiently. You can now do more

• Open Form in Same window as Page from embedded Report

  I have a page that has an embedded report, as shown below. When I click the + sign to add a new record, the form shows up inside the page where the report was embedded. I know that I can add a custom action to the report grid or report detail view and

• Weekly Sales Summary

  Is it possible to generate a weekly report in Zoho Books to show -$$ amount of estimates generated -# of estimates generated by Salesperson -$$ amount of Sales Orders created -$$ amount of Invoices generated

• Systematic SPF alignment issues with Zoho subdomains

  Analysis Period: August 19 - September 1, 2025 PROBLEM SUMMARY Multiple Zoho services are causing systematic SPF authentication failures in DMARC reports from major email providers (Google, Microsoft, Zoho). While emails are successfully delivered due

• Pricing Strategies: #4 Counting on Discounts

  "Is there any chance I can get a little discount on this month's service?" Maya hears this almost every time at her fitness studio. She offers monthly subscription plans for various services, including yoga, strength training, wellness sessions, and personal

• Introducing Query Workbench in Zoho CRM

  Hello everyone! We’re excited to announce the Query Workbench, a brand-new interface designed to improve developer experience of building Queries in Zoho CRM faster, simpler, and more intuitive. In the past, constructing queries required navigating across

• Limitation with Dynamic Email Attachment Capture

  I've discovered a flaw in how Zoho Creator handles email attachments when using the Email-to-Form feature, and I'm hoping the Zoho team can address this in a future update. The Issue According to the official documentation, capturing email attachments

• Add Customer in Books on Creator Form Submit Params

  Hi guys, Were integrating a creator app with books however what were doing is adding a books customer on submit of creator form.  We have some parameters but some fields aren't coping, All were seeing is the contact name in books,.  Any help of the params for this would be great. below is a sample of the script... response = zoho.books.createRecord("contacts", "XXXXXXXXX", { "contact_name" : input.Name, "address" : input.Email }); 

• Admin asked me for Backend Details when I wanted to verify my ZeptoMail Account

  Please provide the backend details where you will be adding the SMTP/API information of ZeptoMail Who knows what this means?

• Suggestion : link KB with Accounts

  Hi Zoho teams.  I think it could be good to link KB articles with  : accounts in order to easily  find articles dedicated to some account specificities. I tried to use tags , but tags are free text with not easy way  to retrieve it directly from ticket or list article for one tag. Tickets : It would be a good way to measure usage of KB directly from ticket when we don't need to copy/paste KB in solution. And : Great Tool , keep going ! 

• Drag and Drop in Creator Application

  Hi, I am in the planning phase of a new application and I would like to use 'Drag and Drop' in the user interface of my new Creator application that I am sketching out, but I don't seem to be able to find any reference that this is available to developers. In my instance I have table of entries and I would like to be able to allow users to move an entry to another table (much like you do in your own interface when creating a Pivot Table report. In addition, I would like the user to be able to re-order

• Is there any way to integrate Zoho with Zapier?

  Is there any way to integrate Zoho with Zapier? I'd like to use it to create a workflow, sharing posts from our Wordpress website to all our channels.

• Popular Articles Report

  From data to decisions: A deep dive into ticketing system reports Content management teams can use various metrics to assess the effectiveness of knowledge base articles, improve content quality, and ensure articles are regularly updated. Predefined article

• Invoice Ref. Field

  Hello Team, Currently, the Invoice Ref. field is set to a Number type with a maximum limit of 9 digits. However, we often receive customer invoices that contain up to 12 digits. In some cases, the invoice reference includes not only numbers but also letters

• 60 Days Into Zoho - Tiktok Branding Startup -7 Questions?!

  Wsp Everybody I co-own a TikTok Branding / Consulting Startup & have been using Zoho for the past 60 days - Am now looking to make our overall operations & processes more Efficient & Effective! Curious to know how others are using the platform & what's

• Turning off the new UI

  Tried the new 'enhanced' UI and actively dislike it. Anyone know how to revert back?

• XML format to import knowledgebase into Zoho Desk

  Hi, We just started to use Zoho Desk and want to import our knowledgebase from our old support system (Freshdesk) to Zoho Desk. Can anyone give us information about the format of xml file to import? There is no explanation on the related page.

• Pushing Zoho People leave into Microsoft calendar: how to chose how "event" is shown (busy, free etc)

  Hi, how can I select how a "leave" event is pushed into Microsoft calendar? I want for leave "working elsewhere" to show as working elsewhere and NOT as busy.

• Duplicate Accounts

  Hi There, I am looking for a solution, script, workflow or anything to solve an issue we have - in our customers section we have a rule that doesn't allow duplicates, however Zoho will allow customers with xxxxx and xxxxx PLC or LTD so effectivley we

• Error with If formula

  I've got this super simple If formula, what is the reason for the error? If ( LEN(${Leads.Trial Slot Option}) == 3,'y','n') Syntax Error. Check the examples for any functions you're using to see if you formatted them correctly. Make sure your fields are

• Announcing Multi-language Support in Zoho FSM

  Zoho FSM now speaks your language. The much-awaited multi-language support is now available in Zoho FSM. The following languages are supported in Zoho FSM: Dutch (Nederlands) English - United Kingdom English - United States French (français) French -

• Creating multiple CRM leads from a Zoho Forms subform

  Hi all, We have a heavily used intake form that is used for new leads as a part of our intake. There is a subform that allows the lead to add additional team members, their titles and other basic info. That form submission creates a new Lead and the subform

• Free webinar! Build smarter apps with Zoho Sign and Zoho Creator

  Hello, Bring the power of digital signatures to the apps you build in Zoho Creator! Connect Zoho Sign as a microservice and enable seamless e-signature workflows in your applications. This integration allows you to automate signing tasks using Deluge.

• Restrict Addresses in Zoho Forms?

  In the address field, is there a way to restrict the addresses that auto populate (via Zoho Maps or Google Maps) to a specific state (I know it's possible with the country). Additionally, how often does the address in Zoho Maps get updated? Certain addresses

• Next Page