Zoho Desk: Q1 2025 | What's New

Zoho Desk: Q1 2025 | What's New

Hello everyone,

Our first release for the year 2025 is here! 
Info
Check out the Release Notes for more details
The diverse capability of AI and its avatars has been the center of attention lately, and we've made some significant strides in this area. We now have a spectrum of other features to meet business's evolving customer service landscape.

This post is categorized into the following topics to maintain brevity and clarity: 
  • Zia: Content generation and writing assistance services
  • Computational and analytical ability
  • Agent productivity and reply readiness
  • User inclusivity and help center security
  • Improved ticket assignment and workflow
  • Data administration: Audit logs and criteria-based exports
  • Instant messaging and guided conversations
  • Marketplace
  • Enhancements in ASAP
  • Mobile apps (Android, iOS, and Radar) 

Zia: Content generation and writing assistance services

Zia (powered by open source language model [Llama 3.1]), can perform a variety of actions from predicting behavior to automating crucial ticket handling actions to providing 24x7 self-service to customers. Zia can now help agents craft more empathetic, personalized responses in the customer's language of choice.

Highlighting the tone and underlying sentiment gives agents crucial cues about the conversation. Insights display a collection of key points or terms that are used in the conversation, and this gives agents an idea about the topic being discussed. Using this information, the agent can draft an appropriate, empathetic reply. They can prioritize tickets with negative sentiment to contain critical issues from escalating.


The ticket summary is repositioned within the reply interface to provide a better usability experience and provide more clarity. The thread summary will give you an overview of the conversation in a thread.Generate content: Aside from responding to ticket queries, agents sometimes need assistance drafting invitation emails, meeting reminders, follow-up mailers, and more. Zia's writing assistant abilities can help generate content based on the prompt; for example, "Generate invitation email for the upcoming sales." The content can be used as a reply or regenerated with a different prompt.

The tone of the entire response or a section of the content can be adjusted to meet the customer's conversational style. You can adjust the tone to formal, informal, diplomatic, assertive, or humorous.

Agents can check the quality of their response before sending it to their customers. Zia will highlight spelling and grammatical errors and offer suggestions. It will also provide the readability score and sentence length.


Agents need to engage with customers beyond just troubleshooting and resolving queries such as inviting them for events, follow-up meetings, onboarding follow-up etc. In these cases, Generate Content can assist agents by creating custom content on demand through prompts. Agents also have the flexibility to modify the prompt, use the generated content as a response, or regenerate it by adjusting the tone and length to fit the context better.

Computational and analytical ability

Support managers can actively monitor the ticket handling process and improve the existing strategies by defining better criteria and optimizing resource allocation for critical services. The lifecycle report will highlight the time spent at each stage; the number of tickets that are moved to another team, agent, or department; and how much time it took to resolve a ticket, which are all critical in identifying bottlenecks and improving assignment strategy.
For example, if L3 tickets are frequently reassigned and take longer to resolve as a result, it can indicate that the tickers are being classified incorrectly. By redefining the criteria and setting proper filters, these tickets can be correctly identified at the submission stage and assigned to the right department, team, or agent. 


Managers can track each agent's active working hours to calculate the billable hours. They can regulate agents' availability by closely monitoring their session timings. 
The report is drilled down into:
  • Summary view: An overview of an agent's daily attendance, including their first login time, last logout time, total hours worked, and the number of sessions they conducted.
  • Session view: A detailed breakdown of the login and logout times of each session. It provides insights into how often an agent logs in and out and the duration of each session.

Monitoring the performance of an individual, a team, or a process identifies areas needing improvement. KPIs can also track progress or decline, and make periodic corrections. Some common performance indicators—like the number of tickets closed, task completion rates, monthly outbound calls, and pending asset requests—can all indicate whether there are any delays or if the agent requires training in handling special cases. KPI components such as metric cards, comparison indexes, bullet and dial charts provide visual representation of important business metrics that help with:
  • Resource management: Monitoring agent productivity can help managers understand agents' bandwidth and allocate tickets and tasks accordingly.
  • Performance tracking: Measuring First Response Time (FRT) and Time to Resolution (TTR) can help identify underlying reasons for any delays and take necessary actions to improve resolution time.
  • Goal alignment: By measuring FRT or resolution time, businesses can align support activities to bigger goals, such as quicker ticket closure, improved customer satisfaction, and a decrease in tickets. 

The Tickets module facilitates automatic computation of the customer's age in years, insurance policy tenure, claim amounts, service costs, and more, which would otherwise require an agent to calculate manually.

Agent productivity and reply readiness

This functionality allows agents to perform actions, send information, track locations, and alert third-party vendors with the click of a button. Buttons can be accessed from the Ticket Detail view. It can invoke a URL or initiate a spectrum of actions through functions.
  • Agents can refer to the company's term insurances, plans, benefits, and payout details while addressing a customer issue from the ticket.
  • The customer's exact location can be found using the correct coordinates in the navigation service URL.
  • Agents can create a record or initiate a process in another tool, such as creating a project in Zoho Projects or filing a bug in JIRA.

Businesses that use custom or private extensions (that aren't available in Zoho Marketplace) to manage their processes can add those extensions to the custom module. This allows them to view data generated by location trackers, forecast budgets, or even load and view images right inside the module's subtab, improving accessibility and usability. 


The Community module UI has been redesigned to enhance its visual appeal and improve the user experience.
We've upgraded the filters, the community detail view, and the moderation settings page with a sleek new design, making navigation and accessibility simpler and more intuitive for users. With the new Approve All button, admins can now approve all posts that are pending approval at once.


Multiple contacts can be sent a WhatsApp message at once, saving time. Agents can also select multiple contacts and update a value or delete them.

Agents have the flexibility to respond to a ticket that was submitted through the IM channel via email. 

User inclusivity and help center security

These have been introduced to provide help center users with ease of navigation.

The happiness rating feedback form can be translated in multiple languages to improve outreach and allow customers to submit feedback for the support they received in their native language. 

These templates allow businesses to store multiple language versions under a single template ID, ensuring that messages are sent in the recipient’s preferred language. This eliminates the complexity of managing multiple templates and streamlines the WhatsApp approval process. These templates can also be triggered via our API, allowing businesses to automate multilingual messaging and enhance customer engagement at scale. 

These bots allow customers to interact with you in their preferred language with multilingual GC bots in WhatsApp, Telegram, Line, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and Business Messaging. It detects the user’s language, translates, and provides responses accordingly, eliminating the need for separate language-specific bots. 

OTPs allow users to access the help center without their login credentials. Sometimes, when users are in a rush or have forgotten their login credentials, an alternative secure login system keeps them connected. OTP-based user authentication is currently available only for India-based customers. 

Users can verify their identity using either of the options while accessing the help center. 

Improved tickets assignment and workflow


Businesses that use custom modules can use workflow rules to update the field values in these records automatically. The "update record action" will update static and dynamic values in the custom module and its related modules. For example, if the employee name is updated in the Employee module, the name will be updated in the Payroll module as well. 

These logs offer a detailed record of both successful and failed custom function executions triggered by automation rules. It includes execution details, passed arguments, and print statements, helping you debug issues and identify the causes of any failures.

Data administration: Audit Log enhancements

  • The Audit Log is now available for both the Contacts and Accounts modules. Admins can track the changes and actions performed in these modules to gain more visibility.
  • The Detail view of the Audit Log is introduced to view and analyze all of the logs. Admins can track specific actions and events all in one place to gain more clarity instead of navigating back to each record individually.
  • Audit log data can be exported in CSV format file for future reference. Read more

Instant messaging and guided conversations

The AnswerBot can generate relevant answers from knowledge base articles to automate chat interactions and reduce response times. The agents can review the answers and choose whether to send them. Chat services on WhatsApp, Telegram, Line, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and Business Messaging help manage high chat volumes, provide 24/7 support, and ensure quick resolution for common questions. When necessary, the AnswerBot will transfer conversations to human agents, ensuring a smooth customer experience while optimizing agent availability and efficiency across multiple messaging channels.

Triage chat conversations by systematically routing each new inquiry to the next available agent in a predefined sequence. This ensures an even workload distribution, eliminates manual assignment efforts, and enhances response efficiency, leading to better customer service and streamlined operations.

AI inside the CPaaS inbox offers real-time message suggestions, conversation summaries, sentiment analysis, and intelligent response recommendations. Available for WhatsApp, Telegram, Line, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and Business Messaging, it facilitates faster resolution of customer queries while maintaining consistency in responses.

The AI-powered composer enhances the agent's productivity by offering real-time writing assistance, language translation, and tone adjustments. It ensures clear, refined, and contextually appropriate communication that resonates with the brand's messaging.

Generate AI-powered responses with context retention in Guided Conversations. The Generative AI Block understands complex queries and remembers the conversation history within a session to give personalized replies. It also provides a chat summary for agents, ensuring a smooth transition and better customer interactions. 

Use industry-specific templates from the gallery to build contextual chatbot ready-made flows that are optimized for multiple languages and channels. 

Connect Guided Conversations with Zoho CRM, Zoho Cliq, Zoho Connect, Zoho Projects, Zoho Mail, and Zoho Calendar. These integrations enable data exchange and automate workflows across platforms for smoother operations. 

Create and deploy chatbots with unified widgets and flows. Switch between editing and viewing modes, preview blocks on hover, and customize the block listing panel. Reposition the panel for flexibility and track real-time metrics to optimize chatbot performance.

Automate user actions and personalize chats across messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram, and Facebook Messenger by using the IM variable in the GC flow. IM variables enable session-specific actions, user identification, and ticket management for smoother interactions.

Personalize the logo, theme, launcher, and background. Set custom session end rules, idle timeouts, and enable multilingual support for a tailored chat experience.

The GC Mobile SDK (Android and iOS) supports multiple languages, adapting to the user’s device or preferred language. It ensures a consistent chatbot experience. App Clip and instant app Cliq support enables instant chatbot access without installing the full app.

Merge multiple variables and text into a single structured variable for better data integration. Use it to streamline workflows, improve ticket creation, and enhance AI responses. This reduces manual effort and ensures better context retention in conversations.

Marketplace

Zoho Desk can be integrated with Microsoft Azure DevOps, a suite of cloud-based tools and services developed to support the software development lifecycle (SDLC). Integration improves collaboration between support and development teams by enhancing communication and visibility of requirements, progress, and issues.
For example, a ticket raised for a feature request or feature enhancement by the customer is handled by the customer support team in Zoho Desk. The software development team handles their tasks, such as validating the request, coding, and testing in Azure DevOps. 

Enhancements in ASAP

  • Voice-to-Text Search: Android SDK customers can use voice-to-text search instead of typing.
  • Comprehensive callback functionality: We've introduced callback events for Knowledge Base and Community interactions. These callbacks allow developers to track user engagement and integrate support usage data with their preferred analytics tools. This provides valuable insights for optimizing support content and identifying areas for improvement.
  • Targeted content display: Support content can now be customized based on application screens and user contexts. For example, you can display a specific forum topic on a dedicated screen or show a particular ticket status on a ticket management page. This allows for a more tailored support experience.

Mobile apps: (Android, iOS, and Radar)

  • Schedule and record calls (Android and iOS): The details of inbound and outbound calls can be recorded for transparency and tracking the agent's progress.
  • Create stand-alone activities (Android and iOS): Individual tasks, events, and calls can be created without associating them with tickets, such as onboarding requests, service maintenance, and more. Activities can be sorted and viewed under system-defined list views or custom views.
  • Customizing the list view in a custom module (Android): The list view in a custom module can be personalized by adding or removing the columns as needed. For example, in a custom module called Tour Packages, the users can select fields like country of travel, duration, package type, and visa requirements in the list view for easy access. The fields and layouts within a module can be rearranged, and the appearance and alignment of each card in the module can also be customized.
  • Generate quick and accurate replies using Zia insights in IM chats (Android and iOS): Zia insights in IM chats will help agents understand complex queries by generating a summary of the chat session. Reply suggestions can also be generated to provide contextually accurate replies, reducing the time spent on drafting replies. The tone of the incoming message can be read using Zia insights, helping agents to align their conversation to that of the customer.
  • Use Radar permissions to control who can use what in the app: Radar permissions let admins customize app access based on a user's profile. This way, users can access only the tools and data needed to discharge their duties. By removing distractions and reiterating responsibilities, Radar permissions help users collaborate while staying within the confines of their roles, enhancing overall efficiency and productivity.
  • Make the Radar app follow your device's time zone: Empower agents to provide support from anywhere in the world using the Radar app. Its "Use Device Timezone" setting synchronizes the help desk application's clock with that of the agent's device. Consequently, agents can view all time-related data (e.g., created time, due time) in their local time, enabling punctual, well-timed responses.

    • Sticky Posts

    • Zoho Desk Partners with Microsoft's M365 Copilot for seamless customer service experiences

      Hello Zoho Desk users, We are happy to announce that Zoho Desk has partnered with Microsoft's M365 to empower customer service teams with enhanced capabilities and seamless experiences for agents. Microsoft announced their partnership during their keynote

    • WhatsApp pricing changes: Pay per message starting July 1, 2025

      Starting July 1, 2025, WhatsApp is shifting from conversation-based pricing to per-message billing. That means every business-initiated message you send will count. Not just the first one in a 24-hour window. Pricing updates on the WhatsApp Business Platform

    • Live Webinar - Work smarter with Zoho Desk and Zoho Workplace integration

      Hello customers! Zoho Desk and Zoho Workplace are coming together for a webinar on 14th May, 2024. Zoho Workplace is a suite of productivity apps for email, chat, docs, calls, and more at one single place. Zoho Desk is closely integrated with a few tools

    • Apple iOS 17 and iPadOS 17 updates for Zoho Desk users

      Hello Zoho Desk users! Apple recently announced the release of iOS 17 and iPad OS 17. These latest OS updates will help you stay productive and efficient, through interactive and seamless user experiences. Zoho Desk has incorporated the updates to help

    • Zoho Desk Cheat Sheet For The Year-End

      Check out these Zoho Desk best practices to end this year on a high and have a great one ahead! #1 Set Business (Holiday) Hours - If you have limited working hours, please make sure you restrict your business hours or set them as holidays for the coming days. Let your customers know when you will, and won't, be available. #2 Update the Annual Holiday List - Check the holidays for the new year and update the holiday schedule. Usually, holidays from the current year will be carried over for the next

    • Recent Topics

    • Show item Cost value on Item screen

      The Item screen shows Accounting Stock and Physical Stock. It would be very helpful if value information could be displayed here as well, for instance Cost Price. Currently, to find the Cost Price (as used for inventory valuations) from inside the item

    • Mark shipment as delivered via api

      Hellloooo again Zoho guys !! More help required if you would be so kind, pleeeezz..... var options =        {         'method' : 'post',         'contentType' : 'application/json',         'muteHttpExceptions' : true       }; var myPackNo  = encodeURIComponent('###################');

    • Setting Alternative units for an item.

      Hello Team, How to create alternate units for an item. We are placing orders for stocks in boxes. One box contain 24 items. At the time of selling we have two categories of buyers wholesalers and retailers. So the sales will be in PCS and in boxes also.

    • Zoho Inventory search when adding items to SO/PO, etc.

      I do not see that Zoho Inventory searches within the item name for an item lookup. We have many products with variants. So when I search for a product, say a lighting system, and it comes in different sizes and colors, I can only get those products where

    • Item Group Attributes

      Hello, I would like to see more attributes under grouped items. We sell car parts, there are several suppliers for the same part but under different brands. We want to group them together but the attributes under groups are lacking. For example, the products

    • Remove HTML Format - Deluge

      Hello @all if you want to delete the HTML format from the text please follow the script. Data = "Text"; info Data..replaceAll("<(.|\n)*?>" , "").replaceAll("&nbsp;" , " "); Apart from this if you require anything please let me know Thanks & Regards Piyush

    • Using multiple languages in template

      I wanted to add the company name in the template in arabic. I found a way through the header and footer option, except when i print the quotation the arabic disappears both in the top and bottom of the page. I have attached pictures of the before and

    • ADDING 5% VAT TO PURCHASE ORDERS GENERATED ON ZOHO BOOKS UAE

      Please guide on how to add 5% VAT to Purchase Orders generated on ZOHO Books UAE edition.

    • Import from /csv file, some items fail with the error "Specify Tax Or Tax Exemption".

      Hello! I am trying to import a csv file of all of my expenses for a complete financial year. I get errors for some items with the error message "Specifiy Tax or Tax Exemption". These errors only occur on lines where I have "Postage" as the expense account.

    • About maximum number of requests per minute

      Hi, Our company has integrated Zoho inventory and we're using the shipping order creation and update functions and so on. Currently we're receiving "For security reasons you have been blocked for some time as you have exceeded the maximum number of requests

    • Approval - Report/Views

      Hi, On Zoho Desk - Is there a way to report on pending approvals, or a view or similar?

    • "Zoho CRM Integration" option is missing in Zoho Social Settings

      I am trying to integrate my Zoho Social account with my Zoho CRM account. I am on the Professional Trial plan and my user role is "Brand Admin". However, I cannot find the "Zoho CRM Integration" or "Lead Generation" option anywhere in my Zoho Social settings.

    • Error 553

      Não estou conseguindo enviar ou receber e-mail, sempre dando o erro 553, sendo que há mais de um mês o domínio está pago e liberado. Preciso de um suporte urgente

    • Automate insurance document workflows with Zoho Writer

      Insurance companies have to deal with creating and managing complex documents and forms, such as policy applications, explanation of benefits documents, brochures, renewals, and claim forms. Handling all of this manually is hugely time and effort intensive,

    • Create PDFs with Text so that we can copy from a generated PDF

      Currently, any information that a user enters into a field cannot be highlighted and copied from the PDF that Zoho Sign renders. For example, if someone were to provide a phone number in a Zoho Sign text field, you would not be able to copy the phone

    • How To Insert Data into Zoho Table using Api

      Hi Community, I have created a table inside zoho tables. How do I insert data into table using API. Please tell the exact endpoint and payload , I just have to insert data into table columns. Also tell how to find tableid, viewid, baseid etc. which are

    • How do I delete a folder in Marketing Automation?

      Folders are used across contact lists and segments, and email templates. How do I delete a folder once it's been created?

    • Portal Approval Process

      Hi Zoho team and fellow users, I am seeking a method to establish a multi-step approval process between a Zoho user and a portal user (Custom Portal) to review and approve requests through the Custom Portal. For instance, within this setup, one of the

    • Narrative 8: Intelligent in-app support that's instantly available anytime and anywhere

      Behind the scenes of a successful ticketing system - BTS Series Narrative 8: Intelligent in-app support that's instantly available anytime and anywhere The App Support Across Platforms (ASAP) add-on for Zoho Desk is an independent application that integrates

    • Navigation issue — unable to return to Customer page after opening Receipt from Transactions

      Steps to reproduce: Open a Customer record. Go to Transactions tab and open a Receipt by clicking its receipt number. After viewing the receipt, clicking browser Back or closing the receipt does not reliably return me to the original Customer record (I

    • Thermal Printer Option Needed for Delivery Challan Templates

      Currently in Zoho Books, the Delivery Challan template only supports A4 and A5 page sizes. However, in many businesses (especially retail and hardware), we use thermal printers (like 3-inch or 4-inch rolls) to print delivery challans. It would be very

    • Separate Default Payment Modes for Receipts vs. Payments

      Right now, when I set a default Payment Mode via a customer invoice or Payments Received screen, that same mode shows up for vendor payments (Purchases → Payments Made). 🔹 Request: We need different default modes for: Customer receipts (e.g., default

    • Update/Change GSTIN in GST Settings of zohobooks

      We are trying to update our GSTIN under the GST settings section of our Zohobooks account Initially, we had entered a dummy GSTIN (123456789123456) to generate a sample invoice before obtaining our official GST registration. After receiving our actual

    • Link Payment Mode and Paid Through Accounts

      For most users, it's very difficult for them to understand that the Payment Mode is totally independent of the Paid Through account when paying bills. It seems (and is) redundant for them to have to select what is basically the same thing twice. The current

    • Lets enable business to choose the default payment mode

      Lets enable business to choose the default payment mode so that we do not have choose payment mode again and again for each and every transsctions

    • Add Attachment Support to Zoho Flow Mailhook / Email Trigger Module

      Dear Zoho Support Team, We hope you are well. We would like to kindly request a feature enhancement for the Mailhook module in Zoho Flow. Currently, the email trigger in Zoho Flow provides access to the message body, subject, from address, and to address,

    • South African Payment Gateways

      Since the "Demise" of Wave many South African users have moved over to Zoho and yet for years users have been requesting Integration with a South African Payment Gateway to no avail. Payfast was the most commonly requested gateway as it supports recurring

    • Has anyone verified if Zoho is PCI compliant?

      We are planning on using Zoho to process payments via Authorize.net. We have everything set up and are attempting to complete the PCI DSS SAQ-A requirement for our merchant account. This requires us to prove Zoho has completed the SAQ-D for Service Providers. We need a way to verify compliance, or a copy of an attestation of compliance signed by the appropriate officer at Zoho. I assume I'm not the first person to use Zoho to process payment, and therefore not the first to require this information

    • Bigin Plugin for Outlook

      Could we get this added? The Gmail version already exists, and I would like to avoid having to make a switch.

    • Date does not fit the field

      Hi There. I am having fun learning zoho sign API. Today I noticed the "Signed Date" field does not fit, or alternatively the font is to large for the auto field space. See screenshot below. The signed date field is created by putting {{Signdate}} on the

    • Tip of the Week #69 – Automate your Zoho TeamInbox tasks with n8n integration.

      Don’t waste time repeating the same tasks—like sending follow-up emails or adding new contacts. Let automation save the day. With n8n, an open-source automation tool, you can connect your favorite apps and let them handle the busywork for you. You don’t

    • Multi Page/Step Forms in creator

      Greetings i was wondering if it's possible to create multipage/step forms on creator similar to what we have on zoho forms. is that possbile? Thanks

    • Package Geometry

      how can i add the dimensions and weight capacity of the available boxes to be default in the system everytime we use it ?

    • How to create a Master Kanban Board that syncs with Child Projects?

      Hello, We're currently using Zoho Sprints for managing our interdepartmental teams, and we're looking to enhance our workflow using Kanban boards as part of a company-wide productivity improvement initiative. Our goal is to implement a project structure

    • Writer.. Broken?

      Hello,  Writer has been really good to me during the months I've used it, up until now.  I usually launch the app by tapping the icon and I could immediately pick up where I left off.  Now I'm greeted by a loading circle not reaching 100% and I only have the option to create a new account.  By pressing that button it now switches to a login screen and I can access my account. However, it seems (only speculating ofc) to be stuck in cell-phone mode? everything looks scrambled.  I can't access any of

    • How to access Recruit Variables in a Deluge function?

      I have set up Recruit Variables in Zoho Recruit, and I would like to know how to retrieve these variables from within a Recruit custom function (Deluge). Could someone please explain the correct way to access them? I tried the following code, but it did

    • Upon De activate a user what name doe sthe contacts candidates go under?

      When deactivating a user, does the user name remain the same, as the candidate owner? If not what/who, does it change to? Do I need to change the user name in contacts and candidates before I deactivate the user?

    • Weekly Tips: Customize alerts from your Priority Users

      You might receive hundreds of emails daily, but messages from your manager, clients, or team leads often require immediate attention, as they may contain urgent requests or critical updates. How would you ensure you never miss important messages from

    • Maximum 100 records in Sheet View is limiting. How can I increase this?

      Thanks in advance for any help with this. There was a similar post that showed answered but it did not help with increasing the number of records you see in a Sheet View. Editing in the Sheet View is fast and efficient but I have 3500 records and I need

    • Revenue Management: #3 Revenue Recognition Simplified

      In continuation of the previous post on how to compute revenue recognition, let's explore a solution that helps businesses handle real-world complexities. While the Accounting Standards provide a clear framework for recognizing revenue, the real challenge

    • Next Page