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

    • Refund

      My plan expired today, and I updated my payment details with a new credit card. At the same time, I wanted to downgrade, but the system wouldn’t allow the downgrade until the payment details were updated. As a result, I was charged for the same plan before

    • Add "Fetch Composite Item" Action for Inventory

      I want to make a Flow that uses information returned in the GET call for Composite Items, and it's not currently available in Zoho Flow. Please consider adding this functionality.

    • Calling Function via REST API with API Key gives 401 using Zoho Developer

      Hi, I created a couple of functions using the one month trial of Enterprise edition, which I was able to call using the API Key method from Postman and from an external site. Now that my trial has expired, I have created the same functions in the Developer

    • Error due to - 'Internal Exception' when uploading Sign-generated PDF file to workdrive via Deluge in Zoho CRM

      Hi I wasnt getting this error a few days ago and my code had not changed, so I'm wondering if there's a Zoho bug somewhere? I am downloading a PDF file from a Zoho Sign url using invokeurl and then uploading it to a Workdrive folder using zoho.workdrive.uploadFile.

    • Embed CRM record images in email templates

      I have email templates that I want to embed dynamic images in their body - not as an attachment. For the context, the image is a QR code individual to each contact. So there are couple of challenges for which I think there is no solution in CRM: 1/ I

    • Assign multiple departments to multiple helpcenters

      Hi there! I have a reseller company for a software and I'm using Zoho Desk as my helpcenter and ticket management system. The software is great and I would like to make a suggestion! With multi-branding activated, your departments that visible in help

    • Zoho Desk Training

      Hello, We've had Zoho desk for a while now, but we run into issues occasionally, and I was wondering if there was a customer who currently uses it and really enjoys the functionality, that would be wiling to chat with us?

    • Advanced Customization of the Help Center using JavaScript

      Hello everyone, The Help Center in Zoho Desk can be customized by using HTML and CSS to provide structure and enhance the page's appearance—but what if you want to add interactive and dynamic elements? You can add these effects with JavaScript, a programming

    • Exciting Updates to the Kiosk Studio Feature in Zoho CRM!

      Hello Everyone, We are here again with a series of new enhancements to Kiosk Studio, designed to elevate your experience and bring even greater efficiency to your business processes. These updates build upon our ongoing commitment to making Kiosk a powerful

    • Edit default "We are here to help you" text in chat SalesIQ widget

      Does anyone know how this text can be edited? I can't find it anywhere in settings. Thanks!

    • PO Based Advance payment to Vendor

      We recommend to introduce a provision at PO to make advance payment to vendors and auto apply that advance paid later at the time of Vendor Bill submission for that PO. This will help us track PO-wise Total Payments.

    • Converting Customer Invoice to Purchase Bill

      Hi, In my service-based business, I sometimes create the customer invoice first, and later I receive the purchase bill from the vendor for the same job. Is there any option in Zoho Books to: Convert a customer invoice into a purchase bill, or Link/associate

    • Getting Project Template List using the REST API

      I am trying to confirm that I can use the REST API to create a project using a project template. The API documentation indicates this is possible by providing the Template ID, but it is not clear at all how to get a list of available Project Templates

    • How to get Quickbooks Desktop Info into Zoho?

      Our team has used Quickbooks desktop for years and is looking at switching to Zoho books in 2026. I want to bring all old sales history over since we use Zoho CRM. I can export Item sales history and generic sales orders from Quickbooks desktop. How do

    • ZeptoMail API Request

      We tried to send mail using ZeptoMail using Django. Following is my payload {'from': {'address': 'abc@abc.com'}, 'to': [{'email_address': {'address': 'xyz@xyz.in', 'name': 'Bhavik'}}], 'subject': 'Report Name', 'htmlbody': '<p>Test</p>'} Following is

    • Zoho Inventory - Allow Update of Marketplace Generated Sales Orders via API

      Hi Inventory Team, I was recently asked by a client to create an automation which updated a Zoho Inventory Sales Order if a Shopify Order was updated. I have created the script but I found that the request is blocked as the Sales Order was generated by

    • 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?

    • Mass import of documents into Zoho Writer

      I'm using Google's word processor at the moment but feel that Zoho does a better job (on the online apps market). Iwant to move my documents (about 50-70) to Zoho but it seems to me that I have to import them seperately. Is it already possible to upload several documents at a time or is this a forthcoming feature? Cheers Rolli :?:

    • Add home page or dashboard in CRM customer portal

      is it possible to add home page or dashboard in CRM customer portal?

    • User Tips: How to change the the label display name of a system defined field

      Most users know how to change field label names via Settings > Modules & Fields but if you want to change the name of a system defined field you can’t as there is no “edit properties” option.  However with a simple hack you can edit any system defined

    • Search not working!

      I have items in my notebook tagged but when I search for a tag nothing comes up! Any fix for this?

    • Zoho CRM Community Digest - October 2025 | Part 1

      Hello Everyone! Here's a quick recap of first two weeks of October! Product Updates: Zoho CRM Android App Update: Surveys, Blueprints, and Smarter Mobile Features! Zoho CRM’s Android app just got a useful upgrade. You can now share records, upload your

    • Automate onboarding emails with CRM Workflow and Accounts module

      We’re a B2B SaaS company selling to public-sector organisations. Each organisation is stored as an Account in Zoho CRM, and each organisation typically has multiple associated Contacts. Our backend syncs product-usage data (setup status, user activity,

    • Using a CRM Client Script Button to create a Books Invoice

      Hello, I need help handling error messages returned to my client script from a function. The scenario I have setup a client script button which is available from each Deal. This CS executes a crm function, which in turn creates an invoice based on the

    • Important update: Enhanced security measures for account operations in Zoho Cliq

      Greetings from the Zoho Cliq team! We’d like to share an important security update that has an influence on some admin actions such as password reset, MFA reset, and MFA backup code generation. What’s changing? With our latest security enhancements, these

    • Sales Receipts Duplicating when I run reports why and how do we rectify this and any other report if this happens

      find attached extract of my report

    • No Functional Autosave or Manual Save Button

      Application : Zoho Notebook So I wanted to try Zoho Notebook(On Ubuntu) as an application, I installed the application and went solving my LeetCode problems visually(Drawing mode), at one point the app just stopped saving anything... Every time I tried

    • Enterprise subscription support

      My organization sells subscription services to enterprise customers, which is a different model from the consumer subscription model that Zoho Billing has been designed to support and I beleve this capability should be added. An enterprise subscription

    • Issue with Creator's IF logic

      Hi, I found the following code produces unexpected results: if(-1.0 < 0.0000000) {       info "True"; } else {       info "False"; } if(-1.0 < 0.000000) {       info "True"; } else {       info "False"; } The output returned is: False True However, the

    • Need option to send Package PDF in shipment email (Shipment PDF is missing Lot info)

      Is there any way to automatically attach the Package PDF instead of (or alongside) the Shipment PDF in the notification emails? We really need this feature because the default Shipment PDF creates a blind spot for our customers. It does not display Batch/Lot

    • zoho creator view is not present in the workspace and blank reports

      Hi Support,  Users who have "write" permissions keep getting this error for all of our embedded reports all of a sudden. See screen shot below: Meanwhile, my developer permissions account sees a blank screen in view and edit mode as shown in the screenshots

    • Customize portal email template

      Can i fetch only first name of the user in portal email template instead of the below code Hi ${User.FULL_NAME}

    • Can't we let users decide which options they'd like to add at embed widget?

      It seems embed widget DOES NOT offer a feature, where users can choose options upon subscribing plans. What Zoho has instead, is that admins have to manually create plan with options. How come no one in Zoho dev team never raised issue about usability

    • Reupload and rename from one field to another field (file upload)

      Hi Everyone, Sorry, i have question to use invoke url for rename and reupload attachments file to another field. Tested on development mode. Zoho C6. Refer to https://www.zoho.com/creator/help/api/v2/upload-file.html look my error notification. Does anyone

    • Printing Multi-Page Reports (PDF Export)

      Hi, I am moving a report from Google's Looker Studio to Zoho Analytics and trying to reproduce the Looker page by page dashboard editing experience. With Google, what you see is what you get when you print to PDF. But I can't seem to create the same experience

    • Resume Harvester: New Enhancements for Faster Sourcing

      We’re excited to share a set of enhancements to Resume Harvester that make sourcing faster and more flexible. These updates help you cut down on repetitive steps, manage auto searches more efficiently, and review candidate profiles with ease. Why we built

    • I NEED TO NUMBER TO TEXT NO HERE

      =NUMBERTEXT NEEED

    • Error: View is not present in the workspace

      When saving a dashboard, user receives a popup with the following error. "View is not present in the workspace" What does this mean or refer to? There is no further insight given.

    • Dear Zoho CEO: Business Growth is about how you prioritise!

      All of us in business know that when you get your priorities right, your business grows. Zoho CRM and Zoho Books are excellent products, but sadly, Zoho Inventory continues to lag behind. Just this morning, I received yet another one-sided email about

    • Is there any way to send an Excel received by email to Dataprep?

      Every day I receive an email alert with an Excel file that I want to process through a Dataprep pipeline. To do this, I need to: -Save the file to disk -Open the pipeline -Run the pipeline -Update the source -Several clicks to select and open the saved

    • Next Page