Introducing ICR in Zoho CRM: Transform your printed text into digital data

Introducing ICR in Zoho CRM: Transform your printed text into digital data

From writing on papyrus in the ancient times to creating a humble record in your CRM, the world may have evolved with how it used to record data, but data entry as such has not been simplified. It is still a repetitive and arduous chore on which businesses are spending a significant amount of time and resources.
 
But, in today's fast-growing world, spending time to manually feed data field-after-field drains out the productivity from your business. And, one of the intelligent ways to tackle this age-old problem? Using intelligence itself—Intelligent Character Recognition.

Idea
Intelligent Character Recognition is a cutting-edge technology that can recognize and capture characters in printed texts and transform them as digital data.  
Imagine the case of vendor management in an eCommerce business; your agents creates individual records for each vendor registration and verify their credentials to qualify their contract.
 
Up next, think of patient registration at hospitals; the patients have to fill out the registration forms manually, submit the Govt. issued health card, and the staff has to feed them into the system.
 
For one more, let's look at the warehouse management process. The stockists feed the newly launched product into the system one after the other with all the specifications.
 
Finally, the revered sales process. Records created via webforms will have minimal information about the prospects. To qualify, the reps reach out to the prospects and collect more prerequisite information.
 
All these examples involve multiple back and forth, a lot of visual toggling between the physical asset and the system—the fatigue is real, and employing ICR for these data entry chores helps businesses to focus on your business processes efficiently.
 

ICR in Zoho CRM

Built as an ancillary to Zia Vision, ICR employs a few-step process to create new records and enrich existing records from images.
 
All you have to do is train Zia; the model will be ready to localize characters in your image. You can start to upload, verify, and save as a record.

Here's ICR at work!
 
Training Zia with sample images
​
Creating new records​
Enriching existing records from attached images​

There—that's all about ICR in Zoho CRM.
 
What you are seeing is our first cut. Down the road, we have plans to extract and enrich records and subforms using invoices, forms, bills, and handwritten texts. We are also working to optimize our model to extract without having to train Zia upfront. We shall soon meet with finer enhancements to ICR and till then—take care! 👋
 

Release plan: This is available for partners and customers in US DC.

Help document: Intelligent Character Recognition by Zia Vision

Thanks and have a good one! 

Kind regards,
Saranya Balasubramanian

    • Recent Topics

    • Zoho Creator In-App Notification

      Hi Team, I have implemented an in-app notification using code, as it required some customization. I followed the example in the link below: https://www.zoho.com/deluge/help/pushnotify-using-deluge.html#Example I have a couple of questions regarding this

    • Deluge Error: "Data type of argument of function 'get' did not match required type [BIGINT]" when working with Lookup fields

      Hi everyone, I’m facing an issue in Zoho CRM Deluge while working with lookup fields. Setup: Module: Monthly Bills Field: Customer (Lookup → Accounts) Module: Laundry Orders Field: Laundry_Account_Name (Lookup → Accounts) Field: Expected_Revenue (Currency)

    • Add Flexible Recurrence Options for Meeting Scheduling in Zoho Cliq (e.g., Every 2 Weeks)

      Hello Zoho Cliq Team, We hope you are doing well. Currently, when scheduling a meeting inside Zoho Cliq, the recurrence options are limited to Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly. There is no ability to set a meeting to occur every X weeks — for example,

    • Announcing Zoho Sheet desktop app for macOS and Windows (Beta)

      Hello Sheet users, We know you’ve been waiting for this one. It has always been the top priority on our roadmap to provide a single native desktop app for macOS and Windows that works both online and offline. Today, we are excited to announce that the

    • In App Auto Refresh/Update Features

      Hi,    I am trying to use Zoho Creator for Restaurant management. While using the android apps, I reliased the apps would not auto refresh if there is new entries i.e new kitchen order ticket (KOT) from other users.   The apps does received notification but would not auto refresh, users required to refresh the apps manually in order to see the new KOT in the apps.    I am wondering why this features is not implemented? Or is this feature being considered to be implemented in the future? With the

    • Unable to Log In to FSM Mobile App

      Hello FSM Team, We are encountering an issue when logging in to the FSM mobile app. When entering the user email, the system shows the error: “This account does not exist.” However, the same user is able to log in successfully via web (fsm.zoho.com).

    • Clarification on “Change Owner” vs Dispatcher Role in Work Orders

      Hi Mr. Abid, Good day! We would like to understand the purpose and correct usage of the “Change Owner” option in the Work Order module. As we noticed, there is an option to Change Owner in the Work Order. At the same time, there is also a separate field/role

    • New Income Tax Act 2025 and Rules 2026 for India (Effective 1 April 2026)

      Hello everyone, The Income Tax Act 2025 came into effect from 1 April 2026. This new law replaces the old Income Tax Act of 1961. Along with the new Act, the Income Tax Rules 2026 have also been released by the government. These updates bring practical

    • Facturation électronique 2026 - obligation dès le 1er septembre 2026

      Bonjour, Je me permets de réagir à divers posts publiés ici et là concernant le projet de E-Invoicing, dans le cadre de la facturation électronique prévue très prochainement. Dans le cadre du passage à la facturation électronique pour les entreprises,

    • How can I delete a user profile created ?

      I can't delete custom profiles created. Why ?

    • Search API filter/sort ignores comment-triggered modifiedTime updates

      Summary When a comment is added to a Call or Account, the parent record's modifiedTime is correctly bumped. This bumped value is visible in: GET /api/v1/calls/{id} ✅ GET /api/v1/calls/search without a filter ✅ — the record's response body shows the new

    • Dynamic Multi-Staff Selection for Ad-Hoc Bookings

      Summary Allow customers or internal schedulers to select specific staff members at the time of booking, with Zoho Bookings automatically surfacing only the time slots where all selected members are simultaneously available. Current Behaviour Zoho Bookings

    • How Can I Clear Deleted Members and Free Up Their Storage?

      Can we remove these deleted members and free up their storage?

    • Zoho Books Create Invoice API

      I am creating zoho invoices via the API.  Now that zoho has released sub-accounts, i'd like to create invoices and link them to sub-accounts within "sales" account.   For example; my chart of accounts looks like this; Sales ->Website Sales    ->Campaign Sales ->Offline Sales However, when I try to pass these accounts to the API, I receive an error that only Bank accounts can be passed with the create invoice.  

    • Ability to Set Text Direction for Individual Cells in Zoho Sheet

      Dear Zoho Sheet Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement in Zoho Sheet that allows users to set the text direction (right-to-left or left-to-right) for individual cells, similar to what is available in Google Sheets. Use

    • Contact not saved after editing

      Hi. I discovered a couple of problems with Zoho contact. (1) BUG. Contact is not saved after editing. If you edit an existing contact by putting a bracket in one of the fields you get the message "Contact updated successfully" but nothing is saved. All updates (including the other fields) are lost. Steps to reproduce. Go to an existing contact and change the first name to "Robert (Bob)". (2) In the phone number fields you can only save numeric data (0 to 9). This seems an unneccessary restriction.

    • Zoho Mail Android app update: UI revamp

      Hello everyone! We are excited to share that the first phase of the Zoho Mail Android UI revamp is now live. In this update, we have redesigned navigation bar at the bottom to quickly access the Email, Calendar, Contacts, and Settings modules. Also, the

    • Opt-out from mailing list means can't email at all??

      It seems that if a contact unsubscribes from a mailing list the only way to email them is to uncheck the email opt-out box first, then re-check after the email has been sent. I've been through a chat with support and they confirmed this. This seems bizarre.

    • Items Landed Cost and Profit?

      Hello, we recently went live with Zoho Inventory, and I have a question about the Landed Cost feature. The FAQ reads: "Tracking the landed cost helps determine the overall cost incurred in procuring the product. This, in turn, helps you to decide the

    • Bank Feeds

      Since Friday my bank feeds wont work. I have refreshed feeds, deactivate and reactivate and nothing is working

    • Show backordered items on packing slip

      Is it possible to show a column on the Packing Slip that shows number of backordered items when a PO is only partially filled? I would also like to see the Backordered column appear on POs after you receive items if you didn't get ALL of the items or partial amounts of items. And lastly, it would be nice to have the option of turning on the Backordered column for invoices if you only invoice for a partial order. -Tom

    • Newby Questions

      Q1. The top bar of Zoho Books has a "Search in Banking (/) " field. What is the proper use of this text box? - Searching for Amazon for example has no results but there are transactions. - Is the search case sensitive? - Are regular expressions allowed?

    • Add Custom Fields only in Customer module and not on supplier module!? Is not there a way to do that!?

      I am trying to create custom fields on clients module but it also gets created on suppliers module; which of course does not make sense at all as a lot of custom fields are client or supplier specific but never both. I am missing something? This seems

    • Inventory "Bulk Actions" button - add more fields to "Bulk Update > Select a field"

      Can we not get a lot more actions that are commonly used by customers into the "More Actions" button on the Inventory list? More fields listed in the Bulk Update > Select A Field? Possible Bulk update Fields Preferred Supplier ( to quickly move items

    • Using Email Triggers on Zoho Flow

      Hello, I'm sending the email to create the variables as this article says: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/flow/user-guide/create-a-flow/articles/email-trigger#How_email_trigger_works But the collection of the variables only seems to work when the

    • Zoho Bookings - Provide Appointment System ID in Zoho Flow Variable

      Hi Bookings Team, It would be great if you could provide the system record ID for appointments as a variable in Zoho Flow trigger outputs and Fetch Appointments action. This would allow us to create a dymanic URL which can be clicked by a staff user to

    • Tip #7: Customize the appointment confirmation page

      A confirmation page plays a crucial role in creating the first impression, as that's where customers land when booking with you. It shows your brand identity, engages your audience, and drives more conversions. Yet, this section is often overlooked when

    • WhatsApp Calling Integration via Zoho Desk

      Dear Zoho Desk Team, I would like to request a feature that allows users to call WhatsApp numbers directly via Zoho Desk. This integration would enable sending and receiving calls to and from WhatsApp numbers over the internet, without the need for traditional

    • Show backordered items on packing slip

      We send out a lot of large orders, and often there are one or two things backordered. How can I fix the packing slips to show quantity ordered  & quantity packed There should also be the ability to "ship" 0 of an item so the receiver knows that things

    • How do you create an event/meeting in a different time zone?

      Does anyone know how do you create an event/meeting in a different time zone? 

    • Deluge Learning Series – Mastering file handling in Deluge | April 2026

      The Deluge Learning Series is conducted on the fourth thursday of every month. In each session, we discuss built-in functions and statements in Deluge and demonstrate how they are used across different Zoho products. With practical examples and real-world

    • Multi-currency and Products

      One of the main reasons I have gone down the Zoho route is because I need multi-currency support. However, I find that products can only be priced in the home currency, We sell to the US and UK. However, we maintain different price lists for each. There

    • Editing recurring tasks

      Hi there, I use recurring annual tasks quite often but sometimes I have a contact leave an organization so I want to re-assign that annual task to a new contact. When I go into the task to change the contact it only does so for the current year. Future

    • On Duty Requests - Zoho People Data

      Hello Team, We are currently using the On Duty Form to record Work From Home (WFH) requests in our organization. However, we are facing an issue where pending On Duty requests are not appearing in the Attendance Module. For example, if I submit On Duty

    • Styling for Subform Fields using client script

      Currently we can add styles to list and detail page for fields using .addstyle in the Client Script But that is missing for fields of Subform We would really like the feature to addstyle for subforms in the detail page Can you please consider adding it,

    • Add a way to connect Log360 Cloud logs with Zoho analytics

      Hi, Several month ago Log360 Cloud was added to zoho one - and this is great. But as far as I see there is no prebuilt way to connect Zoho analytics to the logs we have in Log360 Cloud. Please add a prebuilt connection like we have for so many other zoho

    • IP flagged as abusive

      I'm getting the error that 136.143.188.15 is listed as abusive. I've checked with mxtoolbox.com and it is indeed in the list

    • date & datetime client script getInput types

      Please add date & datetime as available types for the getInput client script function. https://www.zohocrm.dev/explore/client-script/clientapi/Client#getInput

    • Approval Workflow Not Triggering When Status Updated via Custom Button

      Hi Team, I’m facing an issue with an approval workflow in my application. I have a workflow that updates a record’s Status field from “Pending” to “Waiting for Approval.” I have configured an Approval Workflow with the condition: Status = "Waiting for

    • Data Import

      Hello Latha, Is there any option to enable data import option in Equipment module? Best regards, Chethiya.

    • Next Page