Introducing Zia Strategy Influencer for Zoho CRM

Introducing Zia Strategy Influencer for Zoho CRM

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

Hello everyone,

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

Why Zia Strategy Influencer? 

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


 Let us now explore the feature in a detailed manner.

Zia Strategy Influencer

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


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

Components of Zia Strategy Influencer

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

Target Contributors 

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



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








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

Anomaly Finder

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

Gap Analyzer 

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


Predictor

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


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



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

Prescriptor 

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

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

  • what went wrong in the previous data

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







Updating the Zia Strategy Influencer 

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

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

How is Zia Strategy Influencer different from Forecasts?

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

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

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

Feature Requirements

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

    • Recent Topics

    • Cannot schedule report delivery

      The only 'send option' available when exporting reports is 'immediately' The option to schedule the report is missing.

    • adding attachment in sendmail script where attachment is in a CRM field

      Hi all, I have a custom field of type 'File Upload' in one of my modules in my CRM. I want to include the file in that field as an attachment to an email - which is done from a button on  the 'Results' module. I have created a script and a button to initiate an email from that module. The Deluge scripting window has allowed me to add arguments for all the fields I need to use except for the one file upload type field. My script currently looks like the below (content of the email omitted). As you

    • [Free Webinar] Learning Table Series - AI-Enhanced Insurance Claim Management in Zoho Creator

      Hello Everyone! We’re excited to invite you to another edition of Learning Table Series, where we showcase how Zoho Creator empowers industries with innovative and automated solutions. Struggling with lengthy claim processes, a lack of visibility into

    • Not sure how to use credits to my account

      Hi I have a $50 credit to my account. I'm just wondering how I can apply that to either a current invoice or to try a new service. Any advice would be great, thanks. Kind Regards Chris

    • Control who sees Timeline and Interactions in Zoho CRM through Profiles

      The feature has been enabled for all DCs (except US, EU, and IN DCs). We will be rolling it out to the other DCs in the upcoming days. Dear All, In a CRM, not all users would require access to the history of a record. For instance, a Marketing Operations

    • Zoho Desk Integration - Add the option to send the estimate from the Zoho Desk Ticket Integration

      Hi, Currently in the Zoho Desk integration, the user is able to create an estimate from a ticket, once the estimate is created the user can see the estimate under the ticket (see screenshot below), but is not able to send that estimate from Zoho Desk.

    • Utilisation de Zoho en conformité avec l’article 286 du Code général des impôts (CGI)

      Cher(e) client(e), Conformément à l’article 286 du Code général des impôts (CGI) impose aux entreprises assujetties à la TVA d’utiliser des systèmes de caisse ou de gestion commerciale certifiés lorsqu’elles enregistrent des ventes à des particuliers.

    • Issue showing too many consultations in my workspace link.

      Hi Team, I’ve set up two Workspaces to track meetings from different sources. So far, this has been working well, and the two Workspaces are differentiated without any issues. However, when I navigate to Consultations and share the link to my personal

    • 👋 Welcome to the Zoho MCP Community

      Hello all, glad to have you here! This is your space for everything AI agents, MCP tools, and intelligent business apps. This community is for you — developers, partners, creators, and businesses exploring how agents can transform work. Whether you’re

    • CRM Validation Rules Support Only Single Condition

      Simply put, CRM validation rules support only a single condition for each field on "All Records". You also cannot specify additional validation rules on the same field because it has already been used in an existing validation rule. The ONLY solution

    • Unapproved Leaves are hard to distinguish in Attendance View

      This is a an unapproved leave request It appears in the Attendance view without any visual indicator if its approved or not For a whole day request this might be manageable but for hourly requests it gets very hard to know which are approved, which are

    • Performance Appraisal Probation Period

      Hello All,  Is there any possible way to create an appraisal cycle for new staff members, at the end of probation period? Many thanks!

    • Zoho Creatorの一括操作における処理の同期/非同期について

      現在、Creatorのレポート機能を利用して、複数のレコードに対して一括で処理を実行しようとしていますが、処理の実行順序について確認したいことがあります。 レポート内の複数レコードに一括で処理を実行した際、処理は同期的に行われるのでしょうか？それとも非同期的に行われるのでしょうか？ 【同期処理の場合】 レコード①に対する処理が開始され、終了後にレコード②に対する処理が開始され、最後にレコード③に対する処理が実行されるように、処理が順番に行われる場合。 【非同期処理の場合】 レコード①、レコード②、レコード③の処理が一斉に開始され、それぞれ並行して処理が行われ、全処理が終了する場合。

    • Adding Chargebee as a Data Connector

      Is it possible to get Chargebee added as a Zoho Analytics data connector?

    • Mail Delivery Failed

      Good morning,   I have just set up an account with 5 users, however each time a message is sent to 1 user a m'mail delivery failed' message is generated. See below.   Any ideas   Thanks   Rob   This message was created automatically by mail delivery software. A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed: robb@thesmartgroup.ae mailbox is full: retry timeout exceeded ------ This is a copy of the message,

    • Delete commerce website

      I need to delete a commerce website, but the only option is to click on settings, REQUEST DELETE, choose an urgency notice, add a message....AND THEN nothing, no way to send the request. Why is nothing simple!?!?!  I just want to delete the store.  The

    • Adding external users to Zoho Social under Zoho ONE licence - how to best achieve this

      My client has a small business, and we are looking to implementing Zoho ONE with a single flexible user licence as that is all they really need and offers the best pricing for the range of modules we eventually wish to set them up with, one of which will

    • Has anyone built a custom AI support agent inside Zoho (SalesIQ/Zobot)?

      Hi all, I’ve been experimenting with building my own AI support assistant and wanted to see if anyone here has tackled something similar within Zoho. Right now, I’ve set up a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipeline outside of Zoho using FAISS. It

    • This mobile number has been marked spam. Please contact support.

      Problem Description: One of our sales agents in our organization is unable to sign in to Zoho Mail. When attempting to log in, the following message appears: This mobile number has been marked as spam. Please contact support at as@zohocorp.com @zohocorp

    • What’s New in Zoho Inventory | April 2025

      Hello users, April has been a big month in Zoho Inventory! We’ve rolled out powerful new features to help you streamline production, optimise stock management, and tailor your workflows. While several updates bring helpful enhancements, three major additions

    • When Zoho Tables Beta will be open to EU data center

      Hello all, We in EU are looking at you all using and testing and are getting jealous :) When we will be able to get into the beta also? We don't mind testing and playing with beta software. Thank you!

    • Pass current date to a field using Zoho Flow

      I am trying to generate an invoice automatically once somebody submits a record in Zoho CRM. I get an error in the invoice date. I have entered {{zoho.currentdate}} in the Date field. When I test the flow, I get "Zoho Books says "Invalid value passed

    • API: Mark Sales Order as Open + Custom Status

      Hi, it's possible to create Custom Status (sub-status actually) states for the Sales Order. So you have Open, Void. Then under Open you can have Open, and create one called Order Paid, Order Shipped, etc etc...which is grouped under Open. I can use the

    • Multi-Unit Inventory with Flexible Unit Selection (Purchase in One Unit, Sell in Another)

      We need multi-unit inventory management in Zoho Books with the flexibility to choose units (e.g., Box or Piece) at the time of purchase or sale. For example, if 1 Box = 10 Pieces, we should be able to record purchases in Boxes but sell either in Boxes

    • Zoho Quartz Screen Recording

      Hello, can we get access to Quartz, please, as a standalone solution? It would be great for creating training videos for current and future staff on how to use Zoho software according to our company requirements. Thank you

    • This domain is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details

      This is the error i keep getting when trying to use my Zoho Domain Mail. This domain is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details Find attached. I hope this can be resolved very quickly so i can go on and make

    • Tip 26: How to hide the "Submit" button from a form

      Hi everyone, Hope you're staying safe and working from home. We are, too. By now, we at Zoho are all very much accustomed to the new normal—working remotely. Today, we're back with yet another simple but interesting tip--how to hide the Submit button from your forms. In certain scenarios, you may want to hide the submit button from a form until all the fields are filled in.  Use case In this tip, we'll show you how to hide the Submit button while the user is entering data into the form, and then

    • filter broke my data

      I uploaded a file recently from Sheets and it has top 2 rows frozen, with table headers in second row and each one is filterable. somehow my first 2 columns became unfiltered and no matter what I do I cannot reapply the filter?? also didn't realize they

    • Email address for forwarding is not saving and there's no confirmation ema

      Steps to reproduce: 1. Enter my forward email in the email forward section of the account 2. Click save 3. See a notification stating saved successfully 4. Refresh the page, no forward email is saved 5. No email confirmation received at the forwarding

    • How do I move Notes around within a Group?

      It says here: " You can now sort notes by title (alphabetically), or by date modified and date created. You can even organize your notes by dragging and dropping them into a particular order. To sort your notes, simply go to Settings and tap “Sort By.” Please note: all sort settings will be saved and synced across devices, except for custom sorting. Custom sorting will be device specific."However, I am unable to 'custom sort' in either Notebook for Mac or on the Web. In addition, I can't find the

    • javax.mail.authenticationfailedexception 535 authentication failed

      Hi, I am facing 535 authentication failed error when trying to send email from zoho desktop as well as in webmail. Can you suggest to fix this issue,. Regards, Rekha

    • Pocket from Mozilla is closing shop. Don’t lose your favorites . Move them to Zoho Mail Bookmarks now! 📥🔖

      The end of Pocket shouldn't mean the end of your important links and content. Easily import them into Zoho Mail's Bookmarks and continue right where you left off. You can bring over your entire Saves, Collections, and tags just the way they are. Bookmarks

    • Zoho Sign: need to leave document pending for up to a year, or maybe there's a better way?

      I have zoho one, maybe there's a better way to do this with another service than sending a zoho sign template from zoho crm. At the end of the day this requirement is due to regulations, no matter how dumb it may seem. I'm just looking for a way of getting

    • 'Add Tax To Amount' not reflected in Invoice

      Hi Zoho Support, I'm experiencing an issue with tax calculation display in my invoice template. Despite having "Add tax to amount" box checked in the template settings, the Amount column is not showing the tax-inclusive total for line items. Current behaviour:

    • To Do: shareable task links without login

      Hi! I’m using Zoho Mail and ToDo in my daily work, and I’ve run into one limitation that’s a real blocker for me. Right now, to share tasks with managers or directors, they need to have a Zoho account and be added to a group. In practice, many of them

    • Separate Items & Services

      Hi, please separate items and services into different categories. Thank you

    • Unable to edit or delete email address

      I signed up for free Zoho today. I usually am pretty good at understanding and configuring things like this, but your interface baffles me, and your online help is cryptic to say the least. I have spent hours just trying to set up a couple of email accounts in Zoho before pointing my domain MX records to Zoho. I solved some other issues on my own, but I can't figure out this latest problem: I have created two email addresses in Zoho. Let's call the first one myname@mydomain.com and the second one

    • Mastering Zia Match Scores | Let's Talk Recruit

      Feeling overwhelmed by hundreds of resumes for every job? You’re not alone! Welcome back to Let’s Talk Recruit, where we break down Zoho Recruit’s features and hiring best practices into simple, actionable insights for recruiters. Imagine having an assistant

    • We are unable to process your request now. Please try again after sometime or contact support@zohoaccounts.com

      I cannot sign up and return the error of we are unable to process your request now. Please try again after sometime or contact support@zohoaccounts.com

    • Multi-currency - What's cooking ?

      Hi,       We have been doing this feature for sometime and we would like to give you some glimpses of it.  Working with Multi Currency :        Multicurrency support gives you the ability to handle business transactions in multiple currencies. You can define a base currency for your organization and add more currencies with exchange rates based on the base currency.  Setup :        From the setup page, you can manage all the currencies supported by your organization.       Currencies page        

    • Next Page