The CRM Zen Show Episode 265 – Even More Instanter Messaging

Zoho News

CRM

• Zoho FSM Extension For Zoho CRM
  • Installed via the Marketplace and will sink over all the relevant data from FSM.
• Subform Field Limit Increase
  • Raising this up is a huge improvement for Subforms, increasing the limit from 10 to 25.
• Zoho CRM Deprecating Activities Module
  • This has been a long time coming, the Activities Module is now split into Calls, Meeting, and Tasks Modules. 
• Pricing Updates to CRM Portal
  • This new pricing has us baffled. Even though we find it rarely used, this pricing model is very expensive.
• Strategy Influencer Now Integrated with Forecasts in Zoho CRM
  • This feature is now available in the CRM, allowing you to gain insights on target contributors, anomalies, and more.
• Motivator August’23 Updates
  • A lot of the old views Motivator had are coming back with some really slick new views as well.

Misc Updates

• Zoho Expense New Travel Management Platform
  • They went all out on this new corporate travel management feature.
• Zoho Writer Desktop App No Login Required
  • Available on all platforms, use Zoho Writer offline for free.
• Bigin August’23 Updates
  • New integration with Zoho LandingPage, and you can now export stage history for each pipeline.
• Zoho SalesIQ Cookie Management Enhancements
  • For all of the EU users out there, you can now use Zoho SalesIQ cookie banner for consent. 
• Zoho Sign New Automated Credit System
  • Not only is this consolidating the credits into one system, but it will also save you money.

Desk News

• Send WhatsApp Messages From Zoho Desk Contact Module
  • You can now connect in real time within the Zoho Desk Contacts module.  Maybe we will see this in CRM sometime soon.
• Zoho Desk KB Updates
  • You can now reset your insights on your articles.  Very useful when you make changes or updates to articles.
    

Implementation of the Week

• Custom Bill of Materials Implementation for Zoho Inventory via Custom Modules
  • In this implementation, our goal was to build out a system for managing product processes based on Bill of Materials data for items in Zoho Inventory
  • To kick off this process, Finished Good Items are added to Purchase Orders associated with a Vendor to Identify it is an internally manufactured Product
  • When the Purchase Order is marked as Issued, a custom function triggers to generate an Inventory Adjustment, decreasing stock from raw material items into the relevant Finished Goods
  • In parallel, a Purchase Receive is generated for that batch of manufactured products. This Receive can be marked as Received once that batch is finished in the manufacturing process
  • To create our Bill of Materials (mapping data of which raw materials are used to make which finished goods) we used Zoho Inventory custom modules. These modules are referenced in our function to generate the Inventory Adjustment records

Code Share of the Week

• Create a CRM Sales Order based on WooCommerce Order Data
  • This snippet will take the payload from a WooCommerce API call or webhook and create a CRM Sales Order. This snippet assumes that products are already synced between CRM and WooCommerce and can be uniquely identified by the product’s SKU. 

This Week’s Read

• The meaning of Chandrayaan 3 and the twin goals of R&D and Rural Development by Sridhar Vembu
  • This is a very interesting read that highlights Vembu’s critical perspective on the West, as well as his increasing focus on Indian nationalism and political aspirations. It’s quite a bold statement to feature on Zoho’s blog.

New On Zenatta

• Zenatta Blogs
  • Select Communications – Case Study
    • Shoutout to Select Communications for helping us out with this month’s case study.  Lots of deal flow and custom work across the Zoho ecosystem.
  • Zoho FSM Full Product Tutorial
    • Based on this week’s tip, here is the full written overview of the video transcript.

Tips and Tricks

• Zoho FSM Full Product Tutorial
  • Tyler went all out this week and did a full product tutorial on the new FSM application.