The CRM Zen Show Episode 209 – Not just Bigin, but Massin

Zoho News

• Motivator Adds Notifications
  • Nothing major, but still a cool new feature allowing users to get alerts.
• Zoho Analytics July 2022 Updates
  • A handful of new connectors, as well as some nice QOL improvements.
• Bigin Mass Email Updates
  • Nice to this key feature that exists in the CRM now available in Bigin.
• IFTTT For Zoho Mail
  • We love IFTTT and Zoho Mail but don’t understand why anyone would use these 2 products together, but here you go.
• Zoho Writer Introduces Print-Friendly Layouts 
  • Some high-level customization is now available for print layouts.  They never sleep!
• Zoho Sprints Q2 Updates
  • In case you missed any of these, here is what happened in the world of Sprints these past months.
• Zoho Recruit Adds Advanced Templates For Formatted Resumes
  • Want to make resumes look the same to base the hiring decision on qualifications instead of how well a resume is formatted?  Now you can.
• Zoho SalesIQ Updates Its Telegram IM Channel Integration
  • Why not?
• Zoho Vault Invites RememBear Help Migrating
  • And the best farewell website image of the year goes to, RememBear.
• Zoho Show Android App Adds Feather Icons
  • They added this for the desktop version a few months back, now it is available for those making slides on their android device.

Implementation of the Week

• SMS Opt Out Integration via Twilio + Zoho Flow
  • Oftentimes, our clients would like to send SMS messages via CRM as part of their engagement.
  • These SMS can be used both for prospecting as well as fulfillment/engagement after a sale has been made.
  • When sending any SMS (transactional or marketing), it is very important to allow Leads/Contacts to opt out if they are not interested.
  • For this implementation, we set up a listener in Zoho Flow that scans any SMS received as a response from a Lead/Contact.
  • If the body of the received SMS response is “STOP”, we can search the CRM for a match record based on mobile number and opt them out of future SMS communications.

Code Share of the Week

• Populate Custom Fields for Zoho Finance Records
  • In Zoho Finance apps (Books, Inventory, Invoice, Subscriptions, Expense), custom fields have to be passed into a record (invoice, sales order, estimate, etc.) as a list of custom field Ids. This can be cumbersome to code since you now have to go and look up the customfield_id for each field you want to populate.  Hence, this week’s code share.

This Weeks Read

• Zoho Hits 80 Million Users With 300% Growth in Staff Since 2020
  • A quick article, and nice to see Zoho’s growth and how their “Transnational Localism” philosophy is paying off.

New On Zenatta

• Zenatta Blogs
  • Why Should Your Business Consider A Podcast?
    • Because they work.  If you can create informative and enjoyable content along with consistency in episodes, these podcasts will pay off.

Application / Plug-In of the Week

• Flourish
  • Data visualization taken to the next level.

Tips and Tricks

• Getting Started With Zoho Creator Part 1 – App and Form Creation
  • This is the first video of our series to help anyone that is interested in learning more about Zoho Creator. In this video, Josh walks you through setting up your first app, creating a form, and a complete overview of each field in that form.