The CRM Zen Show Episode 274 – Gettin Cliqqy Wit’ It

Zoho News

• Zoho Analytics October’23 Updates
  • A few minor enhancements & updates this month, including the introduction of synonyms. 
• PSA: Campaigns SMS Update (RESOLVED)
  • Per last week, the Campaigns SMS “whoops” has been resolved.
• Zoho CRM Portal Adds Sign-up Forms
  • Another update to the CRM Portal turning this manual process into an automated one.
• Zoho Cliq 5.0 Updates
  • Admin Panel Advancements
    • We talked about this last week. It is indeed now full-blown data retention.
  • Pricing Updates
    • There are now four plans to choose from now. Previously, there were Free/Unlimited.  Zoho One users Enterprise is included with your bundle.
  • A more intelligent Cliq
    • Get summarized transcripts and task suggestions from your Cliq calls.
  • Developer Updates
    • And for all of you developers, there were seven new enhancements and updates to the backend of Cliq.
• Bigin Updates
  • Dynamic Display for iOS
    • Great job, Bigin team. This is much nicer than what’s available for the CRM iOS app.
  • Email Enhancements
    • You can now use custom from addresses in reply emails.

• Zoho Sheet Updates
  • Zoho Sheet ‘24
    • Holy Sheet, what a month! This article sums up all of the following updates below:
      • Introducing Merge Templates
      • Format & Analyze Spreadsheet Data With Tables
      • Formatting Consistency With Themes
      • Introducing Data Bars
      • Introducing Edit History 
      • Updated Font Library
      • Revamped Zoho Sheet for Android
      • Revamped Interface For iPad
      • New Suggestions with Zia
• Zoho HR Updates
  • Zoho Workerly Find Matching Jobs Feature
    • Match your temp workers with the perfect opportunity with this new feature.
  • Zoho Workerly Find Replacement Temps Feature
    • Did that perfect match not work out?  Use this tool to replace them quickly!
  • Zoho People Oct ’23 Customer Newsletter
    • And for all of you HR/People users here is this month’s Zoho People newsletter.
• Zoho Sign Integration with ZenDesk Sell
  • If your team is using ZenDesk Sell, there is a now a Zoho Sign integration.

Implementation of the Week

• Franchisee-specific Inquiry Follow-up Automation via Zoho CRM + Analytics
  • In this implementation, our goal was to create an automation and workflow to help our client (a Franchisor) ensure that Franchisees are following up and validating inbound requests for service
  • When an inbound Inquiry comes in, it is logged in the Franchisor CRM against the specific Franchisee that should follow up
  • For each inbound Inquiry, a unique Form URL is generated that can be used by the Franchisee to qualify/process the Inquiry
  • When that form is filled out, the franchisor CRM is notified, and the Inquiry is considered processed
  • On a monthly basis, an automated email will go out to each franchisee, with a HTML table within that contains a list of all unconfirmed Inquiries, along with their Form URLs
  • This email can be used by the franchisee to easily qualify and categorize the Inquiries

Code Share of the Week

• Return message for a custom button in Zoho Finance 
  • If you’ve created a custom button in the CRM, you know that you can return a statement to the user in the form of a string. In Zoho Finance (Books/Inventory/Billing/etc) you still have a return message, but rather than returning a simple string, you return a map. This allows you to not only return a message, but also customize whether the return message indicates a success with a green text box or a failure with a red text box. 
  • In the example below, we like to put a list variable at the beginning of our script to catch any errors we might encounter along the way. Then, at the end, we check if our error list is empty. If it isn’t, we return the contents of the error list with a ‘code’ of 1, indicating that the return message should indicate a failure. Otherwise, if it is empty, we can return our success message.

This Week’s Read

• How to use Google Bard
  • ChatGPT gets all of the love.  Some of our team members are giving Bard a second chance.  For those of you who have tried it, what are your thoughts?

New On Zenatta

• Zenatta Blogs
  • 13 Email Marketing Tricks (or Treats) for Zoho Campaigns
    • For Halloween this week we’ve brought you 13 spooktacular tricks for Zoho Campaigns.

Tips and Tricks

• How To Connect Zoho Books Bank Feeds Using Plaid & Yodlee
  • In this week’s tip, John Ota guides you through the process of connecting your bank feeds to Zoho Books using Plaid or Yodlee integration.