Anoop @ Daily Gyan has a nice post with a video tutorial explaining how you can add a contact form to your blogspot blog using Zoho Creator.

If you want to be a better blogger, you need to listen to your readers. You need to give them an opportunity to get in touch with you.

That’s why it is important to have a ‘Contact Me’ page in your blog. A ‘Contact Me’ or ‘Send Your Feedback’ page not only makes your blog look professional, but will also make you understand your readers better, help you in getting a lot of tips from them and ultimately will make you a better blogger in the long run.

But, have you seen our Send Tips page? It has been done using Zoho Creator. In today’s post we teach you how to create a similar form for your blog.

Read more @ the Daily Gyan blog. Thanks, Anoop!

You can try the above for your blog / website as well. And we have other examples of Zoho Creator in action. Ming Jack Po says in a blog post about using Zoho Creator for registration at New York City Interscholastics Mathematics League.

if you need to construct a nice looking form to accept information, Google Spreadsheet really sucks. I’ve found Zoho Creator to be absolutely amazing in that respect though. They even allow for scripted actions like automatically sending an email using data you just co llected as acknowledgment. For example, at the New York Interscholastic Mathematics League, we use it to collect registration information.

If you are managing your projects using Zoho Projects & are interested in giving us a case study, you can do so by filling up this Zoho Creator form and you will be featured in our website.

Popularity: 7% [?]

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We have featured the friendly Technologist cum Educator, Barry Dahl of Lake Superior College before. Barry continues to be a strong Zoho (and ToonDoo, Jambav) advocate for more than a couple of years now. From a recent post of his,

At the risk of sounding too much like a fanboy – I just have to say it one more time - love Toondoo and Zoho. This is nothing new for me since I’ve been sort of an evangelist for the past couple of years now. However, they continue to surprise me with how much they pay attention to their users and how responsive they are to suggestions or comments. With regard to Toondoo, back in Dec. 2007, I included them in my end of year list of the Top 12 Web 2.0 Tools. In that post I lamented the fact that I had wanted to use Toondoo with the elementary schools kids where I run the after-school Tech Club, but that I wouldn’t do it because there was too much inappropriate content on the site – mostly lame attempts at adult humor in cartoon format. Within a day or two of that post I received an email from Toondoo telling me that they had added a safe search button at the top of each page and a personal setting that can be turned on to not show any content that has been flagged as inappropriate. I was impressed with their responsiveness, but not terribly impressed with the solutions.

Then, earlier this month I included Toondoo in my post of the free web tools that I would be willing to pay for. My caveat here was that I would be willing to pay for the tool in order to use it with the youngsters if they could give me a protected environment

Lo and behold, I received an e-mail from Rajendran D. of Jambav within just a few days of making that post. TPTB at Jambav thought that was a good idea and were especially intrigued that I had even offered to pay for it. They are proposing that I be a beta tester for their new branded sites opportunity. They will provide a unique URL such as LakeSuperior.toondoo.com and allow me to host the members of my choosing. They are thinking that this service will probably sell for about $50 US per year, but they are offering it for free to me as a beta tester to use it with the students and to report back to them with suggestions and comments. This isn’t yet a totally done deal, but I’m confident that I will be able to try this out with the Tech Club when school starts up again in the fall.

Jambav is owned by Adventnet, which is a profitable software development company. Zoho is also owned by Adventnet, which gives them a potent 1-2 punch in my book. The most recent moment of Zen for me regarding Zoho tools was when I was presenting at the Tennessee Board of Regents Summer Institute last month (TBR08). I did two sessions on Zoho tools that were well attended and well received. There were many times that jaws dropped during those sessions as people saw some of the functionality that they didn’t know existed, or hadn’t taken the time to investigate. I always say that I think the Zoho suite is far advanced over Google Docs and Spreadsheets, and a few Google users confirmed what I was thinking about the power that is Zoho. I also did a session there about Toondoo, and there were so many great ideas about how to use comic strips for both student projects and for other purposes related to online courses and programs. For example, (1) make a Toonbook of frequently asked questions, (2) have students prepare a comic strip to introduce themselves at the beginning of the class, (3) instructor-created comic strip or toonbook as a topic teaser (introducing a new topic before more in-depth study), and several others.

Deepa, who uses Zoho for her day-to-day activities, writes about her usage of Zoho Creator, “Zoho Creator :- Only intuition, no programming”

I came across Zoho Creator, and have been trying it out for the past 6 months before making my first post about it here. I proudly admit the fact that I have integrated Zoho into my actual working environment, which has taken the load of report maintenance off my shoulders. These days, I spend only 2 hrs a week to consolidate my report. I use the free version, but sure have the plan to switch to business version soon enough.

The advantage of Zoho [Creator] lies in the fact that

1. There is no huge download or installation.. Because this is a WEB APPLICATION
2. The Registration is free
3. You need not have any programming knowledge
4. The interface is exceptionally intuitive
5. Drag – and – drop allows you to design custom forms
6. Logical flow of events will guide you to do the scripting.
7. Embed the form in your blog and collect data
8. Various choices on how you wish to process the data collected ( HTML, Excel, JASON, AJAX, Pdf , ) for novices and advanced users alike.
9. The feeds can be integrated into feed readers, HTML displayed within iframe,.. possibilities are immense.
10. Applications can be shared with any number of users ( say you have created the application and want you friend to moderate the content… go ahead and share it)

You can develop a simple form like Guest Book , which has minimum scripting ( auto date ), or , developing a complex form that allows you to generate and send email-verification code right from zoho form, which involves more complex scripting.

Bloggers have long loved interaction with their readers. After all, isn’t that why we enable comments? Here is something to take this level of interaction a step further. How about developing a custom application to cater to your needs?. Well, if you feel lack of programming knowledge, and the mind boggling software installation ( not to mention the price) is pinning you down, not anymore. Try Zoho Creator, I am sure you will eventually end up using it.

Thanks Barry & Deepa!

Do tell us how you are using Zoho, ToonDoo or Jambav. Email us or leave your comments below.

Popularity: 15% [?]

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Zoho Sheet has this “Link External Data” functionality, which can be used to mashup with data on the web. It can sync your Zoho spreadsheet with data in public CSV files, HTML tables and RSS feeds. Zoho Sheet will basically fetch data periodically from the configured URL and update the spreadsheet automatically. You can then analyze on the external data by applying formulas or drawing charts. You can also publish / embed the resultant chart or a specific range or the whole spreadsheet. It gives you ample possibilities to mashup data from the web. A word of caution: While fetching data periodically from external websites, especially HTML pages, make sure you agree to the terms and conditions of the website.

Here is a short presentation which walks you through the various steps involved in configuring External Data in Zoho Sheet. It takes an example of automatic import of data from a public Zoho Creator view. The same can be done on a private Zoho Creator view by enabling private permalinks in Zoho Creator.

(view the presentation in full screen for better clarity)

Are you using this feature already? If so, let us know how you are using it.

Popularity: 20% [?]

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We get this question quite often -

Does Zoho offer a backup function which will let me download all my data?

We have various options depending on each Zoho service.

Zoho Writer : Offers a variety of different formats that you can export a document to - doc, docx, pdf, odf (odt), latex, sxw, html, rtf & txt. Click on Export to see the options.

Also integrates with Google Gears. Offers upto 50 documents to be downloaded to your desktop. You can access these documents from http://writer.zoho.com/offline. Click on Go Offline to download Google Gears and your Zoho Writer documents

Zoho Sheet : Click on Export. Again offers a wide variety of options from xls to pdf to ods to xml. There is also a batch export option available from the sidebar.

Zoho Show : Open a presentation. Click on Export and you will see the options available (ppt, pdf, pps and odp)

Zoho Projects : Export all your tasks as an xls or csv file. Under Tasks and Milestones, click on Export button

Zoho Creator : Export all your data as xls, pdf. Also as RSS, JSON feeds etc.

Zoho Wiki : You can download all the pages of your Wiki as a zip file. Available under Settings -> Click to download the backup

Zoho CRM : Choose the module (Leads, Contacts etc) and click on Export. You can also export all your CRM data in one go also. We charge a nominal fee of $10.

Zoho DB & Reports : Export your reports as csv, pdf or an image file

Zoho Invoice : Export each invoice, estimate as pdf. Export customer’s info as VCard (vcf).

Zoho Notebook : Has an Export as mht option. The exported page can be viewed in Internet Explorer.

We will be coming up with more export options in upcoming updates.

Popularity: 76% [?]

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We just rolled out a new design for Zoho on iPhone. You can play with it @ mobile.zoho.com (or iZoho.com). The new design introduces a tabbed interface for navigation between Zoho Apps. Currently, Zoho Writer, Sheet, Show & Creator are supported in this new interface. We plan to add more apps and more functionality to this new version.

Once you login, the Zoho tab shows the recent 5 documents from each Zoho app. You’ll be able to view your personal and shared documents under the respective application tabs.

We are looking forward to your feedback on this new redesign.

Popularity: 66% [?]

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Recently, we announced pricing for Zoho Creator, which we patterned after Zoho CRM, blithely assuming that since Zoho CRM pricing was exceptionally well-received - indeed, I confidently predict that within 5 years, no one will be able to charge $50-100 per user per month for CRM! - we will do fine with Zoho Creator as well. Indeed, we started receiving customer orders literally within hours of the pricing announcement.

While we provided a Free Edition in Zoho Creator, what we didn’t realize, of course, was the diversity of our user base in Zoho Creator, the most passionate & vocal among them called the pricing Zoho’s first strategic blunder. We had non-profits, independent developers, casual users and so on for whom the Free Edition wasn’t sufficient, and the pricing we announced was just not right. In hindsight, we should have known this: even within AdventNet, Zoho Creator is used in ways that we didn’t anticipate when we developed it. The foremost example is apps being used to organize internal events like cricket matches or movie outings, for collecting information on various participant preferences and so on. These kinds of applications are simply not worth paying for.

We apologize for missing key parts of the Zoho Creator constituency with our first stab at pricing. Now we have revised it significantly, and put a second draft, explicitly recognizing the diversity of needs. I have posted it in the same forum thread and summarize below.

I want to emphasize our commitment to a) keeping a generous free edition so the cost of entry is zero b) affordable pricing, designed to vastly lower the cost of IT to business customers c) Running our own business efficiently enough to turn a profit with (a) & (b). At AdventNet, we have a 12 year history of doing just that, and we have grown organically to this level.

Zoho Creator Free Edition & Independent Users Edition: it is based on personal user accounts, and it will have a limit of 5 free applications and a total of 200 MB of data and a bandwidth limit we are working out, with no shared user limit. We expect to revise the data/bandwidth limits upwards based on usage experience and as prices for these fall. The applications can be private or public. Developers can use this edition to test out their ideas free.

In practice, this will work much like how Zoho Writer or Zoho Sheet personal editions work today, with no sharing limit for number of users. They difference is that there is no administrative relationship among users, while an organization account provides for such administrative relationships, and therefore policy enforcement.

Beyond the free limit, pricing will be based on per application basis, because number of users is not tracked.

Zoho Creator Business Edition: it is based on organizational accounts, as provided in Zoho Business, a limit of 5 free applications & 200 MB of data, with monthly bandwidth constraints to be specified. It will have a free user quota as well, based on Zoho Business Free Edition limits (likely to be 10 persons in an organization). The key difference is that unlike Free Edition, it will come with administrative policy options, and potentially some extra features to be decided in future.

Beyond the free user limit, pricing will be based on number of users basis, with bands of users. We will start at $5/user/month, and drop it to $3/user/month when we reach 100 users, with volume discounts. We will also announce a bundled package pricing along with Zoho Business when Zoho Business reaches general availability.

Once again, I would like to thank everyone who provided feedback. We don’t always get it right at first, but with your help, we will!

UPDATE : Here’s the new pricing model for Zoho Creator - http://sheet.zoho.com/publishrange.do?id=1427f0d4768347bb628851c41b67ad0c

UPDATE :
New Pricing Page for Zoho Creator & a Pricing FAQ.

Popularity: 42% [?]

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Paul McMahon is organising a conference for international school teachers. And he posted his query in a Classroom 2.0 forum, wanting to know about a tool that allowed for staff to self-register for workshops.

I am busily organising a conference (a first in Hong Kong) for international school teachers. I am using eventbrite, a great online tool for conference registration but my next major task is allowing teachers to assign themselves to workshops once I have the programme up. (Yes we spell it that way in Hong Kong too

I am wondering if anyone out there has run a confernce or PD day and allowed for staff to self-register for workshops from a list on during a time period. It would be great if the tool also allowed the teacher to see if a workshop was already quite full. Maybe I could assign a max number and they could see say 20/25 for the workshop.

As I am already losing a bit on the other online tools (Eventbrite and Paypal), it would be good if it was free or very minimal cost. (Yes! I want it all for nothing! Typical of an opportunist Aussie Teacher

And Paul’s query got the answer from James Dykstra.

We are doing the registration for our regional Heritage Fair using Zoho Creator (creator.zoho.com). Our form (embedded here: http://www.redriverheritage.ca/registrationonline.html) gets the users to fill in all the information we choose and then puts it into a spreadsheet for us. Creator has database functions that I haven’t attempted to use, but they would likely allow you to do the fancier parts of your registration process, including setting limits for certain workshops. Everything on Zoho is available for free. Though we’ve only given it a limited trial (so far about 50 students are registered), I’m quite pleased with the results so far.

Thanks to James for suggesting Zoho Creator! And one more example of Zoho Creator in action : Bryan at CollegeMediaInnovation.org posts about using Zoho Creator to create a list of multimedia projects from various student journalists. The submission form used by Bryan & the data he’d collected. He has also compiled a list of schools doing video as well. Thanks Bryan, for using Zoho Creator!

If you are to organize an event or collect data, take a look at the examples above. And don’t forget to tell us how you are using Zoho Creator in the comments.

UPDATE :

1) Got this tweet from Suzie Vesper of New Zealand. She’s done a couple of nice screencasts on Zoho Creator to act as easy tutorials. 1) Creating a form and 2) embedding it in your blog/website/wiki, downloading the data collected to your computer. The wiki page where she’s embedded the app & the screencast tutorials.

2) Prithwis Mukerjee in the comments points to B-School students using Zoho Creator (in the embedded ‘BlogPostURLs View’, click on each of the URLs & you will see that the students have created Zoho Creator apps & embedding forms in their blog)

Popularity: 48% [?]

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As cloud-computing matures, we can see the emergence of various layers of web services, operating at different levels of abstraction, serving different market needs. Take the category of web application creation/hosting, for example.

Consider the EC2 service from AWS: it provides what may be called “virtualized hardware” as a web service. The fundamental virtualized hardware unit is an industry standard x86 server (with specified CPU/RAM/Disk capacity), capable of hosting a Linux binary image. The Linux image can include any kind of program, written in any language available on Linux. The “any kind of program” part is important, as you will see shortly. This provides the most flexibility for a professional programmer, but if your program goes into an infinite loop and occupies 100% of its virtual CPU, AWS will simply let it burn up the CPU-hours - after all, there is no way for them, even in theory, to know if your infinite loop is intentionally coded or a bug.

The second type of service is what Google App Engine announced yesterday. It provides what may be called a “hosted middleware framework”, with the middleware stack having only Python language bindings today, with other language bindings to follow in future. Even when multiple languages are eventually supported, this type of service is quite different from Amazon EC2, because the middleware framework imposes specific constraints on the kind of program that can run on the service. Specifically, Google App Engine service is limited to running what may be called “provably halting programs” (or it will simply be forcibly halted the environment!) - short-running web applications that support the “page oriented computing” model - i.e service a HTTP request with a response and stop. Stand alone programs using multiple threads, such as a web crawler, are not supported. The flexibility lost by the developer comes with a huge benefit. Because of the constraints imposed by the middleware framework, Google can make much stronger guarantees of your application availability than Amazon can - Amazon can guarantee the availability of their virtual CPU, but cannot guarantee your application availability. The service abstraction of App Engine still needs a skilled programmer to create applications, but the effort required is less than what Amazon would need, with the trade-off of a more restrictive programming model.

Finally, Zoho Creator. This provides a service which lets users develop database driven web applications, with the service being accessible to regular users, as opposed to only trained programmers. It starts with a easy-to-use form/view builder interface, and then for more complicated logic, eases the user into the Deluge scripting environment. This scripting environment is intentionally kept very simple, so as to make the system accessible to a large number of users. Much like Google App Engine, Zoho Creator sits on a specific middleware stack, along with its constrained programming model, and its associated benefits/constraints for the application. But rather than exposing the middleware stack as an API only, Zoho Creator provides a higher level of abstraction through a development environment that is accessible to the casual non-programmer - so creating complex views, plugging in validation logic etc. are much simpler.  As an aside, I want to mention that, in principle, it would be possible to layer Zoho Creator on top of Google App Engine  on top of Amazon EC2.

I hope this post has demonstrated how the cloud-services market is increasingly becoming sophisticated with various kinds of tiered services serving different needs. Each type of service brings with it a different abstraction, a different programming model, and of course, its benefits and constraints.

Popularity: 50% [?]

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With the recent update in Zoho Creator, we have enriched the deluge language with ‘Functions’ support.

Let’s see, ‘What is Function’ in scripting terminology. In simple terms, ‘A function is a set of statements grouped together under a name and can be invoked/reused from elsewhere in the scripting‘.

Usage of functions can be broadly classified under the following.
1).Write once and reuse utilities
2).Serves as bridge between applications (created by the same user)
3).Custom action integration in views

Write once and reuse utilities :

‘Functions’ promotes code re-usability of deluge script within an application and even across applications (same user’s applications). It makes the code modular and easy to understand.

When you feel like repeating certain scripting functionality across different parts of application, you can define them as separate function and reuse it. With the help of built-in functions provided in deluge, you can create numerous util functions on your own, using the ‘Functions’ support.

eg:

Help on creating a new function here

More samples here

Serves as bridge between applications (created by the same user) :

Not only can you define generic utilities as functions, you can even manipulate the application data from within the functions. Till now, it was not possible to manipulate the data in one application from the script in another application, which is now made possible with the help of functions. In this respect we can consider application as an object with its data and we can define functions to operate on this data which compares to member functions in an ‘object oriented’ world. The applications can communicate with each other using functions.

Custom action integration in views :

‘Functions’ has the potential to be integrated into various GUI actions, taking the scripting integration in Zoho Creator to next level. It makes the applications created, much more powerful and alive.

As a first step, it is integrated into views under the terminology ‘Custom Actions’. It enables the user to invoke specific function on a selected record in a view.

Custom actions in a view in live mode

More help on custom action in views

- Hariharan

Popularity: 34% [?]

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We are happy to announce the SSL Support for Zoho Creator. This is one of the long pending feature requests in Creator. We are glad that we could give SSL support which will pave the way towards the Business Edition of Zoho Creator. As of now SSL Support will be free for Editing and Accessing your applications. In future, SSL support for accessing the application may come with a premium charge.

To access Zoho Creator with SSL support, point your browser to https://creator.zoho.com/ or use the “Secure” link found near the login box in http://creator.zoho.com .

The main feature of SSL support is that you can restrict the access of your applications only through https. When you enable this option for your application, http access to your application will not work and only https access will work. You can find this option in the Application Settings while Editing your application.

In the broader picture, we plan to extend SSL capabilities to all Zoho apps. Meanwhile, please try this new update and let us know your feedback.

Popularity: 41% [?]

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