Our users have created some cool mashups using Zoho Sheet and Zoho Creator. The first two examples are from Jynn, a software engineer from Hyderabad, India. In the first application, Jynn mashes up Zoho Creator, Google Maps and Yahoo Pipes.

Zoho Creator offers end users a brand new way to perform basic CRUD operations using the web both as a database and for processing data.

Here I will briefly describe how I used Google Maps to Integrate with Zoho Creator,Using simple transformations with Yahoo pipes.

The application and its uses:
This Integration i.e Creator +Maps can be used in many ways e.g., Tracking Inventory, tracking Human resources, Basic Travel maps or even geographic maps of movie theatres where a current movie is playing.

This application overlays Zoho creator data onto a Google Map i.e in this case Movie Theatres where a particular movie is playing shown on a Google map.
Zoho creator is used to update movie info using the UI or even Bulk upload and Google maps is used to overlay the data.

I also used the cool technology of Yahoo Pipes to basically transform the Feed generated by Zoho Creator.

In the second example, Jynn uses Zoho Sheet along with Dapper, Yahoo Pipes and Google Maps. Here’s how Jynn describes the application :

The Application:
There is a live excel sheet hosted on Zoho Sheets,which gives info on Radio stations in India for radio Enthusiasts….

Updating the sheet with coordinates will be immediately reflected in the Google Maps

Technology Used:

Zoho Sheet:
Can be embedded onto your blog/webpage (Here it is in my blog),and contains City name and Location

Dapper :
This is the killer app which I used to parse the HTML output from Zoho Sheet and convert to RSS.

Yahoo Pipes:
To extract Geo Encoded data From The RSS feed…

The next one comes from Pete Thomas of Land of Zoho Creator fame. Pete mashes up Oodle, the local classifieds site with Zoho Creator. Nicknamed Zoodle, the prototype mashup creates the work flow of the customer service process for Pete’s friend Ted. From the post :

Zoodle will let Ted enter the listing data he gets from a BuggyRocket customer as it becomes available and only publish it for Oodle to pick up once it’s complete. Other features include:

• Listing detail page: Although it’s not the slickest looking thing in the world, we do manage to provide a “detail page” served directly from Zoodle. We also provide an image URL in the same fashion.
• Private application with some public pages: Ted’s use of Zoodle requires his authentication but the detail page, image URL, and Oodle XML feed are all publicly available on the web.
• Gradual approach to form completion: Through the use of several forms that are attached to the main “Essentials” form, Ted can easily fill out the parts of a real estate listing that he currently has data for and come back to finish the rest at any time before publishing.
• Republishing: Data can be edited, overwritten, and republished at any time.

Thanks Jynn & Pete!

If you have such mashups made using Zoho, please do leave your comments.

Popularity: 92% [?]

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Zoho Sheet just had an update with some nice features. Here are the highlights:

Enhanced Sidebar and Batch Operations:

If you are a regular user, the immediate thing you will notice is that the sidebar, which lists your spreadsheets, has undergone some changes. It now displays an icon next to the name representing whether it is shared or public or private. There are different filtered views like “Shared by Me”, “My Public Documents”, “Last Created (10)” and “Last Modified (10)”. You can also sort the spreadsheets by Name / Created Time / Modified Time. It will remember the last selected view the next time you login.

There are various batch operations too which are quite useful - Batch export, Batch share, Batch delete, etc. Just select multiple sheets and perform actions on them using the Actions menu at the bottom.

New Theme:

Tired of the green look of Zoho Sheet? We have now added an alternative Grey Theme which can be set using the “Themes” menu at the top.

Auto-fill / Auto-suggest:

We now support Autofill in spreadsheet. Zoho Sheet will try to suggest matching words available in the same column as you type the first few characters. This is pretty useful when a column will have the same set of values repeated. It also reduces human errors during data entry. You can also right click and use the “Pick from list” menu to pick and insert values available in the current column.

Duplicate Sheet:

Duplicating a sheet in a workbook has been supported. To do so, you can right click on the sheet tab at the bottom and select “Copy This Sheet”. You can use this when you want to duplicate a sheet in a workbook keeping all the formatting and data intact. You will also notice that we have added a “Move This Sheet” option too. Previously, you can move a sheet only by dragging it.

Goto:

You can now use Ctrl+G to go to a particular cell in the current sheet. Entering the cell reference such as A32 will take you to the corresponding cell.

Enhanced Color Picker:

The color picker for the cell foreground and background color has been enhanced. Now it will remember the last applied color, so that you can reapply the same color in one click. To apply a different color, you would need to click on the drop down next to the color icon.

And many more

Two more shortcuts, Shift+Enter to go to the previous cell in the same column and Ctrl+K to insert a hyperlink, have been added. A new date format “D MMM YYYY”, which is quite useful for Genealogists, has been added upon request from our user.

We have also improved the performance of the application - mainly in loading of spreadsheets and applying formatting (like font styles) on a cell range.

Apart from this, we have fixed few issues too. Refer our What’s New page for more info.

Let us know your feedback as always.

Popularity: 22% [?]

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We are pleased to announce several new enhancements to our Zoho Plugin for Microsoft Office. Users can download the new version of the plugin here. The salient features of this update are :

Option to keep a local copy

This is a nice little feature wherein users can keep a local copy of the existing document/workbook that is available in Zoho Writer & Sheet. To achieve this, users just need to enable the check box “Keep a local copy” when they are logging in to access their documents from within Microsoft Word/Excel.

There is also an option to create a new Zoho account from the Zoho Plugin credentials page. Click on the “New Zoho User? Sign Up” link to set up an account with us. This is for the users who have downloaded the plugin but are yet to sign up for Zoho Services.

Added a new tab - Local Documents

Now that the users can have a copy of the online document/workbook in their local drive, there is a new tab “Local Documents” added to the “Add-Ins” option in Word/Excel. Users can access the local copy by clicking on this particular tab. Locally downloaded documents/spreadsheets are password protected now. Users are asked to provide Zoho account password when opening a local copy of the document/spreadsheet. The enhanced security is to prevent unauthorised access.

Users also have the option to delete the local copy. Click on local documents tab from Add-Ins, select the document & choose delete button to perform the above operation.

Offline editing of documents/workbooks

User can now edit their documents/workbooks offline using the local copy and can sync up the updated offline version with the online version of the document/workbook in Zoho Writer/Sheet by connecting to the internet, signing in to their Zoho account from the Add-ins tabs in Word/Excel and then choosing the option “Save in Zoho Writer/Sheet”.

Multi-user Support

Our earlier version of Office Plugin did not allow the guest user of Windows to access the documents/workbooks. Now guest users (as opposed to only allowing users with Administrator privileges previously) who have an account with Zoho can access & edit their documents/workbooks in MS Word/Excel.

Do have a go at the enhanced Zoho Office Plugin and let us know your feedback.

Popularity: 28% [?]

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Collaboration and Web Apps: The Big Picture

Previously, I talked about Collaboration being one of the key features of web applications. In this post, I want expand more on that point.

I am sure all of us agree that the key advantage of web based applications is Collaboration. There are other advantages like mobility etc. But thats for another post. Lets look at how collaboration is evolving in online applications. Before that let us look at communication applications first and later we shall talk about their role in collaboration.

Communication Apps:

Today we use different types of communication tools on a daily basis. These tools include Discussion Forums, Email, IM, Audio Conferencing, Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing etc. Some of these tools are used along with others for better/effective communication. Each of these communication tools are intrusive than the other. Forums are less intrusive than Email which is less intrusive than IM which is less intrusive than Audio Conf etc.

Collaboration Tools:

With the advent of web applications we have seen a different type of collaboration with ‘Collaborative Editing’ on content where multiple users can work on the same application/content at the same time seeing each other’s changes immediately. In this case, all users are (literally) on the same page working on the content making collaboration effective with out the hassle of emailing attachments and managing versions.

These ‘Collaborative Editing’ and ‘Virtual Whiteboard’ type of functionalities in web applications is just the stepping stone for more broader and deeper integration. These features mark a significant change in the way we work. Instead of emailing attachments, we email a link (Remember, Document is a URL). The communication tools like Email, IM etc are used for the right purpose - to communicate the changes and not for pushing the content.

Collaboration + Communication Tools

What we will see next is a combination of collaboration and communication tools. Each of the communication tools I mentioned will be integrated into web applications that focus on collaboration. A user might prefer one type of communication than the other. So it is important for web apps to provide different types of communication tools for effective collaboration.

In fact we already see this happening in our own applications. Email is integrated into Zoho Writer where you can email a document (selecting a format) directly from the application.

Similarly, Zoho Chat is integrated into Writer/Sheet/Show/Notebook etc enabling instant communication.

With the recent addition of Comments feature in Zoho Writer, a mini discussion forum is integrated to discuss the comments…and then in Zoho Notebook, we have integrated Skype for audio and video communication. You’ll see other communication tools eventually integrate into such web applications.

We certainly see this as the direction web applications will evolve integrating different types of communications in multiple ways. Instead of content revolving around communication tools, the communication tools will now revolve the content.

Popularity: 45% [?]

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Ranjan at Personal Finance 2.01 has a nice post on how to manage your personal finance using Zoho Sheet. A set of spreadsheets from his post that can assist you with your finance planning :

• Monthly Budgeting Worksheet
• Financial Freedom Calculator
• Networth Template
• Benefit of starting early

Thanks, Ranjan! Readers, do tell us how you are using Zoho Sheet. We (and that includes all of Zoho Sheet’s users!) are all ears.

Popularity: 12% [?]

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We recently supported content search of your spreadsheets in Zoho. Prior to this we searched only for the tags associated with files. Use the search field in the sidebar to search for spreadsheets matching the specified words. Right now this doesn’t search the spreadsheets shared to you.

With this, the search in start.zoho.com will now search your spreadsheets too in addition to your documents and presentations in Zoho. Speaking of Zoho Start, your spreadsheets are now shown in a matching grey theme when opened from Zoho Start.

We also fixed a couple of bugs and made some performance improvements while signing in. Have a look at our What’s New page for more information. Let us know your feedback.

Popularity: 11% [?]

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Zoho Sheet will not be available between Saturday, September 29th, 9:30 PM PDT to Sunday, September 30th, 12:30 AM PDT due to scheduled maintenance. During this time, you will not be able to access your spreadsheets on Zoho.

Popularity: 14% [?]

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DigitalBucket, an online storage vendor recently integrated Zoho Apps into their application. If you have Documents or spreadsheets uploaded to their application, you can view, edit and save them within their application using Zoho. Presentations can also be viewed within their app.

They have a neat application with good functionality. We’d like to thank them for their integration.

Other online storage vendors who integrated Zoho into their application includes, Box.net, OmniDrive, MyDataBus, Steekr, FileDen etc.

If you’d like to integrate Zoho into your App, we’d love to work with you and offer our support. Also, we plan to extend our API for other applications soon.

Popularity: 28% [?]

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We did a small update in Zoho Sheet today. Zoho Sheet is now available in Catalan and Turkish, thanks to our users Joaquim Virgili and Alpay, who translated these languages in translate.sheet.zoho.com. You can select these languages from the Language link at the top after signing in. We have also updated the rest of the languages with the latest messages from our translation site. Zoho Sheet is now available in 16 languages. And our users are translating it to 23 other languages. We have now added Slovak, Urdu, Hindi and Filipino in our translation service so that users can translate Zoho Sheet to these languages as well.

One more addition is that we now support inserting images from an URL too. You can choose to load it each time from the given URL or to load it from a copy downloaded to your collected images in Zoho Sheet.

Apart from the above, we have also fixed some issues in our Remote API editor on IE.

Popularity: 9% [?]

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Online O/S vendor G.ho.st has integrated Zoho Writer, Sheet and Show into its virtual desktop application giving users the ability to open, edit and save their documents using Zoho while providing 3Gb of free online storage. The partnership is another great example of the use of Zoho’s API’s and the openness of our Zoho Alliance Partner Program (ZAPP). We are extremely pleased with the integration and welcome G.ho.st to our family of Alliance partners. G.ho.st plans on expanding its offerings in the near future making its virtual desktop a browser-based alternative to MS Windows - and Zoho’s collaboration and sharing functionality makes it a great fit.

Thank you G.ho.st team for choosing Zoho and for joining ZAPP! Good luck with the launch and we look forward to lots of positive feedback from our users.

Below is a view of a Zoho Writer document in G.ho.st.

Popularity: 25% [?]

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