Inserting and updating records on Zoho CRM automatically from Zoho Creator

Posted on August 31, 2012 by raagavan

Zoho Creator forms can be embedded on webpages for data collection. Upon submission, a copy of the data can be inserted into any module on Zoho CRM associated with the same account. This is done using the dedicated DELUGE Tasks for Zoho CRM. But what happens if the data already exists on Zoho CRM? Will it be duplicated? Will it be overwritten? Will it be merged?

Well. That which you want, happens.

Take this simple contact form that can be embedded on a website. Presume, for every new contact, you want an entry in Contacts module of Zoho CRM. But if the contact already exists, then you want to update the record. For every new entry, this form fetches records from Contacts Module in Zoho CRM, and checks if the email address already exists. If a match is found, then the other fields are updated. Else, it is added as a new contact on Zoho CRM.

You need to ensure that the field names specified in the script have to be the same as those on Zoho CRM Contacts module.…

How a Film Festival Plans to Run Its Entire Operations on Zoho

Posted on August 25, 2012 by David Spark

Ever try to run a film festival? Me neither. But if you had to do it, would you try pulling it off without a CRM application? Probably not.

Well that’s what happened last year for the first ever Napa Valley Film Festival. The entire event was produced without CRM. The coordination was a process of looking up spreadsheets, Google Docs, and sharing documents via DropBox. It caused a lot of confusion and overworking that they want to avoid this year with a move of all operation management onto Zoho, said Carrie Markham and Ben Mahoney, the Administrative Director and Director of Operations, respectively, for the festival.

Customizing CRM for a festival

The Napa Valley Film Festival’s coordination effort is massive. Markham and Mahoney are looking to use Zoho Creator to build an application that integrates all the various elements and departments of the festival such as development, marketing, venues, wineries, operations, sponsors, volunteers, filmmakers, and film programming.…

At Zoho Creator, it is raining integrations

Posted on August 23, 2012 by raagavan

Many of our business apps become centers of gravity, with other apps revolving around them. And more importantly, complementing one another. It all happens with the integrations. This post sums up all DELUGE tasks that bring Zoho Creator closer to other services.

Zoho CRM:

Zoho CRM is the most popular of our services that we have integrated, and hence has the most tasks for itself. There are 7 tasks for adding, updating and fetching records from Zoho CRM.

GApps:

If you have installed Zoho Creator from the GApps Marketplace, there are two tasks solely for communicating between Zoho Creator and your Google account.

* Fetching List of Google Apps Users

* Creating an event, or multiple events on Google Calendar

Zoho Invoice:

Using DELUGE Tasks for Zoho Invoice, you can perform operations like creating new invoices, adding customers, adding expenses and fetching information of existing invoices, all from within Zoho Creator.…

Using All Applications in the Zoho Suite

Posted on August 23, 2012 by David Spark

When I asked Tom Lacalamita, Computer Consultant for This Is What I Do, what Zoho applications he uses, he responded, “Ask me what I don’t use. It’s a shorter list.” After 3 ½ years of use, Lacalamita believes he’s turned on every application in the Zoho suite. He first started with CRM but then started applying all the collaboration tools and Zoho Creator to develop some database applications.

It wasn’t always that way, said Lacalamita in my interview with him at the Small Business Expo in New York. He admitted he used to barely managed contacts. All his salespeople kept their lists on PDAs or in PST files. He realized if somebody lost their computer he’d lose months of business. He needed a better solution that would maximize the efforts of his marketing department, and keep track of everything, especially opportunities. He looked at Salesforce but the pricing was prohibitive.…

Zoho CRM & Zoho Creator: the affair is getting better

Posted on August 13, 2012 by raagavan

Zoho CRM and Zoho Creator continue to be two of our most loved services. To all of you who use both these services alike, we believe this will be good news. The integration started off with two DELUGE tasks solely for Zoho CRM. Now, there are 7 tasks that make communication between these two services, simpler like never before. To sum things up, you can

1. Create a record on Zoho CRM – For records submitted to a Zoho Creator application, you can create a corresponding record on Zoho CRM too.
2. Fetch records from Zoho CRM that fall in a specific range of index.
3. Search for records on Zoho CRM.
4. Search for records on Zoho CRM, by specific predefined columns.
5. Update an existing record on Zoho CRM, using the values submitted into Zoho Creator.
6. Fetch related records from Zoho CRM, based on a specific record ID.
7. Fetch records from Zoho CRM of specific record ID.…

New in Zoho Creator: Searchable Lookup, Exposed Formula Field and Flexible Custom Actions

Posted on January 24, 2012 by raagavan

There has been plenty of activity going on at Zoho Creator lately; regarding Forms, Views, and everything database. The changes they bring are intended to achieve greater convenience in terms of usability, and it comes as a result of increasing responsiveness and customization. To name a few,

Searchable lookup:

You know Look-up fields. That list which you use to pick values from fields on other forms? It just got better. If you are looking up tens of records, then it wouldn’t make a big difference, but if you have tens of thousands of records, then you’d have known how long the browser takes to load them all.

Not any more, no matter how many records you have. We’ve given it auto-complete feature. In addition to the pick-list, you can also type the value. As you type, it automatically suggests the possible entries you are looking for, leaving out the rest.…

How Zoho Creator found its way into a Business School Curriculum : A Success Story

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Aparna

Time and again, businesses from varied backgrounds deploy customized Zoho Creator applications for their varied needs. While it is easy to imagine a few run-of-the-mill applications which can come in handy, the truly creative and innovative use cases that our users come up with never cease to amaze us.

We take pride in showcasing such ingenious Zoho Creator applications built by some of our enthusiastic users. Today we are here with yet another usergroup that has taken the usability of Zoho Creator to an altogether different level.

The Insti:

IIT Kharagpur is one of the most prestigious educational institutions in India. Offering a plethora of courses in graduate, post graduate, management and doctoral studies, being an IIT-ian is every student’s dream. VGSOM is IIT Kharagpur’s B School. It is one of the top ranked B schools in the country.…