As you may know, we have been focusing a lot on integration between Zoho applications. For a end user, it is important that Zoho
applications fit well into his workflow and integrate well with third party applications/services as well. Apart from integrating Zoho
applications, we have also integrated Zoho with many third-party
applications. Infact, we have too many such integrations. So I'll split
this into multiple posts and expand on some of our integrations with non-zoho applications
Integration with Google/Yahoo
Let
us start with login. We don't mandate you create an account with Zoho
to try our apps. If you are reading this, you probably have a Yahoo
or a Google account, right? So we figured, we'll just let you login to Zoho with you existing accounts. This way, you don't have an
additional username/password pair to remember.
EchoSign Integration in Zoho Writer
If you are working on an agreement or any other document and you need to get it signed/approved, EchoSign is a great service to use for electronic signatures/approvals. To
make the process seamless, we integrated EchoSign into Zoho Writer. So you work on a document and with a click or two, you can send
the document for approval. You'll find EchoSign integrated as 'DigiSign' option under the 'Share' MenuTab in Zoho Writer.
Flickr & Picasa Integration in Zoho Show
When you try to insert an image in Zoho Show, apart from uploading the
photos, you'll notice two options - Flickr & Picasa. If you already
have your images uploaded in other sites, why re-upload them to Zoho.
So we integrated Flickr & Picasa into Zoho Show to let your embed
those images into your presentations.
Paypal, Google Checkout & Authorize.net integration with Zoho Invoice
Sending out invoices is just one part of the story. If you want to
receive payments, your invoicing system needs to have multiple options
for your customer to choose. Zoho Invoice integrated multiple payment
gateways to receive payments - Paypal, Google Checkout and
Authorize.Net.
Integration with multiple IM Networks in Zoho Chat
With Zoho Chat 2.0, we added multi-protocol chat support. This lets you
chat with users from other IM Networks including Yahoo!, Google, MSN,
AIM, ICQ or any network that supports the Jabber protocol. As Zoho Chat is integrated across mutliple Zoho Apps, you'll be able to chat with members from other IM Networks no matter which Zoho App you are in.
There are just a few examples of external services integrated into Zoho
Apps. I'll talk about other integrations in follow-up posts. Meanwhile,
if are there any third-party integrations you wish to see in Zoho,
please let us know.
In
one of my previous posts, I talked about integration between different Zoho Apps expanding on the following integrations.
Apart from rolling out new applications and improving the existing ones, one of the focus for Zoho is integration between applications. In this post, I want to highlight some of my favorite integrations we have already done between Zoho Apps.
Zoho Sheet integration into Zoho CRM
Database based applications like Zoho CRM are primarily form based which make them not-so-easy for simultaneous editing. Lets take a simple example of editing multiple contacts. In form based apps like CRM, you have to open individual contact, edit them and save them. On the other hand, a spreadsheet interface provides a very easy way to edit content. By integration Zoho Sheet into Zoho CRM, we have married the power of relational database back-end with the ease of editing the content in a spreadsheet.
The in Zoho CRM lets you edit multiple contacts in a spreadsheet view and save them to the relational database in Zoho CRM. This certainly is an interesting and unique integration for Zoho.
Zoho Writer & Sheet integration in Zoho Projects
Maintaining all the documents related to your project in your project management application is a no-brainer. If you also have the ability to create documents inside your project management app, it is an added bonus. Zoho Writer & Sheet integration into Zoho Projects lets you create documents under the documents section in Zoho Projects.
Zoho Meeting & Chat integration in Zoho Show
One of the unique and powerful features of Zoho Show is the ability to do Remote Presentations where you can make a slide show virtually with multiple attendees from different locations and everyone is on the same page (slide). But then, what if you want to chat with all the attendees? We have Zoho Chat integrated for this reason. What if you had to share your desktop to all the attendees? Well, we have integrated Zoho Meeting as well for this purpose. With this combination, the Remote capabilities in Zoho Show makes it a free web conferencing solution.
Zoho Creator integration in Zoho People
Recently released HR Management application Zoho People is all about customization as each business has its own way of doing things. For this reason Zoho Creator has been adopted for customization of all forms in Zoho People.
Zoho Projects integration into Zoho Invoice
Our recently released Zoho Invoice lets you create invoices for the time you spent on your projects managed from Zoho Projects.
Zoho Writer, Sheet & Show integration into Zoho Notebook
Zoho Notebook is a content creation and aggregation tool. To help you aggregate different type of content (including documents), we have integrated Zoho Writer, Sheet & Show documents inside your Notebook pages. You can create a Writer Page or a Sheet page in Notebook where one page in notebook can act as a word processor or a spreadsheet. You can also add Writer, Sheet & Show documents to your Notebook pages.
Zoho Writer, Sheet & Show Integration into Zoho Wiki
Similar to the Notebook integration, it makes perfect sense for your content to exist at a single place like Wiki. We have integrated Zoho Writer, Sheet & Show into Zoho Wiki.
You may not be aware that Zoho Wiki is infact built on top of Zoho Writer. This means our Wiki inherits most of the capabilities of our word processor.
Zoho Chat integration with Writer, Sheet, Show, Notebook, Meeting etc
Zoho Chat is the common bus that runs across many Zoho Apps enabling collaborative editing in applications like Writer, Sheet, Notebook etc. It lets you chat with other users while collaborating on a document/spreadsheet/Notebook. In fact, as long as you are logged into Zoho, Chat lets you communicate with others users no matter which Zoho Apps you are on. Currently Zoho Chat is integrated into Zoho Writer, Sheet, Show, Notebook & Meeting.
There are other similar integrations, but you get the idea. You'll probably notice a theme here. Productivity applications can be integrated with other productivity apps to make them more useful (last three integrations). Also, productivity apps can also be integrated with Business Apps to create unique and useful workflows (first five integrations). Going forward, you'll see us rolling out more interesting integrations. The marriage between productivity apps and business apps is inevitable.
Would you like to see any specific integration in Zoho? We'd love to hear your feedback.
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