The CRM Zen Show Episode 429 – The Agents Are Crunching Numbers

Zoho News

Zoho Analytics: Virtual Launch Event • Sneak Peak into Analytics 7.0

The whole Analytics leadership team is walking through the new agentic platform on October 29, and we’re crossing our fingers that somewhere in 7.0 the search bar finally works without hitting space and enter. RSVP on Club Zenatta to get a reminder before it goes live.

Zoho Creator: Enhanced User Mgmt • App-Level Admin Controls

A new App Admin role can manage users, backups, deployments, API endpoints, and audit logs for a single app without touching the build, plus a Create Application privilege that doesn’t hand over the keys to the whole org, available in both Creator 5 and 6.

Zoho CRM: Pre-Fill Public Forms with CRM Data

CRM lookup fields in Zoho Forms can now be enabled on external forms and pre-fill mapped data, which is great for things like a “who referred you” lookup, but please don’t point it at your Contacts module unless you want competitors pulling your client list one click at a time.

Zoho CRM: WhatsApp Business Integration Adds Multiple Accounts & Custom Module Support

WhatsApp messaging now handles multiple business accounts and numbers and finally reaches past Leads and Contacts into custom modules (think automated shipment updates), a must-have for anyone doing business in Europe or South America.

Zoho Recruit: Custom Fonts for Career Sites & Candidate Portals

For the branding nerds out there (us included), career sites and candidate portals now accept your own uploaded fonts, though we’re still debating Papyrus versus Wingdings.

Zoho Mail: Email Recall in Zoho Mail

Regret that internal email? You can now pull it back, as long as it stayed inside your org and didn’t land in a shared mailbox, group address, or POP/IMAP client.

Zoho CRM: A Short eBook on Legwork & Kiosk Studio

A free ebook, “Complex Processes, Simple Experiences,” shows CRM admins how to spot the legwork hiding in their processes and how Kiosk Studio takes it off their team’s plate.

Zoho Payroll: Launches in the United Kingdom

Payroll lands in its 10th region with PAYE and National Insurance calculations, RTI submissions to HMRC, workplace pension auto-enrolment, and BiK payrolling ahead of the April 2027 mandate.

Zoho Workplace: September 2026 Feature Updates Roundup

September’s roundup brings Strict TLS enforcement in Mail, third-party conferencing links in Calendar slot booking, a new Zoho Office desktop app, and native Excel formula syntax in Sheet’s desktop apps.

Zoho Mail: iOS Calendar & Event Management Enhancements (v3.10)

The iOS calendar now supports Google Meet and Webex, lets invitees propose a new time, and checks participant availability right as you schedule.

Zoho Vault: Recovery Key for Master Password Reset

Generate a recovery key and a forgotten master password no longer means losing your stored data, with the feature on by default and admins able to disable it.

Zoho Sign: Security Advisory on the eMudhra Certificate Incident

Eight eMudhra intermediate certificates were compromised, but Zoho Sign confirms its signing certificates use a separate trust chain, so signed documents are unaffected and no action is needed.

Code Share of the Week

Create Zoho Commerce Collections Through API

This one comes from Andy on the dev team, who needed to move every product collection from one Zoho Commerce store into another. The catch is that creating and editing collections isn’t in the API docs, but the endpoint exists because the app itself uses it, so a little network-tab sleuthing turned up a working POST and PUT. The basic payload is just a collection name, a URL slug, and an array of Commerce product IDs, so if all you need is to create collections, the top of the post has you covered. The rest walks through Andy’s migration, pulling the old collections from Analytics and looping through them in Deluge to map each product into its new grouping. One gotcha: updates replace the whole product list rather than appending, so pass in everything you want to keep, old items included.

This Week’s Blog

HubSpot vs Salesforce vs Zoho CRM

The first of many comparison pages on the site breaks down pricing, strengths, and weaknesses across three of the most commonly compared CRMs, with an honest take that there’s no universal winner (though Zoho’s price tag is hard to ignore).

Tips and Tricks

Zoho One Is Becoming an AI Operating System (Here’s the Architecture)

We map out how Zoho One serves as the data foundation while Claude, GPT, and Catalyst-built custom apps plug in on top, including a live cross-app churn report and a look at which AI builds make sense and which ones really don’t.

This Week’s Quizzes

• Monday Quiz: How does the AI assistant Zia primarily transform the workflow for HR departments in Zoho Payroll?
• Wednesday Quiz: In Zoho Billing, what happens if a customer does not have a price list associated with them during a transaction?