Skip to main content
search
Category

CRM

Nov 26

ZOHO CRM – get another user’s attention in a record note by tagging

By CRM, Uncategorized, Zoho CRM

Say you’ve been assigned a task and you have questions for the person that assigned you the task.  You can ask them in person if you work in the same office, you can email them the question, OR you can write the question as a Note on the task and tag the other User.  By using the tagging method, they’ll get an email with your question with a link to the task record, and there will be a record of the question and clarification right with the task!

Here’s how:

  • Navigate to the record you have a question on (can be a Task, Contact, Lead, etc…).
  • Scroll down to the Notes section in the related lists area and drop your cursor in the next blank note.  screen-shot-2016-11-07-at-2-46-15-pm
  • Type the “@” symbol and start typing the name of the person you want to tag.
  • Once you type the first letter, you’ll be presented with a list of any matching Users, Groups and/or Roles that match what you’ve typed so far and you can select one.
  • Finish typing your note and hit save

screen-shot-2016-11-07-at-2-38-35-pm

The person or group that was tagged will receive an email notification that they were mentioned in a note with a link to the record.  (note, they must be logged into zoho for the link to work properly).

Nov 26

ZOHO CRM – Tab top to bottom in forms!

By CRM, Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM form navigation configuration just got more flexible!  We now have the option to set the ‘Tab Order’ to either Left to Right (previous default) OR Top to Bottom (NEW) on a section by section basis.

Why am I so excited about this?  Its because I prefer my forms to be organized with like information grouped together on a side, but then when I’d be filling in a form and tabbing from field to field the cursor would bounce from left to right and drive me nuts.  Now I can have the cursor travel from top to bottom on the left, then top to bottom on the right.  Here’s how:screen-shot-2016-11-12-at-11-40-10-am

  • Open the form for customization:
    • Setup Icon->Setup
    • Customization -> Modules
    • Select the Module
  • Hover over the section
  • Click the Gear Wheel on the right
  • Select Top to Bottom under Tab Order

 

Nov 01

Salesforce.com – App Launcher with Lightning Experience

By CRM, Salesforce CRM

As part of the Winter ’16 release all users get App Launcher with Lightning Experience. As an individual choice, each user can select whether they use the lightning experience or the classic experience.  However, the app launcher is intended to gain more users on the lightning experience, making it easier and easier to use.

To access App Launcher, go to upper right corner of the SalesForce page and click on the colored square blocks (you need to be in the Lightning Experience – get there under your name drop down if in the classic view).

1-1

You will be displayed with in-lay screen with access to all Apps, all items (SalesForce objects) and link to AppExchange as well.

1-2

If you have built custom applications, they will be in here as well.  You can also access various records as well within this screen such as opportunities and accounts, but you would most likely use the tabs at the top for this.

1-3

1-4

Written by Corey Babka and Prabha Krishnamurthy

Nov 01

Salesforce.com – Opportunity Board with Lightning Experience

By CRM, Salesforce CRM, Uncategorized

The opportunity view in lightning has come a long way, allowing for different viewing of the opportunities (by stage).  Like a live dashboard, this view or “board” will help look all opportunities in a single board like format.  Note: This is not supported for “Recently Viewed” List view.

2-1

Open an opportunity view like you would normally, but then change the list view to a different one (for example – all opportunities) and click on “Kanban” option in “Display As” icon on left.

You can get a view like this to view opportunities with their sales path. The records on the board though are reflective of the existing view chosen – just keep that in mind if you don’t see all the records that you would expect to see.

2-2

Once in the view, you can click the opportunity name to edit or view more information, even assign a task or event to keep the opportunity moving.  As you can see here, each “warning symbol” actually represents an opportunity WITHOUT a next task.  Click that warning item to create a next action.

2-3

Written by Corey Babka and Prabha Krishnamurthy

Nov 01

Salesforce.com – Manage activities and emails directly from Records with Lightning experience

By CRM, Salesforce CRM

With the Winter ’16 SalesForce release, email integration and activity logging is much easier for users, providing more sales productivity.

For example, on the account record you can directly log a call or create an email from the main screen.  To do so, use the right hand side of the screen where the activities and chatter are now located (unlike the older version where many of us used to hide the feed for more real estate).  Now, all pending and historical activities are shown on the right hand side:

3-1

However, using those tabs (new task, log a call, email), you can then create an activity for history, send an email or set up a new task without going to a new screen (clicking the button like classic).

3-2

Unfortunately the pop up screen views are no longer there in classic, something that I loved using, but this new format does allow for an easier use of SalesForce if on a laptop, tablet, or you need something quicker without navigating to a lot of screens.

Explore the lighting experience when you get a chance if you haven’t already.  You’ll find it quicker in some ways, more of a supplement in others but to get back to classic if you would rather, just click on your image on the upper right corner to travel back to safety.

Written by Corey Babka and Prabha Krishnamurthy

Oct 25

MSCRM – Use JavaScript to Show/Hide Sensitive Data

By CRM

In this post, I’ll show you how to use JavaScript to show fields for a set amount of time then hide them again. My scenario involves a client that needs sensitive customer data stored in their CRM but it doesn’t need to be visible on the screen at all times. I created a checkbox and some simple JavaScript so that they can choose when to see the data. The data will automatically switch back to hidden again after 5 seconds. The purpose of this is to ensure that the data isn’t inadvertently left visible on the screen. In most cases, they only need to use the data for identification purposes so 5 seconds is long enough.

First, create a checkbox (data type of Two Options) for your form and name it something like “Show Sensitive Data.” Add the new field to your form near the field containing the sensitive data and make sure the default visibility setting for your hidden field is unchecked.

visibility

Create and/or add a JavaScript library to your form and paste the following functions into it. Anything in quotations needs to be updated based on the names of your fields. For example, “new_showhidesensitivedata” is the schema name for my checkbox and “new_sensitive” is the schema name for the field containing sensitive info.

//used with showSensData
function checkSensData() {
    var check = Xrm.Page.getAttribute(“new_showhidesensitivedata”).getValue();
    var option = Xrm.Page.data.entity.attributes.get(“new_showhidesensitivedata”);
    if (check) {
        option.setValue(false);
        Xrm.Page.getAttribute(“new_showhidesensitivedata”).fireOnChange();
    }
}

//show or hide sensitive data fields based on checkbox value. waits 5 secs before auto-hiding
function showSensData(){
    var check = Xrm.Page.getAttribute(“new_showhidesensitivedata”).getValue();
    var option = Xrm.Page.data.entity.attributes.get(“new_showhidesensitivedata”);
    var controlSens = Xrm.Page.getControl(“new_sensitive”);
    if(check){
        controlSens.setVisible(true);
        setTimeout(checkSensData, 5000);
    }
    else{
        controlSens.setVisible(false);
    }
}

The function “checkSensData” will only be called by the main function to uncheck the box automatically for us. The main function “showSensData” should be set up to trigger on change of the checkbox field. Register for next month’s Dynamics CRM webinar to see it in action!

trigger

 

Oct 25

MSCRM – Shorten that Social Pane!

By CRM

This tip is for the Dynamics CRM newbies. When you’re customizing the out-of-the-box forms, almost all of them have the Social Pane section where you can see Posts, Activities, and Notes. By default, this area tends to take up a lot of space on the form and can therefore lead to a lot of unwanted white space. If you open the properties and go to the Formatting tab, you’ll see there is no option to specify the number of rows that it should occupy.

activitiestab

Another bug that I notice sometimes is that when I change the default tab through the properties, nothing changes on the form. The original default tab remains.

defaulttab

The solution is to completely remove the original Activities section that appears on the form. Don’t worry, we can get it back. Once you remove it, go to the Insert tab at the top of the form editor window and click the item that says “Notes.”

notes

This will get the activities area back on your form. Modify the properties as you like and you’ll see that on the Formatting tab, we can now specify the number of rows. Woohoo!

rowlayout

Oct 25

MSCRM – Real-Time Workflow Alerts

By CRM

In Microsoft Dynamics CRM, there are two types of timing for executing workflows: background and real-time. You can read about the details of each online but the main difference is that the steps of real-time workflows are executed as part of a single transaction whereas background workflows are scheduled by the asynchronous process server. Don’t worry, the rest of the post is not this technical 🙂 A real-time workflow can be used to alert the user when a specific condition is met. The workflow will also stop as a result.

In my example, we have a very strict sales process dictating that the opportunity must be at least 30 days old before it can be closed. Your real-time workflow could run anytime the status of your opportunity changes to closed. If the age of the opportunity is less than 30 days, an alert will appear with a message of your choice. Now the appearance of the alert is not very friendly since it says “Business Process Error” but the mechanism can still be useful once you get past that.

alert

Oct 25

ZOHO CRM – New Template Features

By CRM, Software No Comments

Template organization just got a whole lot better!  Here are four convenient new features in the template screen to help manage your templates…

  1. Favoriting Templates – click the star icon next to a template to make it a favorite.  It will automatically be placed in the favorite folder – a great way to collect the templates you use most often so that you can quickly get to the ones you need.
  2. Re-ordering Template Folders – Click the folder icon at the bottom left of the template screen to re-order your template folders, moving more frequently accessed folders towards the top.
  3. Filter Templates by Module – use this to quickly find the template you’re looking for by seeing just the templates in one module.
  4. View Associated Items – see the list of other items (e.g., Alerts) that are associated with the template

screen-shot-2016-10-19-at-2-28-19-pm

Oct 25

ZOHO CRM – Lead Conversion Mapping

By CRM, Software

Savvier Zoho CRM users who create custom fields should also know about Lead Conversion Mapping!   Wscreen-shot-2016-10-25-at-12-24-31-pmhen you create a custom field in the Lead module you have the option to create the identical field in the Accounts Contacts and/or Potential Module at the same time.  In the field creation pop-up click the down arrow next to “Also create for” to view the checkboxes and select the ones you want.  When you save the new field in the Lead module identical fields will be created in the selected modules and automatically mapped back to the Lead field.

What if you didn’t create your fields this way?  How do you map custom fields between these four modules to flow custom information from the Lead into the other three on conversion?  The answer is Lead Conversion Mapping.

  • Setup->Customization->Modules
  • Hover over Leads and click … to display the menu
  • Select Lead Conversion Mapping to view the mapping table.
  • Next to the Lead field to be mapped, you can select to target fields in each of the three modules
  • NOTE – fields must be of the same type to map!

screen-shot-2016-10-25-at-10-25-50-am

 

Skip to content