Every business has a way they like to do things… a workflow, as many people may refer to it. In Zoho CRM, the term workflow gets a bit confusing. We’ve spoken before on here about workflow and automation in Zoho CRM and how it has a different meaning in this program. In the world of Zoho, workflow is an action that you can automate. So what if you want Zoho CRM to guide your employees through established business procedures? Enter: Zoho CRM Blueprints.
What Are Zoho CRM Blueprints?
Blueprints are an effective way to guide users through a process, be it sales, record updates, etc. with interactive button clicks. It’s a great way to encourage your users to complete certain fields or follow a certain process as they update the record and progress through the status field (or any other picklist field). Example processes that would work well with a blueprint:
Leads:make contact, discover information, set up introduction meeting, and then determine qualification status
Deals:determine budget & timeline, finalize need and other details, ensure approvals are received, etc.
Contact:determine basic information, and then based on interest level, determine account type
How can I create CRM Blueprints in Zoho?
Blueprints can be managed by going to Setup->Automation->Blueprint. Once you get there you will notice that CRMBlueprints are made up of a few different parts.
States
These are based off a picklist field that you indicate when you create a new blueprint. The options of that picklist field can be seen in the white boxes on the left side, and states that are unused are in the “Available States” section on the right. After you select a Transition and complete any necessary information, the Lead Status field will change to the next appropriate state.
Transitions
These are the buttons that you see in a live blueprint and take you from one State to another. You can associate fields or actions with Transitions. When you do this you see a line of instructions at the top, then three fields that are mandatory within the transition, but not mandatory to the record itself. This tells the user that they must complete all of the fields within this transition before it will progress to the next State and other Transitions become available.
Common Transitions
These are nearly identical to Transitions above, but are signified with a blue box and can be accessed from multiple states. Good examples would be “could not reach”, “not qualified”, “not interested”, etc—these are buttons/options/Transitions that you may want to see from more than one State. Hover over a Common Transition to view each of the states it relates to, these will be indicated by a green arrow.
This is overwhelming! Where can I start?
There is an out-of-the-box blueprint called “Lead nurturing process”. This is a great place to start if you’re new to CRM blueprints. You can view and change this as desired, then publish your changes to see them in action on new Leads. The Marks Group offers expert-led Zoho training and support on all Zoho apps and products. Contact us at info@marksgroup.net to find out more and check out our YouTube video library!
