When it comes to getting the most out of Zoho One, your most powerful tools are going to be Zoho CRM and Zoho Flow. Zoho CRM because this is where you manage your customers - the bread and butter of your business. And Zoho Flow because it gives you the ability to connect your CRM to all the other apps within Zoho One, as well as others outside of the Zoho suite.
If you are already familiar with Zoho Flow and just need to know the steps to execute, jump below! Otherwise keep reading for a brief overview of Zoho Flow and workflows in general.
If you have never worked with a tool like Zoho Flow before, think of it like a conductor of an orchestra that’s in charge of making sure all the various instruments play the right note at the right time. But in this case, the instruments are the various applications in our business’ tech stack.
Zoho Flow allows you to create a workflow that automates actions within Zoho One. A workflow is a set of predefined tasks, actions, or steps that are designed to accomplish a specific goal or objective. For example, if you want to log a new Account and set of Customers into your CRM based off a form on your website, you’d be able to define those steps so they activate every time a form is submitted. Workflows are essential for streamlining and optimizing business processes, as they help ensure that tasks are carried out consistently, efficiently, and in a logical order.
In order to set a workflow you have to define 2 key elements: a trigger and an action.
A trigger is the thing that tells the workflow “Ready, Set, Go!”
An action is the thing (or set of things) that happens next.
Why this blog post matters…
One thing that Zoho Flow does not currently allow is the ability to have a trigger based on a specific field within Zoho CRM. You have the option to set a trigger based on a Contact or Account entry getting modified, but you cannot specify, “Only trigger when this specific field on that module entry is changed.” It triggers for anytime anything on the entry is updated.
However - there’s a catch! Zoho CRM also has the ability to set off actions based on triggers within the CRM itself (though not across as many various apps as Zoho Flow). And in Zoho CRM you do have the ability to specify a specific field in your trigger.
It’s unfortunate that they haven’t brought this level of detail over to Zoho Flow yet. Zoho acknowledges this gap and suggests a couple potential workarounds in this forum post.I was able to achieve success using their second method, though I found their instructions to be quite lacking, especially if you are new to workflows and webhooks, which is why I am writing this post with what I hope are clearer steps to get to the desired outcome faster and easier!
Setting Up the Workflow
In order to set up a Zoho Flow that triggers off a specific field change in Zoho CRM, you’ll need to set up:
A Zoho CRM Workflow that triggers a webhook POST
A Zoho Flow whose Trigger is the webhook POST in step 1
To get started, we will actually start with the second part, the Zoho Flow, because we need information from it to complete part one in Zoho CRM.
In Zoho Flow
Open Zoho Flow and create a new flow, give it a name and description
Once in the Builder, select Webhook for your Trigger. Click on “Configure” to select this option.
You can leave the payload format as JSON for this process
Next you’ll need the Webhook URL for the workflow we are going to build in Zoho CRM, so leave this page open as we’ll come back to it shortly.
In Zoho CRM
Step 1
Open Zoho CRM and navigate to your CRM workflows - they’re under Settings > Automation > Workflow Rules
Step 2
Once inside, Workflow Rules, select Create Rule
Step 3
In the pop-up, select the Module you want to work within. This is wherever the entry is located that you want to track the changed field.
Then give your rule a name and optionally a description.
Hit Next.
Step 4
This opens the workflow builder and you will now set the elements of your Trigger. Set them as follows:
Record Action
Edit
Specific field(s) get modified ← this is where we get to see the specific field modified option that we don’t have in Zoho Flow
Set the field and the modification you want to be your Trigger
Hit “Next” to open the next panel of options
It should look like this now:
Step 5
Next it asks you to set any conditions before you set the Actions. For this example, I will choose All Contacts.
Step 6
Now set your Actions, and choose Webhook.
Step 7
In the pane that opens up, fill out all the required settings:
Name: give it a name
Description: optional, but helpful
Method: POST
URL to Notify: this is where you will want to paste the URL from the Zoho Flow Webhook Trigger we set up before.
Navigate to the window where you have the Zoho Flow open and copy and paste the URL into the URL to Notify.
Still in the pop-up for the Webhook settings, in the Body section:
Type - select “Form-Data”
Module Parameters - Hit “Add Parameter” and define the parameter you want to pass through the webhook, in most cases it will probably be an ID field.
This is the field you will then use in Zoho flow to perhaps ‘fetch’ a contact or account entry in your CRM to then gather more information to perform your action step. For example, fetch a contact based on this ID and get their email address so you can send them an email.
Step 8
Hit Save and Associate at the bottom of the pop up window, then hit Save at the bottom of the Workflow and you’re done and we can go back to Zoho Flow.
Back in Zoho Flow
Step 1
Click next from the Webhook configuration page.
Step 2
You have the chance to test your webhook: Click the green Test button.
In order to test, you will want to perform the action in the CRM that triggers the workflow we built above. In our example, it’s setting the Referred By field to say “LINKEDIN”
Make the change in your CRM and if it works correctly, you should see a test payload (output) come through with the data you outlined in step 7f above.
Step 4
Click the green Done button in the bottom right corner and your trigger step is all set.
Step 5
Proceed to build out your Flow in Zoho Flow with the additional actions you want to take.
Thanks for reading and following along. If you found this blog helpful, drop me a note below. Or if you have any questions you can ask those to and I’ll do my best to help out.