Zoho CRM

The Zoho CRM app brings your Zoho CRM organization into the conversation. Once an admin connects it:

• Alerts post new deals, deals moving stage, deals won and lost, new leads and new contacts into the channels you pick, as soon as they happen in Zoho CRM.
• Link previews show an account’s, contact’s, lead’s or deal’s details under any Zoho CRM link someone posts.
• /zoho finds an account, contact, lead or deal without leaving the conversation.
• Log to Zoho CRM adds any message to a contact or lead as a note, with a link back to it.

Zoho CRM posts as its own member, Zoho CRM, so its cards are easy to tell apart from people. It works with every edition of Zoho CRM that has API access, and with every Zoho data center: the United States, Europe, the United Kingdom, India, Australia, Japan, Canada, Saudi Arabia and China. Freesbe talks to your organization in its own data center, so your CRM data stays there.

Connect Zoho CRM

Only owners and admins can connect it.

1. Open Workspace settings → Integrations & apps → Integrations → CRM and find Zoho CRM.
2. Click Connect Zoho CRM. Zoho asks you to sign in. Zoho finds your account’s data center on its own, so sign in as you usually do.
3. Zoho lists what Freesbe asks for. Click Accept.
4. You’re back in Freesbe with Connected next to Zoho CRM, your organization’s name and its data center.

A workspace connects one Zoho CRM organization. Freesbe works as the person who connected it, so it sees the records they can see. Pick someone whose access covers the deals, leads and contacts your alerts are about, such as a Zoho CRM administrator. Freesbe reads records, adds notes when someone chooses Log to Zoho CRM, and asks Zoho CRM to send it changes. It doesn’t change or delete anything else.

Alerts

Under Zoho CRM alerts, click Add alert, then pick:

• Post to channel. Any channel, public or private. Alerts in a private channel are only visible to admins who are in it.
• Alerts to post:
  • New deals, as soon as one is created.
  • Deals moving stage, for example from Qualification to Proposal/Price Quote.
  • Deals won and Deals lost, when a deal moves to Closed Won or Closed Lost (or a stage of yours with “won” or “lost” in its name).
  • New leads and New contacts.
• Smallest deal to post. Deals worth less, or with no amount, are left out. Leads and contacts always post.

Zoho CRM tells Freesbe about each change as it happens, so alerts arrive within seconds. There’s nothing to set up in Zoho CRM: Freesbe signs up for the changes itself when you connect, and keeps that going.

Add more alerts to send different things to different channels: big deals to #leadership, new leads to #sales, new contacts to #customer-success. Each card shows the deal’s amount, stage, closing date, account, contact and owner (or the lead’s company, email and status) and an Open in Zoho CRM button. Amounts show in your organization’s home currency.

From an alert’s ⋯ menu:

• Send a test alert posts a sample card, marked Sample alert, so you can see where alerts land.
• Edit changes the channel, the kinds of alerts or the smallest deal.
• Turn off pauses it, and Delete removes it.

Last alert under each one says when it last posted. Alerts start with what happens after you add them: Freesbe doesn’t post older records.

Link previews

When someone posts a link to an account, contact, lead or deal in your connected organization, Freesbe adds a preview under the message, for example crm.zoho.eu/crm/org20012345/tab/Potentials/4876876000000123456. Up to three links in a message get a preview.

Everyone in the conversation sees the preview, including guests, so turn Show a preview under Zoho CRM links off under Zoho CRM link previews in Integrations → CRM if your CRM details shouldn’t be shared that way. Links to other organizations are left alone.

Find a record with /zoho

Type /zoho and a name, an email address or a deal name in any conversation, for example /zoho Contoso. The answer is only visible to you: matching accounts, contacts, leads and deals, each a link that opens it in Zoho CRM.

Log a message to a contact or lead

Hover over any message, click ⋯ and choose Log to Zoho CRM.

1. Type the contact’s or lead’s email address or name. When the message is from a guest, their email address is already filled in.
2. Change the Note if you like. It starts as the message’s text.
3. Click Add note. When more than one contact or lead matches, pick the right one and click Add note again.

The message goes on the contact’s or lead’s Notes, with who wrote it, the channel and a link back to the message in Freesbe. You get a confirmation only you can see, with an Open contact or Open lead button.

Disconnect

In Integrations → CRM, click Disconnect next to Zoho CRM. Zoho CRM stops sending changes, Freesbe’s access is removed in Zoho, alerts and previews stop, and /zoho and Log to Zoho CRM go away. Your alerts are kept, so connecting again picks up where you left off.

If someone removes Freesbe in Zoho first (My Account → Connected Apps), or the person who connected it leaves the organization, the Zoho CRM app shows Needs reconnecting: click Reconnect to bring it back.

Privacy and security

• Freesbe signs in to Zoho with OAuth, keeps Zoho’s access encrypted, and only asks Zoho CRM for what it shows. It doesn’t copy your CRM: alerts and previews are made from the record when they’re posted.
• Your Zoho account’s data center is kept: Freesbe calls Zoho’s API in that data center only.
• Zoho CRM’s change notifications carry a secret only Freesbe and Zoho know, so nobody else can post alerts into your channels. Each change is posted once, even if Zoho sends it twice.
• Disconnecting deletes Freesbe’s access straight away.

Setting it up for a sales team? See Set up Zoho CRM for your sales team. If something isn’t working, see Zoho CRM alerts aren’t posting and Zoho CRM won’t connect.

For other CRMs, see HubSpot and Salesforce, use an incoming webhook or build an app.