Data Relationships / Lookups

Data Relationships / Lookups

The thread that weaves data together in Zoho CRM and in the plugin will be the Contact record and the needle will be lookup fields, to the Contact from Zoho CRM and the Data Relationship options in the plugin.

Settings

General Settings, toggle on the “Show in user portal” to turn the menu item on for Users. You can give it a custom name in the Menu Label field and a selectable Menu Icon.
      
The “Parent Accounts Field” will be a dropdown of lookup fields from Zoho CRM’s Account module and the selection here will dictate whether the User will see fields and data from the module selected. For example, in Zoho CRM Accounts, if there is a lookup field to the Vendor module and Vendor is selected in the drop down Parent Accounts Field, the records that will display for the frontend User will be those Vendor values to which the Contact is associated.

Select the date format you would like to display date columns for using the Date Format dropdown.


Title and Description are customizable for the layout page and will display above the list of records.

Action Permissions will allow users to perform the actions in this section (or not, if toggled off).


Address Information - This section is visible after integrating Google in Zoho API settings. This compliments the 'Search address' section in the Layout section. With the auto populate on, the Google address will be broken down and populated in the respective address fields.

Layout

This tab is where you can add new fields, create sections and remove fields using drag and drop functionality.


Note the following:

If the Portal Type is “Default”, the Profile menu tab of the plugin will reflect Zoho CRM Account fields. 

If the Portal Type is “Contact Based,” the Profile menu tab of the plugin will reflect Zoho CRM Contact fields.


Each section title is customizable and can be displayed in Full or Half width by selecting the ellipsis:


      

Each field can be set to Half or Full width along the layout page, can be visible by Profile or removed and made required. More on Profiles can be found here.

When dragging in a lookup field to the layout, the plugin will detect the field type and display the following options:

      

It’s important to note that this action will make the lookup field available to the front end User. 


Setting “Show Records from” to All will show ALL Zoho CRM records in the pop-up, regardless of the Contact’s association.

Own Record will show only those records to which the Contact is associated. 


Child Records will display associated member or child records. 

Custom view will give the admin the flexibility to select a view from Zoho CRM.

The Lookup Field List-view will determine the columns the user sees in the pop-up when they select the field to edit. 

Setup Filter Fields will allow you to choose the fields for which your Users can create a filtered view in their list view. For example, if you would like your Users to filter their deals based on deal stage and deal type, the admin panel will look like this:



      On the front end, the User will get a drop down from which they can select the value for each filter.


      

Member Accounts

      
If Zoho CRM is set up with parent/child relationships, the Member Accounts menu can be enabled to display the children or member account listing. One difference in the General Settings tab as compared with the Profile tab is the Data Show Relationship section.

There are three lookup dropdown fields, Parent Account Field, Primary Contact Field and Primary Vendor Field. More on these types is covered in the User Management section of this Knowledge base (click here). 


If you choose to map any or all of these three fields to lookup fields in Zoho CRM, the Contact will see records for which the values are associated and populated (depending on the User information).

The Data View Option will allow the administrator to display User Records (their own Zoho CRM related Contact records), a Custom View (directly from the CRM, regardless of whether the records are related to the User), Create View (a plugin created view based on field criteria) or All records regardless of whether the records are associated to the Contact.


Another difference is the Action Permission section that has many more options in viewing, editing or deleting member records.


View Settings


List View will display records from the module in a list format and Gallery View will display them in a thumbnail gallery view. You can customize each by selecting the columns or fields to display.

Setup Filter Fields will allow you to choose the fields for which your users can create a filtered view in their list view.


Universal Search in CRM allows for selection of fields on which your Users will be able to universally search Zoho CRM records. Add the fields you would like your Users to search on. For example, if you would like your Users to search on a deal name this is what the admin panel will look like:

      

The Layout tab of the Member Accounts menu tab also has drag and drop functionality, the ability to add sections and lookup fields. There is an additional feature as compared to the Profile menu tab, the Add an Element button at the top right. You can add a custom element to display on the list view of records. See this page for an explanation of each option.


The Reset Layout button at the bottom of the page will set the layout back to the default fields and sections.

Contacts


Portal Type plugin configurations set to Default, can display a list of Contact records that belong to the User’s organization. In our XYZ Industries example, John Doe can also see Jane Doe and edit her contact information or remove her as a Contact for XYZ Industries.


General Settings will differ from Profile and Member Accounts.


Notice the section called Multi Account where the admin can toggle this option and set the Zoho CRM field lookup to a multi-select lookup field in Zoho CRM’s Contact module (to the Accounts module). See this diagram.

Deals


The Deals module when enabled as a menu contains a section called "Stages" that allows the admin to designate certain stages to display:




The other section specific to Deals is the "Progress Bar Permission" that when enabled, will allow the user to see the Deal's stages bar. The admin will have the option to modify view and edit permissions:





For the frontend user, the progress bar will look like this:



Action Permissions


Each module (other than Profile) will have several options in this section. These are module level permissions granted to users but permissions can be further defined on a field and user level. Enable View, Add, Edit or Delete depending on the use case. Toggling on the Filter by Date will allow the user to filter columns based on date fields (make sure to add a date field to the columns the View Settings section. The Download Data option will download a list of records with the columns selected in View Settings.

Some of these permissions can affect your Zoho CRM data so choose wisely:


On the frontend the user will see edit icons, buttons to add records, filter options, download, etc.:



If a module will always contain a single record and you prefer to bypass a list, toggle on the "Open Single Record" option:


To give users the option to edit single fields (instead of opening up the full page for edit), toggle on the "Individual Field Edits" option. Note that this may affect your API usage:


Zoho CRM record attachment permissions are available but please also note API usage and file storage in Zoho CRM. Enable these options carefully as allowing users to add files to Zoho CRM records will consume Zoho CRM file storage. The "Show Slider" and "Auto Slide" options work well for images attached to Zoho CRM records:



Custom Modules

As a reminder of the needle and thread analogy, any subsequent Zoho CRM modules that are enabled as menu items should have lookup fields back to the Contact and or Account in order to display records to the User. 


In the plugin admin customization they will have the following General Settings:

       Show in User portal, customizable Menu Label, Menu Icon and Date Format
       Three Zoho CRM lookup fields in Data Show Relationship and the Data View Option dropdown
       Customizable Title and Description
       A comprehensive Action Permissions
       View Settings
       Setup Filter
       Universal Search in CRM
      

And the following Layout options:


       Custom Elements
       Custom sections and titles
       Field permissions
       Lookup fields from Zoho CRM
       Reset Layout button
       Related Lists*

      
*Enable the related module in Customization - General Settings and identify the User Profiles that will have access.

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