sorted by: recent | see :
popular
Content Tagged with Zoho + Announcements
Introducing Zoho Share: Sharepoint Meets YouTube
Many of you have used our applications to create, share and publish content. While you’ve had control on the creation part and the sharing part, there was little visibility on the published content. The documents you published are a list of URLs. We plan to change that with our new addition to Zoho Suite - Zoho Share.
Our vision for Zoho Share is Sharepoint meets YouTube: the business benefits of organizational document repositories, presented for the YouTube generation, with a friendly, familiar interface.
The Sharepoint part is very important: Zoho Share is a central place where we bring together all published content. If you are an individual publishing your documents, the content appears in Zoho Share under your profile. Zoho Business users have an option to publish the documents within the organization. In this case Zoho Share acts as a published document repository within (and only within) the organization. The analogy here is an organization’s internal Sharepoint repository, but with YouTube style enhancements.
Zoho Share is about content that is published and the people who publish it. All the public content from Zoho Writer, Sheet & Show can now be viewed in Zoho Share. You can browse through various documents, presentations, spreadsheets and PDFs under the Content section of Zoho Share. These different types of documents can be viewed in different modes. You can Comment, Rate, Bookmark, Email and Embed the content from Zoho Share.
The following video provides a quick overview of the application.
One of the unique functionality of Zoho Share is the ability to define a license for the content you upload/publish. Users can also view the content by the license type.
Under the People Section, Zoho Chat is integrated into Zoho Share to facilitate interaction between content creators and content consumers. ‘My Area’ section lets you view all your documents from Writer, Sheet & Show.
Currently documents published with Zoho Writer, Sheet & Show will appear in Zoho Share. Other content will follow. Going forward, we will also add the ability to publish documents directly to Zoho Share from other Zoho Apps.
Please note that only published documents will be listed under Zoho Share. Any shared documents will continue to remain private. If you wish to remove any public documents, please do so from the ‘My Area’ section in Zoho Share or the appropriate Zoho applications.
Please do give this a try and let us know what you think.
(Update: Reviews at TechCrunch, Webware, Mashable, …
Many reviewers think of it as “YouTube for documents” which Scribd & Docstoc have popularized. We view Zoho Share more of as “Sharepoint Meets YouTube” or “Sharepoint for the YouTube generation” which is a key difference. In keeping with it, we have avoided too much Flash (!) and kept the players as simple HTML/Javascript. It is an intentional design choice.)
Zoho Projects : Create Project templates, Bulk upload documents and more
Today’s Zoho Projects update brings in a few more goodies.
Project Templates : Zoho Projects has had Tasklist Templates for quite some time now. This has now been enhanced to include defining whole projects as templates. In addtion to defining tasklists, you can now have Milestones (consisting of various tasklists), documents, forum posts & users added to a template. And whenever a new project is created, you needn’t start from scratch but make a copy of a suitable project template (whereever applicable).
Bulk Upload Documents : Typically, when a new project gets started, you upload various documents like requirement docs, drawings, design plans, test procedures etc related to that project. What better way than to choose once and upload all of them in one go? Zoho Projects now offers multiple file uploads.
Log time : Logging time has now been made easier. A clock icon comes on moving your mouse over the days in the calendar view. You can click on it and log the time for your tasks in that project.
You can also log time, edit the logged time in the List View under the Timesheet tab now.
Do try the latest features in Zoho Projects.
Projects
General
Announcements
Uncategorized
ZohoCreator
Zoho
Macro Recording & Playback in Zoho Sheet
Some of you may know that we recently launched Macros (and Pivot Tables) support in Zoho Sheet. With our recent update, we now have a new addition - Support for Visual Basic Macro Record & Playback in Zoho Sheet.
While writing Macros from scratch requires knowledge of Visual Basic, recording Macros for your spreadsheet just needs couple of mouse clicks. Under the Macros Menu, you’ll now see the ‘Record Macro’ option to record your Macro.
After you start recording, all the changes you make to the spreadsheet will be recorded and the appropriate Visual Basic code will be created at the back-end for you. Once you are done recording, you can view the Visual Basic Macro code and apply that Macro to other Sheets.
This video shows this functionality in action.
We have been rolling out quite a number of features and enhancements to our applications and some of them give us a great level of satisfaction.This new feature in Zoho Sheet certainly falls into this category.
The fact that Zoho Sheet is the only spreadsheet (apart from Excel) to support Visual Basic Macros says a lot about our focus on the depth of our individual applications. With feature-rich apps, we are trying to address the business needs of our user base.
Please give this new Zoho Sheet functionality a try and let us know what you think.
Related posts at : CenterNetworks, ReadWriteWeb, Profy, The Dallas Morning News, Zoli’s Blog.
Format your Columns as you like in Zoho DB & Reports
Zoho DB & Reports offers a wide range of data types (column types) to store your tabular data. So far, the options offered for formatting the data stored in these column types have been limited. We have addressed this in our latest update.
Zoho DB & Reports now offers a wide variety of formatting options for each data type. With these options you can choose how you would like to have your data displayed in the various reports created.
How to format a column?
- Select the table or tabular view in which the columns are to be formatted
- Right click on the column that is to be formatted
- Set the necessary formatting option in the dialog that pops up
- Click OK to apply the formatting changes
Immediately you will see the formatting options being applied over the column. Zoho DB & Reports also ensures to carry over this formatting set for a column across all the reports (chart, pivot, summary & tabular) created including this column.
Formatting options supported include Text Alignment, No. of Decimal places (for all numeric data types), Currency Symbol (for currency type), Negative Number Display (for currency type), Date display format and Include thousand separator (for all numeric data types).
Customize Chart Coloring:
In Zoho DB & Reports the colors used in charts have been system generated so far. With the latest update you can now change the colors used in a chart to suit your taste. Follow the below given simple steps to customize the color in a chart:
- Select the Chart whose colors are to be customized
- Click Edit Design and go to edit mode
- Click on any of the category colors listed in the legend (seen on the right side of the chart) to change the same.
- A color chooser will pop up
- Choose the color required
- Click Apply to apply the color Or Click on Use Default if you would like to revert to system generated colors.
Auto-recognizing currency data during Import:
Now Zoho DB & Reports has included the intelligence to auto-identify a data column as currency when you import it into Zoho DB & Reports. You do not have to manually set the data type of those columns as currency, which had been the case so far. The data could be in any of the accepted currency formats (with currency symbol or abbreviation eg., $, USD etc.,) of any country. Auto-recognition would be applied when you import data into Zoho DB & Reports from any of CSV or .XLS or HTML files
Hope you find the above features useful. As always do give it a try and let us know your comments….
With regards,
Clarence
Zoho DB & Reports - Online Reporting & BI Service
Syncplicity Integrates Zoho
Syncplicity, a document synchronization tool integrated Zoho into their application recently. This Sync tool lets you synchronize your documents from your desktop (PC-only currently) to their web application.
If you have Syncplicity installed on your computer, you can right-click on a document on your desktop and choose the ‘Edit in Zoho’ option for editing your document. This opens up a window with the Zoho document editor. When the ‘Save’ button is hit in Zoho editor, it saves the file to your local folder and also your Syncplicity account, thus keeping your document in sync. This works with Zoho Writer & Zoho Sheet Apps now with Zoho Show to follow.
Similar editing option is also available in their online application to edit documents online. After you save the changes, the documents are saved on their servers.
And here’s a nice screencast done by the Syncplicity team, demonstrating the integration.
We’d like to thank Syncplicity for integrating Zoho. Our other API Partners are here. If you have integrated Zoho into your application, do let us know so that we can profile you here and list you as a partner in our partners page.
Zoho Show Update : Export as PPT/PDF/ODF, UI in 9 New Languages, Undo/Redo & more
As you may know, there were recent updates to Zoho Sheet and Zoho Writer. Continuing on the series of updates, the below new functionalities in Zoho Show are now available.
1. Export to PPT, PPS, PDF, ODP : Zoho Show has long had the ‘Export as HTML’ option. Now we have added the much needed ppt, pps, pdf & odp file export options as well. After opening a presentation, click on the Export button. You will find the new options
2. Languages support : 9 new languages. In addition to English, the Zoho Show UI can now be set to one of these languages too : Chinese, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Europe), Spanish & Swedish
3. Personal Groups and Contacts support : Click on Share. You will see the Add Contacts, Add Groups option.
Group the email addresses of your contacts (work, family etc). Useful when repeatedly sharing presentations (need not type all the email addresses again). Also, all your Zoho contacts - the ones who you have shared documents with, from your Zoho Mail account etc - get listed while you share a presentation (auto-suggest feature which will help you in easily picking up who to share a presentation with.
4. Undo/Redo : You can now undo/redo upto 50 actions. You can see the new undo & redo buttons in the toolbar
5. Picasa Integration : Click on the Insert Image icon. You can see Picasa listed along with Flickr (which was already there). You can insert public pictures from your Picasa account
6. Remote Presentation - UI enhancements : Click on Remote -> Make Remote. Try making a remote presentation. You will see a chat tab to the right. The Notes tab is open (for the presenter alone) below the slide area. And the slide area size can be adjusted (to accomodate notes)
7. Embed Enhancements (Advanced Options) : Click on Publish -> Embed in Website/Blog. You will see the ‘Advanced Options’ link. Clicking on it opens a new window. There are options like how big you want the embedded preso to be, if you want the toolbar included etc. You can see that the embed HTML code snippet changes according to the options being chosen
8. Copy/Paste slides from one presentation to another : Open two presentations in separate browser tabs. You can copy-paste from one to another.
Do test the new features in Zoho Show and we would be glad hearing your feedback.
Copy Database, HTML Import, Intelligent Chart Creation and Themes support in Zoho DB & Reports
After the recent Zoho Sheet Pivot Table support which is based on Zoho DB & Reports, we have rolled in good set of useful features into Zoho DB & Reports. I have summarized the important ones here below.
Copy Database:
With the new Copy Database feature, you easily create a copy of an existing Zoho DB & Reports database. This feature provides an option to make a copy of the database with or without existing data. If you copy without data, then only the tables and report definitions are copied. If you copy with data, then all tables, reports along with existing data in the database would be copied.
You can make a copy of a database following the steps given below:
- Go to “Existing Databases” section in the home page
- Under each database that is listed you will find a “Copy” link
- Click on the “Copy” link for the database that you wish to copy
- It will popup a dialog where you could provide the name and description for the new database that is to be created
- Check/Uncheck the “Copy with Data” option depending on whether you would like to make a copy of the database with tables, reports and existing data OR just the tables and reports definition alone
With this option you could also copy any of the demonstrative Sample Databases that is provided by Zoho DB & Reports.
HTML Import:
Zoho DB & Reports now supports importing HTML table contents into Zoho DB & Reports. This enables importing data in any HTML table into Zoho DB & Reports as you import CSV data. The HTML file should contain at least one Table inside it for importing.
You can import data from a HTML file through any of the following means:
- Copy/Paste the HTML code into the “Import Wizard”
- Load a HTML file from a local folder
- Load a HTML from any publicly accessible Web URL
More intelligence & convenience for designing Chart/Pivot/Summary views:
So far, while designing chart or pivot or summary view, you had to drag and drop fields listed on the left to the right-side design area and construct the view. Now we have provided checkboxes to just select the fields that are to be used to design the chart. This is apart from the existing drag and drop support.
Zoho DB & Reports intelligently identifies the appropriate position to place the selected field in the design area. Also as another step of intelligence, Zoho DB & Reports even selects the right function to apply on the field which is added to the design area.
Filters & Search across all tabular views:
Filters and Search (Quick Filter) was introduced into Zoho DB & Reports in one of our previous update. It was initially supported only in Tables. Now you could do Quick filtering across all table based views in Zoho DB & Reports. This includes Tabular Views, SQL Query table and tables shown for displaying View Underlying Data in Charts, Pivots and Summary Views.
Color your Zoho DB & Reports interface with Themes:
Zoho DB & Reports now supports themes. You could apply the theme you like by choosing the “Themes” menu at the right top corner of the screen. Currently we have only two packaged themes available (more to come very soon….). The theme you choose will be set to your preference and applied across logins. I guess you would have already noticed that the snapshots embedded above in this blog post were all taken with our New Blue Theme.
Keep track of the Zoho DB & Reports Feature Trail to know about all the features that are rolled-out into our service regularly. Try out the new features and let us know what you think….
Zoho Writer : Import from Google Docs & Equation Editor (LaTeX) support
Today’s Zoho Writer update introduces three key functionalities
- Import Documents from Google Docs to Zoho Writer
- Equation Editor
- LaTeX Export
1. Import Documents from Google Docs to Zoho Writer
After we accepted Google and Yahoo! sign-in to Zoho (and Google Apps accounts sign-in), we were asked to implement import capability to Zoho. We have added this feature in this update. And now you can import your Google Docs into Zoho Writer. Here are the steps :
- Login to your Google Docs account & choose the documents that you need to export to Zoho
- Click on More actions -> Save as HTML (zipped) to your desktop
- In Zoho Writer, click on Import -> Import Google Docs, select the zipped file path and click Import
- All the Google Docs documents in the zip file will be imported into your Zoho Writer account & will be displayed in the left panel
We certainly don’t want to trap your information in Zoho. We will soon provide a mass Export option to take your documents to other services.
2. Equation Editor
As you may know, a significant % of our users are students. We got a lot of requests from this user segment to build an Equation Editor into Zoho Writer. And Zoho Writer has it now.
You’ll see a new Equation Editor icon (last one in the second row of the toolbar) which brings up a simple UI to create your equations. If you are a LaTeX guru, type your equation away and we automatically generate an image of the equation on the right. If you are not a LaTeX expert (like me), you can simply select the equation symbols with your mouse and we automatically build the equation for you. Once done, the equation image is inserted into your document.
After you insert your equation, if you want to make any changes to it, right click on the image and select Edit Equation.
3. LaTeX Export
As you see in the above slide show, we support LaTeX, the document markup language widely used by mathematicians, scientists, engineers and scholars in academia. We have a new option in Zoho Writer under Export, to save such files involving equations in LaTeX format as well.
Try the new features in Zoho Writer now & we will be glad knowing your comments.
Zoho Mail : Scheduled Update on May 21, 2008
We’ve scheduled an update for Zoho Mail on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 between 12.30 AM and 1.30 AM PDT. During this time, access to Zoho Mail will not be available. Sorry for the inconvenience & we greatly appreciate your patience and co-operation during this downtime.
Zoho Creator Pricing “Strategic Blunder” & Lessons Learned
Recently, we announced pricing for Zoho Creator, which we patterned after Zoho CRM, blithely assuming that since Zoho CRM pricing was exceptionally well-received - indeed, I confidently predict that within 5 years, no one will be able to charge $50-100 per user per month for CRM! - we will do fine with Zoho Creator as well. Indeed, we started receiving customer orders literally within hours of the pricing announcement.
While we provided a Free Edition in Zoho Creator, what we didn’t realize, of course, was the diversity of our user base in Zoho Creator, the most passionate & vocal among them called the pricing Zoho’s first strategic blunder. We had non-profits, independent developers, casual users and so on for whom the Free Edition wasn’t sufficient, and the pricing we announced was just not right. In hindsight, we should have known this: even within AdventNet, Zoho Creator is used in ways that we didn’t anticipate when we developed it. The foremost example is apps being used to organize internal events like cricket matches or movie outings, for collecting information on various participant preferences and so on. These kinds of applications are simply not worth paying for.
We apologize for missing key parts of the Zoho Creator constituency with our first stab at pricing. Now we have revised it significantly, and put a second draft, explicitly recognizing the diversity of needs. I have posted it in the same forum thread and summarize below.
I want to emphasize our commitment to a) keeping a generous free edition so the cost of entry is zero b) affordable pricing, designed to vastly lower the cost of IT to business customers c) Running our own business efficiently enough to turn a profit with (a) & (b). At AdventNet, we have a 12 year history of doing just that, and we have grown organically to this level.
Zoho Creator Free Edition & Independent Users Edition: it is based on personal user accounts, and it will have a limit of 5 free applications and a total of 200 MB of data and a bandwidth limit we are working out, with no shared user limit. We expect to revise the data/bandwidth limits upwards based on usage experience and as prices for these fall. The applications can be private or public. Developers can use this edition to test out their ideas free.
In practice, this will work much like how Zoho Writer or Zoho Sheet personal editions work today, with no sharing limit for number of users. They difference is that there is no administrative relationship among users, while an organization account provides for such administrative relationships, and therefore policy enforcement.
Beyond the free limit, pricing will be based on per application basis, because number of users is not tracked.
Zoho Creator Business Edition: it is based on organizational accounts, as provided in Zoho Business, a limit of 5 free applications & 200 MB of data, with monthly bandwidth constraints to be specified. It will have a free user quota as well, based on Zoho Business Free Edition limits (likely to be 10 persons in an organization). The key difference is that unlike Free Edition, it will come with administrative policy options, and potentially some extra features to be decided in future.
Beyond the free user limit, pricing will be based on number of users basis, with bands of users. We will start at $5/user/month, and drop it to $3/user/month when we reach 100 users, with volume discounts. We will also announce a bundled package pricing along with Zoho Business when Zoho Business reaches general availability.
Once again, I would like to thank everyone who provided feedback. We don’t always get it right at first, but with your help, we will!
UPDATE : Here’s the new pricing model for Zoho Creator - http://sheet.zoho.com/publishrange.do?id=1427f0d4768347bb628851c41b67ad0c
Zoho Wiki : Improved Free Plan, Domain Level Permissions etc
Zoho Wiki’s latest update added the below goodies :
- Free plan improved
- Number of wikis per free account increased from 1 to 2
- File attachment storage space for each Wiki increased from 10 MB to 25 MB
- Domain and registered users permission settings
- Provide permission to your domain users (your company/organization’s email domain) to create/edit/view/delete pages & post comments to your wiki. No separate invitation mail need to be sent, just signing up with Zoho is enough for accessing your wiki [a short help page explaining domain level permissions with a screencast]
- Provide permission to Zoho’s registered users to create/edit/view/delete pages & post comments to your wiki
- Set Permissions for Page Creation / Deletion
- Provide permission to who can create pages in your wiki
- Provide permission to who can delete pages in your wiki
- Block Users
- Block users who are mis-using your wiki by Zoho User ID or user email address
- New Image options
- See your latest uploaded images and thumbnail view of images
- Delete file attachment versions
- Delete unwanted versions of a file attachment. Comes in handy for reclaiming attachment space [Caution: you cannot revert back your content once you delete a version]
Try the new Zoho Wiki and we would love to hear your feedback comments.
Macros, Pivot Tables & More in Zoho Sheet
Our Zoho Sheet team just rolled out a milestone update to our spreadsheet application with a cluster of new features. There are more than 15 new features added to this update, but two key features really stand out for businesses - Macros & Pivot Tables.
This video gives you a quick introduction to these key features.
Macros:
Zoho Sheet now supports Visual Basic Macros - the ones you use in MS Excel. This is an important milestone for Zoho Sheet as it becomes the only Spreadsheet application that supports VB Macros apart from Microsoft Excel. We now understand Visual Basic and can execute Visual Basic code at the backend (no, we don’t run any MS stuff back there). This capability opens up new set of possibilities.
In the current version, Zoho Sheet lets you import your existing speadsheets with Excel macros or create new ones. We support a broad set of functions and we do plan to extend the list further. We also plan to add Record & Play for Macros going forward.
We are also launching a Wiki (http://vbmacros.wiki.zoho.com/) which is kind of a free marketplace for Macros. You can browse for sample Macros or share your Macros with others.
Pivot Tables & Charts:
As you may know, Zoho DB supports Pivot tables. This functionality is now extended to Zoho Sheet allowing you to create Pivot tables & Pivot charts on your structured data or from a range of spreadsheet data.
This unique integration between Zoho Sheet & Zoho DB brings in some new capabilities to Zoho Sheet. You can now import upto 100,000 rows of structured data to Zoho Sheet from a CSV file. Pivot tables and pivot charts can be created by simple drag and drop interface. 
Pivot Tables & Macros are just two of the key functionalities added in this update. Complete list is available here.
As you may have noticed, we are adding more depth to our existing applications apart from adding new apps. We believe in feature-rich business applications and you’ll see us improving and integrating our apps further.
As always, we can’t wait to hear your feedback on this new update.
Zoho Projects Update : Task Dependency & more
One of the most asked for functionalities in Zoho Projects is finally here. Dependency of tasks! And the current update brings in a few more useful features as well. The update in detail :
Task Dependency : You can now set dependency among tasks. A Task can now be made dependent on one or more tasks being completed.
Assigning a Task to Multiple Users : This is another much asked for feature from our customers. Zoho Projects now lets you split & assign a Task among multiple users.
Uniform Date format : Set a date format under ‘Settings’ -> ‘Company Settings’ -> ‘Date/Time Format’. And this format gets reflected throughout the rest of the Zoho Projects UI screens.
Clear Task date : It’s now easy to clear the start or end dates of a Task in case you have decided to reassign dates at a later point of time. Previously, you’d to delete the Task and add it again without dates.
Delete Forum category : This extends the forum post deletion function. Now, entire forum categories can be deleted.
Delete Project : An extension to ‘Clear Project’ that deletes the whole project. Be cautious while using forum & project deletion. The data can’t be retrieved.
Other than the above, a few bugs have been fixed too. Try Zoho Projects & do post your comments below.
Introducing Zoho ‘Affordable’ CRM - Enterprise Edition
Zoho CRM which is part of our Business Applications set (Zoho Invoice, Zoho Projects, Zoho Meeting, Zoho People, Zoho DB, Zoho Creator etc) is now going one step further with the launch of Zoho CRM - Enterprise Edition.
This new release comes with a broad set of new capabilities making it easier for medium to large organizations to implement Zoho CRM. Some of the enhancements to the update include…
- Introduction of Role-based Security Administration
- Enhancements in product Customiation & Data Administration
- Multi-language Support (11 Languages)
- SSL Support for Professional & Enterprise Versions
- Integration with Zoho Sheet
- and lot more as mentioned here.
The key enhancement is the introduction of the Role-based Security Administration which makes it easier for managing the access permissions of users in an organization with multiple levels of hierarchy. In this Role-based Security module we introduced Roles, Profiles and Groups concept providing greater flexibility in access-control and customization.
The image below summarizes the new Role-based Security Administration section. Existing users: Please look at this document to understand how these changes compare to our previous version.
This video gives a quick introduction to this functionality. An online demo of the application is availble here.
Pricing:
As with other Zoho applications, Zoho CRM is very affordable. Here is the pricing information.
- Personal Edition - Free for 3 Users
- Professional Edition - $12/User/Month
- Enterprise Edition - $25/User/Month
Professional and Enterprise Editions are also free for the first 3 users. Detailed information on Pricing (along with feature separation between these three editions) is available here.
Zoho CRM Integration with Zoho Productivity Suite:
Zoho Sheet is now integrated into Zoho CRM which lets users edit Zoho CRM data on a spreadsheet using the ‘Zoho Sheet View’ option available in most of the modules. This provides an easy way of editing your form-based relational content in a spreadsheet view and saving the changes back to the CRM Database.
This is just a starting point and we plan to do an extended integration with our productivity suite once Zoho CRM is part of our Single Sign-on System (currently in the works).
Competition:
It is a well known fact that Zoho CRM competes with Salesforce. But the unknown fact is that the functionality of Zoho CRM is more broader for Personal and Professional Editions. Here is a quick comparison between these two applications. You’ll notice that ‘Affordable Apps’ doesn’t necessarily mean less-featured apps. All this functionality is available at fraction of the cost. To give you a quick example, for a 5 person organization, the savings with Zoho CRM are 3x and 8x (per year) with our Personal and Professional Editions respectively against the competition.
More information on this update and the application is available on our new Zoho Wiki-based help. As always, we’d love to hear your feedback on this release.
Introducing Zoho People
We are excited to announce a new addition to the Zoho Suite - Zoho People.
Zoho People is a Human Resource Management Application for HR team in an organization. This new business application joins our other business applications - Zoho CRM, Zoho Meeting, Zoho Projects and Zoho DB.
About Zoho People
Zoho People has several modules for HR Team (admins) and for Employees in an Organization. Let me briefly explain about the key modules…
Organization Module:
This module is used to define the structure of your organization including departments, designations/titles and also the Org Chart.Recruitment Module:
The Recruitment module eases the hiring process in an organization. It automates the steps involved between searching a candidate from resume database to hiring him an employee. This module also lets managers raise job requirements and admins post openings on the website.
Forms Module:
The Forms module has a set of pre-created forms (mini-applications) for common tasks in an organization like filing expense reports, reporting leave etc. With Zoho Creator integration, this module lets admins create new forms or customize existing forms and make them available to all employees.Checklist Module:
This module lets admin automate business processes and define the flow based on conditions. Tasks can automatically be assigned to users or groups based on defined flow.Self Service Module:
This module acts as a self-service module for Employees and Managers. All the employees have access to this module. Managers can define job openings and organize their team structure. Employees can submit information to the HR department using the forms defined by the HR team (like submitting an Expense Report or informing about a leave etc).Roles and Permissions :
This module is used by admin to define fine grained access for different roles based on permissions - which drill down to field level, action level and form level.
This explanation doesn’t do justice to the capabilities of the application. The video below gives a quick overview of the key functionalities in the application.
.
While all these capabilities make sense in a HR App, we understand that no two businesses operate the same way. Customization is the key for an application like this. So we made Zoho People completely customizable. Right from the top level tabs till the forms inside the application, everything is customizable. Infact, we have integrated Zoho Creator inside Zoho People allowing teams to customize every form in the application.Who Should use Zoho People?
Zoho People is really targeted at a level beyond the very small (say 50+ employee) businesses. Very small businesses can keep track of people in ad-hoc ways, (spreadsheets work!) but once a company reaches a certain size (even 25-30) keeping track of things like recruitment, IT resource allocation, benefits, vacations, skill management etc. becomes time consuming. In fact, that is the level at which a business typically gets a dedicated HR person. That is where Zoho People steps in.
Big PictureAs we often say, we want to be the IT Department for SMBs. Just offering a set of productivity applications doesn’t meet the needs of businesses. There needs to be a suite of business applications addressing those business needs. With Zoho People, we are taking another step towards offering a complete online solution for businesses. As always, we cannot wait to hear your feedback on this new release.
Zoho Wiki Update : Backup, Page Options, Customizable Footer etc
We’ve rolled out some important changes in Zoho Wiki over the last couple of weeks.
Wiki Backup : Taking a wiki backup has been one of the top requirements of our users. The wiki owner/administrator can now find this option under Settings -> General -> BackUp -> ‘Click to download the backup’. You will get a zipped file containing all the pages of your Wiki as HTML files.
Page Options : In the previous update, we brought in page level permissions. Now, there are even more options for each of your wiki pages.
- Duplicate Page : You can make copies of a page now. This comes in handy when your Wiki consists of almost similar pages. Create a template page & make duplicate copies of it.
- Copy to (another Wiki) : You can copy a page to another Wiki which is yours or which you are subscribed to.
- Print Preview : Print a Wiki page (without the Wiki side panel etc)
- Other options like delete, rename, adding a sub-page, setting a page as the Wiki’s home page, seeing/changing the page’s permissions, viewing all/public/group/private pages are part of the ‘Recently Changed Pages’ module in the Wiki’s side panel
Customizable Footer : Another new customization option which will give a more native feel & individuality to your Wiki. Click on Settings -> Customization -> Use customizable footer and set your own footer.
Other changes in this update include :
- An option to specify whether you would the visitors of your Wiki to send feedback to you by email
- The order is maintained now during drag-and-drop of all pages in the wiki’s Site Map (previously, the order wasn’t preserved in the root level pages)
The above changes illustrated using a Zoho Show slide show below.
Try out the new features in Zoho Wiki and as always, we’ll be glad hearing your feedback!
ps : Help documentation for Zoho CRM & Zoho Show are now available as Zoho Wikis!
Introducing Zoho Invoice
We just rolled out a new addition to the Zoho Suite - Zoho Invoice. This new application joins other business applications from Zoho like Zoho CRM, Zoho Projects, Zoho Meeting, Zoho People, Zoho Creator & Zoho DB.
Zoho Invoice is an online invoice generation and tracking application. It lets you create, send and track Invoices & Estimates. To create an invoice, first you add customers, define items (products or services) and then create invoices. Once you create an invoice, you have options to Email, Print or Export your invoice as a PDF.
You can define Recurring Profiles (Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly or Yearly) and let Zoho Invoice automatically send invoices to your customers. You can also define late fees, tax, discounts etc for the invoices you create.
Inside the application, you can also setup a ‘Payment Gateway’ (through PayPal, currently) which lets you accept payments directly from your customers once the invoice is emailed out.
The Settings section lets you first define your Company Details, Logo, Currency (yes, we support multiple currencies) and Tax info. This module has a Templates section which lets you customize the layout, look and feel of your invoices. You have the option to choose from a set of pre-defined templates or you can create your own. You can also define/customize email notifications settings as well for sending customized messages to your customers.
The reporting module provides different reports on the data based on Sales, Customers, Payments, Tax etc. The embedded Zoho Show slideshow below explains the setting up workflow & the various functionalities that Zoho Invoice has on offer.
Being a finance app, security is an important aspect. By default, Zoho Invoice comes with SSL support even for free users.
Integration:
Zoho Invoice currently has an integration into Zoho Projects. If you are working on a project and want to invoice your client, you can do so by creating an invoice and choosing the option to ‘Create Invoice from Zoho Project’. Going forward, this application will also be closely integrated with Zoho CRM and other Zoho Apps.
Pricing:
The pricing is simple & affordable. It is based on the number of invoices you create. It obviously comes with a free version that lets you create upto 5 invoices per month and it has several packages ranging upto the ‘Elite’ package that lets you create upto 1500 invoices/month for $35/Month. More information on the pricing is available here.
Bigger Picture:
As you might have noticed with our recent announcements, our applications go far beyond a productivity suite. We have a suite of applications focused on Productivity & Collaboration. Then, we also have a set of Business Applications needed to run a business online. Zoho Invoice is a nice addition to our Business Application set which addresses the business needs of SMBs.
Please do give this new app a try and let us know your feedback.
Introducing Zoho People
We are excited to announce a new addition to the Zoho Suite - Zoho People.
Zoho People is a Human Resource Management Application for HR team in an organization. This new business application joins our other business applications - Zoho CRM, Zoho Meeting, Zoho Projects and Zoho DB.
About Zoho People
Zoho People has several modules for HR Team (admins) and for Employees in an Organization. Let me briefly explain about the key modules…
Organization Module:
This module is used to define the structure of your organization including departments, designations/titles and also the Org Chart.Recruitment Module:
The Recruitment module eases the hiring process in an organization. It automates the steps involved between searching a candidate from resume database to hiring him an employee. This module also lets managers raise job requirements and admins post openings on the website.
Forms Module:
The Forms module has a set of pre-created forms (mini-applications) for common tasks in an organization like filing expense reports, reporting leave etc. With Zoho Creator integration, this module lets admins create new forms or customize existing forms and make them available to all employees.Checklist Module:
This module lets admin automate business processes and define the flow based on conditions. Tasks can automatically be assigned to users or groups based on defined flow.Self Service Module:
This module acts as a self-service module for Employees and Managers. All the employees have access to this module. Managers can define job openings and organize their team structure. Employees can submit information to the HR department using the forms defined by the HR team (like submitting an Expense Report or informing about a leave etc).Roles and Permissions :
This module is used by admin to define fine grained access for different roles based on permissions - which drill down to field level, action level and form level.
This explanation doesn’t do justice to the capabilities of the application. The video below gives a quick overview of the key functionalities in the application.
.
While all these capabilities make sense in a HR App, we understand that no two businesses operate the same way. Customization is the key for an application like this. So we made Zoho People completely customizable. Right from the top level tabs till the forms inside the application, everything is customizable. Infact, we have integrated Zoho Creator inside Zoho People allowing teams to customize every form in the application.Who Should use Zoho People?
Zoho People is really targeted at a level beyond the very small (say 50+ employee) businesses. Very small businesses can keep track of people in ad-hoc ways, (spreadsheets work!) but once a company reaches a certain size (even 25-30) keeping track of things like recruitment, IT resource allocation, benefits, vacations, skill management etc. becomes time consuming. In fact, that is the level at which a business typically gets a dedicated HR person. That is where Zoho People steps in.Big PictureAs we often say, we want to be the IT Department for SMBs. Just offering a set of productivity applications doesn’t meet the needs of businesses. There needs to be a suite of business applications addressing those business needs. With Zoho People, we are taking another step towards offering a complete online solution for businesses. As always, we cannot wait to hear your feedback on this new release.
Zoho Wiki Update : Backup, Page Options, Customizable Footer etc
We’ve rolled out some important changes in Zoho Wiki over the last couple of weeks.
Wiki Backup : Taking a wiki backup has been one of the top requirements of our users. The wiki owner/administrator can now find this option under Settings -> General -> BackUp -> ‘Click to download the backup’. You will get a zipped file containing all the pages of your Wiki as HTML files.
Page Options : In the previous update, we brought in page level permissions. Now, there are even more options for each of your wiki pages.
- Duplicate Page : You can make copies of a page now. This comes in handy when your Wiki consists of almost similar pages. Create a template page & make duplicate copies of it.
- Copy to (another Wiki) : You can copy a page to another Wiki which is yours or which you are subscribed to.
- Print Preview : Print a Wiki page (without the Wiki side panel etc)
- Other options like delete, rename, adding a sub-page, setting a page as the Wiki’s home page, seeing/changing the page’s permissions, viewing all/public/group/private pages are part of the ‘Recently Changed Pages’ module in the Wiki’s side panel
Customizable Footer : Another new customization option which will give a more native feel & individuality to your Wiki. Click on Settings -> Customization -> Use customizable footer and set your own footer.
Other changes in this update include :
- An option to specify whether you would the visitors of your Wiki to send feedback to you by email
- The order is maintained now during drag-and-drop of all pages in the wiki’s Site Map (previously, the order wasn’t preserved in the root level pages)
The above changes illustrated using a Zoho Show slide show below.
Try out the new features in Zoho Wiki and as always, we’ll be glad hearing your feedback!
ps : Help documentation for Zoho CRM & Zoho Show are now available as Zoho Wikis!
Introducing Zoho Invoice
We just rolled out a new addition to the Zoho Suite - Zoho Invoice. This new application joins other business applications from Zoho like Zoho CRM, Zoho Projects, Zoho Meeting, Zoho People, Zoho Creator & Zoho DB.
Zoho Invoice is an online invoice generation and tracking application. It lets you create, send and track Invoices & Estimates. To create an invoice, first you add customers, define items (products or services) and then create invoices. Once you create an invoice, you have options to Email, Print or Export your invoice as a PDF.
You can define Recurring Profiles (Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly or Yearly) and let Zoho Invoice automatically send invoices to your customers. You can also define late fees, tax, discounts etc for the invoices you create.
Inside the application, you can also setup a ‘Payment Gateway’ (through PayPal, currently) which lets you accept payments directly from your customers once the invoice is emailed out.
The Settings section lets you first define your Company Details, Logo, Currency (yes, we support multiple currencies) and Tax info. This module has a Templates section which lets you customize the layout, look and feel of your invoices. You have the option to choose from a set of pre-defined templates or you can create your own. You can also define/customize email notifications settings as well for sending customized messages to your customers.
The reporting module provides different reports on the data based on Sales, Customers, Payments, Tax etc. The embedded Zoho Show slideshow below explains the setting up workflow & the various functionalities that Zoho Invoice has on offer.
Being a finance app, security is an important aspect. By default, Zoho Invoice comes with SSL support even for free users.
Integration:
Zoho Invoice currently has an integration into Zoho Projects. If you are working on a project and want to invoice your client, you can do so by creating an invoice and choosing the option to ‘Create Invoice from Zoho Project’. Going forward, this application will also be closely integrated with Zoho CRM and other Zoho Apps.
Pricing:
The pricing is simple & affordable. It is based on the number of invoices you create. It obviously comes with a free version that lets you create upto 5 invoices per month and it has several packages ranging upto the ‘Elite’ package that lets you create upto 1500 invoices/month for $35/Month. More information on the pricing is available here.
Bigger Picture:
As you might have noticed with our recent announcements, our applications go far beyond a productivity suite. We have a suite of applications focused on Productivity & Collaboration. Then, we also have a set of Business Applications needed to run a business online. Zoho Invoice is a nice addition to our Business Application set which addresses the business needs of SMBs.
Please do give this new app a try and let us know your feedback.
Introducing Zoho Invoice
We just rolled out a new addition to the Zoho Suite - Zoho Invoice. This new application joins other business applications from Zoho like Zoho CRM, Zoho Projects, Zoho Meeting, Zoho People, Zoho Creator & Zoho DB.
Zoho Invoice is an online invoice generation and tracking application. It lets you create, send and track Invoices & Estimates. To create an invoice, first you add customers, define items (products or services) and then create invoices. Once you create an invoice, you have options to Email, Print or Export your invoice as a PDF.
You can define Recurring Profiles (Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly or Yearly) and let Zoho Invoice automatically send invoices to your customers. You can also define late fees, tax, discounts etc for the invoices you create.
Inside the application, you can also setup a ‘Payment Gateway’ (through PayPal, currently) which lets you accept payments directly from your customers once the invoice is emailed out.
The Settings section lets you first define your Company Details, Logo, Currency (yes, we support multiple currencies) and Tax info. This module has a Templates section which lets you customize the layout, look and feel of your invoices. You have the option to choose from a set of pre-defined templates or you can create your own. You can also define/customize email notifications settings as well for sending customized messages to your customers.
The reporting module provides different reports on the data based on Sales, Customers, Payments, Tax etc. The embedded Zoho Show slideshow below explains the setting up workflow & the various functionalities that Zoho Invoice has on offer.
Being a finance app, security is an important aspect. By default, Zoho Invoice comes with SSL support even for free users.
Integration:
Zoho Invoice currently has an integration into Zoho Projects. If you are working on a project and want to invoice your client, you can do so by creating an invoice and choosing the option to ‘Create Invoice from Zoho Project’. Going forward, this application will also be closely integrated with Zoho CRM and other Zoho Apps.
Pricing:
The pricing is simple & affordable. It is based on the number of invoices you create. It obviously comes with a free version that lets you create upto 5 invoices per month and it has several packages ranging upto the ‘Elite’ package that lets you create upto 1500 invoices/month for $35/Month. More information on the pricing is available here.
Bigger Picture:
As you might have noticed with our recent announcements, our applications go far beyond a productivity suite. We have a suite of applications focused on Productivity & Collaboration. Then, we also have a set of Business Applications needed to run a business online. Zoho Invoice is a nice addition to our Business Application set which addresses the business needs of SMBs.
Please do give this new app a try and let us know your feedback.
Zoho Wiki Update : Backup, Page Options, Customizable Footer etc
We’ve rolled out some important changes in Zoho Wiki over the last couple of weeks.
Wiki Backup : Taking a wiki backup has been one of the top requirements of our users. The wiki owner/administrator can now find this option under Settings -> General -> BackUp -> ‘Click to download the backup’. You will get a zipped file containing all the pages of your Wiki as HTML files.
Page Options : In the previous update, we brought in page level permissions. Now, there are even more options for each of your wiki pages.
- Duplicate Page : You can make copies of a page now. This comes in handy when your Wiki consists of almost similar pages. Create a template page & make duplicate copies of it.
- Copy to (another Wiki) : You can copy a page to another Wiki which is yours or which you are subscribed to.
- Print Preview : Print a Wiki page (without the Wiki side panel etc)
- Other options like delete, rename, adding a sub-page, setting a page as the Wiki’s home page, seeing/changing the page’s permissions, viewing all/public/group/private pages are part of the ‘Recently Changed Pages’ module in the Wiki’s side panel
Customizable Footer : Another new customization option which will give a more native feel & individuality to your Wiki. Click on Settings -> Customization -> Use customizable footer and set your own footer.
Other changes in this update include :
- An option to specify whether you would the visitors of your Wiki to send feedback to you by email
- The order is maintained now during drag-and-drop of all pages in the wiki’s Site Map (previously, the order wasn’t preserved in the root level pages)
The above changes illustrated using a Zoho Show slide show below.
Try out the new features in Zoho Wiki and as always, we’ll be glad hearing your feedback!
ps : Help documentation for Zoho CRM & Zoho Show are now available as Zoho Wikis!
Introducing Zoho People
We are excited to announce a new addition to the Zoho Suite - Zoho People.
Zoho People is a Human Resource Management Application for HR team in an organization. This new business application joins our other business applications - Zoho CRM, Zoho Meeting, Zoho Projects and Zoho DB.
About Zoho People
Zoho People has several modules for HR Team (admins) and for Employees in an Organization. Let me briefly explain about the key modules…
Organization Module:
This module is used to define the structure of your organization including departments, designations/titles and also the Org Chart.Recruitment Module:
The Recruitment module eases the hiring process in an organization. It automates the steps involved between searching a candidate from resume database to hiring him an employee. This module also lets managers raise job requirements and admins post openings on the website.
Forms Module:
The Forms module has a set of pre-created forms (mini-applications) for common tasks in an organization like filing expense reports, reporting leave etc. With Zoho Creator integration, this module lets admins create new forms or customize existing forms and make them available to all employees.Checklist Module:
This module lets admin automate business processes and define the flow based on conditions. Tasks can automatically be assigned to users or groups based on defined flow.Self Service Module:
This module acts as a self-service module for Employees and Managers. All the employees have access to this module. Managers can define job openings and organize their team structure. Employees can submit information to the HR department using the forms defined by the HR team (like submitting an Expense Report or informing about a leave etc).Roles and Permissions :
This module is used by admin to define fine grained access for different roles based on permissions - which drill down to field level, action level and form level.
This explanation doesn’t do justice to the capabilities of the application. The video below gives a quick overview of the key functionalities in the application.
Zoho People from Raju Vegesna on Vimeo.While all these capabilities make sense in a HR App, we understand that no two businesses operate the same way. Customization is the key for an application like this. So we made Zoho People completely customizable. Right from the top level tabs till the forms inside the application, everything is customizable. Infact, we have integrated Zoho Creator inside Zoho People allowing teams to customize every form in the application.Who Should use Zoho People?
Zoho People is really targeted at a level beyond the very small (say 50+ employee) businesses. Very small businesses can keep track of people in ad-hoc ways, (spreadsheets work!) but once a company reaches a certain size (even 25-30) keeping track of things like recruitment, IT resource allocation, benefits, vacations, skill management etc. becomes time consuming. In fact, that is the level at which a business typically gets a dedicated HR person. That is where Zoho People steps in.Big PictureAs we often say, we want to be the IT Department for SMBs. Just offering a set of productivity applications doesn’t meet the needs of businesses. There needs to be a suite of business applications addressing those business needs. With Zoho People, we are taking another step towards offering a complete online solution for businesses.As always, we cannot wait to hear your feedback on this new release.
Zoho Writer Extends Mobile Support, Adds Offline Capability for Windows Mobile Using Google Gears
As you may know, we launched Zoho applications for iPhone earlier at izoho.com. Today, we are extending our mobile support further. Coming just a week after an important update, Zoho Writer’s new functionality includes support for Windows Mobile.
You can now access your Zoho Writer documents from your Windows Mobile device. Currently we support Windows Mobile 6.0. Documents in Zoho Writer can be viewed using Internet Explorer on your Windows Mobile device. The current version supports viewing your documents. Document editing will be offered later.
Windows Mobile Offline Support
One of the significant functionality added in this update is offline support on your Windows Mobile device.
As you may know, desktop version of Zoho Writer supports offline capability using Google Gears. With today’s launch of Google Gears for Windows Mobile, we are extending our offline support to Windows Mobile devices as well. This means you can now access your Zoho Writer documents from your Windows Mobile device on the plane.
This video gives you a quick idea on how Zoho Writer works offline on your windows mobile device.
We again would like to thank Google for their commitment for the open source Gears project. As always, we can’t wait to hear your feedback/comments on this.
Zoho Writer Update: DocX Support, Thesaurus, Group Sharing & More
After adding business friendly features like Pagination, Headers & Footers, Headnotes & Footnotes, Offline Support etc in our previous updates, we are further enhancing Zoho Writer functionalities with today’s update. The highlights include…
- DocX Support
- Thesaurus (in 10 languages)
- Sharing with Groups
- Enhanced Endnotes/Footnotes
- Enhanced Headers/Footers
DocX Support:
Zoho Writer now supports exporting to DocX, the new Microsoft OOXML file format for Word. Ofcourse, we already support ODF Export/Import in Zoho Writer. Currently you can export any of your documents in Zoho Writer as a DocX file. This is added in addition to the already available export options - DOC, TXT, HTML, PDF, ODF, SXW and RTF. We will soon be supporting DocX import as well.
Thesaurus:
We now added Thesaurus option (in 10 languages). Right-click on a word, choose the ‘Thesaurus’ option from the contextual menu to view the synonyms and related words. The current version of Thesaurus is used more for lookup purposes. We plan to enhance this functionality further to replace the words with selected ones from thesaurus in the next version.
Languages supported in Thesaurus: English, Czech, German, Greek, French, Irish, Italian, Polish, Russian & Slovak. We will keep adding more language options in future updates.
Sharing with Groups:
You can now share documents with groups. This makes it a lot easier to share documents with multiple people avoiding entering of multiple email addresses each time you share a document. To share a document with a group, click on ‘Share’ and select the ‘Share with Groups’ tab. You can create new groups in your ‘My Account‘ section. These groups will be visible across all Zoho Applications.
Enhanced support for Endnotes/Footnotes:
As you may know, we recently added Endnotes & Footnotes capabilities in Zoho Writer. This updates enhances this functionality further. All your Zoho Writer docum