One of the most common requests I get from the Zoho sales team goes like this: ”I am working with a hot prospect who is evaluating our product and X & Y competitors – can you email me all the UPDATED documents asap?”.
Does this sound familiar?
This is really common across any sales & marketing organization. So over time we’ve started using solutions like Zoho Docs, Google Docs, Dropbox or SharePoint, which work really well for general sharing, but they’re missing a critical thing: they don’t talk to your CRM system.
That makes it hard to make sure everyone is using the latest version of the document they need – and also important is the fact that you can’t control who has access to what according to their role and access permissions. Plus, rather than searching for existing documents in computers, mailbox and other places, wouldn’t it be great if our salespeople spent their valuable time on developing a strong sales pipeline?
That’s why today we’re excited to announce the Zoho CRM Document Library, which makes it easy to manage your library of sales collateral, materials, proposals and more, right within Zoho CRM.
Folders & sharing
You have a broad product portfolio and large sales organization spanning across different regions. It’d be a nightmare to try to replicate this structure, with the right permissions anywhere else other than your CRM. The Zoho CRM Document Library uses the same role-based security you’ve defined for your accounts & leads, CRM administrators can easily update the access control permissions.
You can also of course create multiple sub-folders, for collateral, training, legal, etc. to keep all your files organized.
Email documents to prospects
When you send an email to a prospect, you can easily search and attach the required files from the document library to email and save time. You can also link the documents to keep a record of what you’ve sent.
Reviews & Versioning
You can not only maintain collateral up-to-date, but also periodically receive feedback from colleagues and improve the quality of documents. Additionally, you can refer the previous versions and compare the changes.
More Storage Space!
Now that you have this, you’ll be using a lot more space in Zoho CRM. Well, we have good news for all our existing Professional and Enterprise Edition users. From today, you will get 250 MB per user (or 500 MB/user in Enterprise Edition) storage space instead of 250 MB storage space for the whole organization in Professional Edition. So, for example, if your company has subscribed to 20-user license, you will get total 5GB common storage space for all users. We’ve also increased the file storage for free users. I hope that this additional storage helps you centralize your sales collateral.
Gopal
Is it possible to automaticly synchronize my desktop documents with ZOHO CRM documents?
we are a professional edition customer and I can't seem to move files that reside in one folder to another folder. It comes up blank and asks me to create a new folder. There is no documentation that covers this. What am I doing wrong.
We currently use Box.com because we can share docs as read only. In Zoho Doc when we set as read only the person we share with can still download using the SaveAs feature or print, which is not really red only. Box really has a true preview only feature, I believe it is using flash to do this, can we do this or is there any work around to get a true Read Only product with Zoho Docs?
Yes, you can attach documents to a particular opportunity under Attachments section.Gopal
This is a great question. I am currently considering ZOHO for our company, and I was wondering if this issue was ever addressed?Thanks.
Is there a way to attach docs to a particular opportunity?
We have already created a similar solution externally where our Vendors own the individual file space and directories. Our Reps use Ipads as an electronic Catalog.
We will probably continue using.Is there a method where I could share or FTP Transfer this Cloud Directory to your application. Or is there a way we could point to an external ftp directory location?
In general we like the new products that Zoho is bringing out however we are having a problem to committing to them. We are trying to get a handle on whether Zoho is pushing to bring everything under the Zoho CRM umbrella, or under the Zoho Mail umbrella. For example the calendars in each are different, so we end up not using either and go with a non Zoho option. The new link features in Zoho mail at bottom right of the email have great potential, but again, there is no common thread, some of the options are linked to he email center and the CRM link does not allow you to schedule reminders.Now we have a document library in the CRM…..Should we start loading this up instead of Zoho Docs or something else?Off hand it would seem that the common thread for businesses is the CRM, which in this case handles vendors and most contact types would want. Based on that, we feel that the CRM should be the central point and other options like mail, docs, calendars fall under or within the CRM. The key point here being that you can link everything to a specific contact, company, ;conversation thread on a given subject etc.So can you let us know which direction Zoho is heading so we can commit to something. Again love the products individually, but need to get to use them together.ThanksGordon
Dear Zoho
We are a UK based Community Interest Social Care organisation operating across England providing care service delivery for vulnerable and elderly adults who are contracted to us by NHS and local authorities.
Our business model and vision is to utilise mobile web-based IT services wherever possible and are currently evaluating your Zoho CRM system to integrate with our Gmail domain.
As part of our evaluation we would be grateful if you could answer the following questions please:
1) Which country would our data be stored and located? This is a critical question as our UK Data Protection registration requires personal client data to be stored securely within the EU.
2) Can additional fields be added to the Zoho CRM e.g. DOB / Client Group / Ethnicity etc?
3) Is it possible to Restore or Roll-Back the system to previous backups?
We do like your system and are hopeful for a positive evaluation and look forward to your reply.
Best Wishes…
Steve
Wow, nice going Zoho!
Will this be integrated as part of the cloudon app soon?
Thanks…
Why are you guys so stingy about storage?
Across all products, the storage limits you give for both paid and free version is so little that even though I would love to use and pay for your products, I simply move on after evaluation.
Please see if you can do something about it
Indeed, the storage space is incredibly stingy!
Hello Genus,You can easily migrate all your documents from CRM.
We have compiled a list of frequently asked questions in our online help:http://www.zoho.com/crm/help/documents/index.html Please get back to support at zohocrm dot com for personalized demo.Gopal
Seem like what we need. We were hosting docs on an external server that was really slow and ofcourse affects productivity. Is there a video on how this works also?
Looks great. Will check it out. Played with it a little. We are currently using Dropbox to do this and would like to explore migrating over to Zoho Doc Library but can only upload files. It would be great if we could upload folders with all the files contained so we don’t have to recreate our whole library of folders.
Estaban leyendo mi mente?
Hello John,Yes, we have plans to offer desktop sync tool in future.Gopal
The document facility is quite useful but with my aim of uploading all my client documentation to the cloud (not just key literature) might you consider extending this so that I could have a sync between my desk top folders and Documents in CRM?
Hello Simon James,As we’re providing API in our Free Edition, integration with Wufoo forms via Zapier should work. Please give a try and let us know your observation.Gopal
Does the integration between from Wufoo forms via Zapier to ZohoCRM, and from Zoho via Zapier to Asana and Freshbooks work with the Free edition?
Considering sales presentations often take up to 10Mb, it’s going to be fairly easy to run out of space. Considering Highrise offers 1Gb of space on a medium plan, I’m a bit disappointed.In the era of Dropbox, Backblaze, and Box, you couldn’t do better than 250Mb?
Hi – will this be available via the iPad app?
Great progress btw.
Hello Don Birch,No, we are allowing multi-level sub-folders. You can create sub sub-folders by using the pop-up menu (hint: right-click on the selected sub-folder) option.Gopal
Documents ~ I can’t seem to create sub sub folders! Does documents only allow one level of sub folder?
OK, I am confused. In Zoho, I clicked on More… and then Documents and I get the following message when the Documents window is displayed. “You have no documentsâ€
However, if I view an account and I scroll down to the attached documents, I then see the option for
Documents Desktop Zoho Docs Google Drive
When I select Zoho Docs, I see all the documents that we have uploaded to Zoho.
So is the new Documents Library placing documents in a different location?
Steve
How do you “save†the file after you open it? I have uploaded a file and opened it but it will not save the changes
Hello Gloria Lafont,Thanks for your kind words.We are offering 250MB/user in Professional Edition. So if you have 10 users, you can upload upto 2.5GB, which is sufficient to start. In addition, you can buy additional file storage ($4/GB a month) from subscription page.Gopal
This sounds like what I’ve been dreaming with…however 250 MB it’s not enough to host our sales and marketing files, can we purchase additional space?
Hello Deepak,Thanks for trying our business, productivity and office suite. You can import existing customer data from other software to CRM easily using our data import tool. For more details, refer our online help.http://www.zoho.com/crm/helpPlease get back to support at zohocrm dot com if you have any questions.Best Regards,
Gopal
I want to know about ZOHO, as well as how we can get customer data through this site.
We have been using Zoho DOCS for a while and beeb slightly frustrated by its lack of granular security control and confusion between personal, shared and group workspaces so this is a great development. However it begs the question how does it integrate / link to our existing Zoho Docs setup assuming it does. Also can you see the CRM Document Library from within the native Zoho DOCS interface ….. subject to security of course ?
Hello Massimiliano,Yes, down the line we will allow adding CRM-centric documents from Google Drive. I will keep you posted once we are ready with early access setup. In the meantime, please upload documents from local computer to Documents module and share with your colleagues according to your organisational hierarchy.Gopal
Is there any chance to integrate Zoho CRM Document’s with Google Docs/Drive tool ?
Great idea……can’t seem to upload documents though. I can create a subfolder, but the uploader seems to run and then the documents aren’t in the library.Any ideas?Regards
Laurence Brown
Hello Rajesh,You may need to share the corresponding folder with your sales ID to give access to other users. If the issue still exists, we will set up online meeting at the earliest. Please let us know your observations at support at zohocrm dot com.Currently we have not implemented automatically importing of leads from online Sheet program to CRM. We would like to gather more inputs on usage of this scenario before prioritizing for the development. Can you please share more details about your requirement?Gopal
Hi,
Good to see zoho docs. However zoho docs is not available to the other user ID – sales@ideazfirst.com, inspite of relogging in to the CRM. I have just uploaded an excel sheet with some new leads for telecalling. Now, how do I connect the cells of the excel sheet to the lead database in CRM.Regards,
Rajesh K
I have used the Infusionsoft before. I have been using Zoho for about 6 months. My sale team love the CRM as well as the document sharing feature.
Love the concept this is an awesome idea.I would love it even more if it could link in dropbox and google doc files as we use both in our systems. and other files to keep a track of branding logos etc… in one place
Thanks for sharing. Let is try that.
Any chance of being able to create hyperlinks from records (contacts / potentials) directly into subfolders? Or alternative designating files in certain subfloders to automatically attach to a record when a new document is created?The subfolders might change depending on what record it is which is linking. This would give complete integration.The above would be great for the thousands who use CRM as a B2C system.Also is there any api facility for this module?Thanks
Is this as robust as Adobe EchoSign? Could it be this robust?
Hello Sam Park,Thank you for your feedback.You can delete or rename sub-folders by the pop-up menu option.
You can also move the documents between folders using the Move menu.Please let us know if you’ve any questions.Gopal
Please let us kn
we were just looking for a solution for this when this article popped up . great timing. we will check it outWill you be integrating this with Google+ drive/docs? This would be huge for us and would save us storage space on Zoho.
This is nice! However, we need to be able to delete, move, and rename subfolders because right now you can only create them.
Hello Ryan,Sorry, we are offering document library only in Paid editions. However, you can activate professional/enterprise trial and evaluate this feature for 15 days.Gopal
Is this available in the free version? I do not see the Tab in my CRM. Thanks
We, too, have been looking for something similar and it appears that Zoho is on the leading edge! Pretty cool. I hope this system develops quite a lot; we are currently looking to ditch shared file server and having a bit more robust interface here (Desktop app, ability to link docs to customers, etc) will rapidly speed our enterprise’s adoption of these new features.
Hello Todd!Thank you. Please give a try and let us know your feedback.Gopal
we were just looking for a solution for this when this article popped up . great timing. we will check it out