Working with Products

as discussed, product should be integrated with customer account.... when we open the product, we can see which customers are buying that product.

I was adding a new product, and wanting to describe a service which was packaged with 1.5 hours of training. Usage Unit was 'Hours', and Qty/Unit = 1.5. But your form didn't allow me to use '1.5', forcing me to put it at '2'. FYI.

Colin,<br><br>We will fix it at the earliest. Thanks for your time and effort to bring the issue to our knowledge.<br><br>Thanks,<br>Adam.

any way to save images tied to specific products?

We are working on it and your request will be considered for our future updates.

Thanks,
Adam.

On the product details / product information page, there is a field for vendor name, lookup comes from vendors.

The field isn't present in the Product field list, so when importing a product file, there's no way to associate existing field, so have to enter manually for each record.

Any way around this?

I see, it is present on the import Map Fields.

How does it get specifiied to be on the product page, when it doesn't appear on the field list?

I agree that a product should be associated with customers. It would also be nice if we could upload / hot link multiple images to a product.

Another request : associate a product with Sales Orders, Quotes and Invoices, so that when we see a number in the "QTY in demand" field, we can scroll down and find out who is ordering how many of that product. Same with quotes and invoices.

Hi Shirley,

We have plans to implement the image for the products. Once its done, we will keep posted the update.

Thanks,
Adam.

Like comment No.2.... we find that only using whole numbers in the "Qty ordered" field is very frustrating. We work in meterage, and need to charge part meters at times. Also the same for hourly rates. One other thing that is also annoying is that the same product can't be chosen more than once. We may produce many jobs for a client from the same materials. We need to be able to do this. The same goes for hours. It would also be far better if we had custom descriptions available "on-the-fly". So that we could describe exactly what each item is for.
ie. 3 hours fixing hole in wall
2 hours painting wall.

etc etc

Hi Shirley Ng,

We have plans to bring customization of the fields that you see in the sections. Once that is implemented, you can bring the necessary field that you have for the customer regarding how many product he/she has requested. With this you will get all the information in the same module.

Thanks,
Adam.

Hi Appealing Signs,

We will consider your request and will analyze and try to include it to our future road map.

Thanks,
Adam.

Is there a way to create an assembly of parts and subassemblies of parts to define a completed product?

Hi mywald,

Yes. You may goto Setup --> Product Settings --> Fields List and create the custom fields with the assembly parts and sub assemblies of parts to have the complete product details in the Product tab.

Thanks,
Adam.

When i want to bill hours of a freelancer at a fixed rate i would like to do the following:

Having the freelancer as a vendor
Having his rate as a product.

But this force me to have an "inventory" of hours for that vendor.

How can i circumvent this? Especially for consulting "products" not having the inventory "on" would be very helpful. Any recommendations?

Thanks

Peter

I'm new to Zoho CRM.


How can I make report to see a list of buyer/vendors of selected product?


Even better, to see when the buyer make SO of product, quantity, etc.


Thanks,

Edo

Hi Edo,

You will be able to create a new report on Vendors module and select the related modules that you want to get information from and set the criteria to show based on the specified product.

You may also have different fields with the information that when will the buyers will make the SO and have a field to mention the quantity to get the report based on the criteria that you give.

Thanks,
Adam.

any news on the images of specific product ???


is there any way i can use multiple filters or criteria for search?

Hi,

Currently providing the product image feature is not available. As a work around, you may provide the product image's location in the custom field (Text Field).

Ex: <img src = "http://www.website.com/image.jpeg">

Search using multiple filters will be added to our road map and we will keep posted the update once the feature is done.

Thanks,
Adam.

Hi,

I want to create a suite of subscription based products - starting with paid membership of my organisation. I need to be able to record the sale of each "membership" with date started, date renewal due, and ideally sending an email to the account manager to automate renewals and welcome messages.

Is there a 'subscription' template for products? Help please!

Oliver

Hi Oliver,

Currently we don't have the feature you request. We will analyze and take it up for our future roadmap.

Thanks,
Adam.

Hi,


I want to be able to make up a product by combining a number of products together to make up a kit.


Is this possible?

Hi,

Yes. You can have the main products in the drop-down field and have the sub products in a single Multi-Select pick list. Once you select the main product, you can select the sub products for that from the multi-select pick list. Currently auto-populating of the sub-products is not available. We will be including that in our future updates.

Thanks,
Adam.

Hi,
As Peter, I would like to sell "hours". But I need to have this "product" in my inventory.

In other way, is there a specific way to manage "services" and not "products" ?

Hi guiwald,

Yes you can have the product in the inventory modules in the Product Name section. With the help of the lookup you will be able to add the products from the product module/tab and calculate the amount by entering the number in quantity.

If you want to work with Services, you may goto Setup --> Tab Settings --> Rename tabs and rename the existing Products tab to Services tab and use it with the fields that you need by customizing it from Setup --> Product Settings --> Fields List.

Thanks,
Adam.

Adam,


We all our sales reps to be able to view our products, is there any way we can assign the products to all sales reps. They all sell the same products.


Thank you,

Nisarg

Working with Products

Tags:




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TABLE OF CONTENTS [Hide]

Introduction

Navigating Products

Searching Products

Creating List Views

Creating Products

Importing Products

Associating Products with Other Records

Changing Product Owner

Exporting Products

Printing Product Details

Viewing Reports

Deleting Products

Customizing Products

Customizing Tax Rates


TABLE OF CONTENTS [Hide]

Introduction

Navigating Products

Searching Products

Creating List Views

Creating Products

Importing Products

Associating Products with Other Records

Changing Product Owner

Exporting Products

Printing Product Details

Viewing Reports

Deleting Products

Customizing Products

Introduction

Products can be either goods or services, which are sold or procured by your organization. In Zoho CRM you can manage your company- wide products that are sold to the customers as well as procured from the vendors. Hence both sales and purchasing departments can use the Products module effectively according to their department process. In case your organization procures products from vendors and sell to customers with a markup, both sales and purchase departments can coordinate in a better way.


Sales department can use the products module along with other modules, such as leads, accounts, potentials, quotes, Sales Orders, and Invoices where as purchasing department can use along with Vendors and Purchase Orders. In general Product details page contains the product name, manufacturer/reseller name, part numbers, sales start/end dates, support start/end dates, price, stock position and others.


The Products home page contains,


Products List

Product Reports

Tools such as Import, Export, change owner, and delete

Quick Create pane

Search

Alphabetical Search

Custom Views

Page Navigation

You can perform the following operations in Products module:


Navigate products

Search products (Alphabetical or advanced search options)

Create List views

Create new products (Form filling, quick create, or duplicate options)

Associate products with other records

Changing Product Owner (individually or in bulk)

Export Products

Print products details

View Reports

Delete products (individually or in bulk)

Customize products

Navigating Products

(Access Privilege: Read permission)


You can navigate products available in the Products List.


To navigate products


Click the Products tab.

In the Products Home page, under the Products List section, click the Previous or Next link to access the list of products.

Searching Products

(Access Privilege: Read permission)


You can search the sales orders alphabetically or filling the required information in Search box.


To search products


Click the Products tab.

In the Products Search section, do one of the following:

Specify the search criteria in Search box and click the Go button. Or

Select one of the alphabetical search links.

In the Products List page, list of products are displayed as per search criteria.

Creating List Views

(Access Privilege: Read/Write permission)


In the Product List you can create/modify/delete the custom views, sort columns in the list view (ascending/descending order), search the records available in the current list view. In addition, you can modify some of the columns in standard list views. By default, the following standard list views are available in the Products module:


All Products

My Products

Active Products

Note: User created list views are displayed under User Created Views category in View drop-down list.



To create custom views


Click the Products tab.

In the Products Home page, under Product List section, click the Create View link.


Note: Under the Product List section some of the standard list views are displayed. You can only rearrange the order of columns and more columns.



In the Create New View page, do the following:

In the View Information section, specify name of the custom view in the View Name (mandatory) field. The custom view name appears in the View drop-down list. You can also set the custom view as a default list view by selecting the Set as Default View check box.


In the Specify Criteria section, specify the filter criteria. For more details refer to the Specifying List View Criteria section.

In the Choose Columns section, select the columns to be displayed in the List View. For more details refer to the Selecting List View Columns section.

In the Accessibility Details section, select the users to whom custom list view has to be enabled. For more details refer to the Enabling View Access section.

Click Save. The custom list view is displayed in the View drop-down list.

Creating Products

(Access Privilege: Read/Write permission)


In Zoho CRM, you can store product details by entering data in product detail form.


Note: Some of the standard fields listed below may not be visible/editable depending on your organization business process and field-level security settings. In case your organization added/modified fields please contact your System Administrator for more details about usage of the other fields.



In the Product: Edit form, you need to specify the product-related information. The following table provides descriptions of the various fields in the form.


List of Standard Product-related Fields


Field Name Description Data Type

Product Name* Specify the name of the product. This field is mandatory. Text box, alphanumeric (50)

Product Code Specify the product identification. Text box, alphanumeric (40)

Product Active Specify the status of the product. Check box

Commission Rate Specify the commission rate for selling the product. Text box, decimal ()

Qty/Unit Specify the quantity rate for selling the product. Decimal

Unit Price Specify the unit price of the product. Decimal

Manufacturer Select the name of the product manufacturer. Pick list

Product Category Select the category of the product. Pick list

Purchase Date Select the date of purchase from the calendar. Date

Support Start Date Select the date on which the product support starts. Date

Support Expiry Date Select the date on which the product support ends. Date

Description Specify any other details about product. Text area (long text)



To create products individually


Click the New Product link.

In the Product: page, specify the product details.


Note: Product Name is a mandatory field. Refer to the List of Standard Product-related Fields section for more details.



Click Save.

Importing Products

(Access Privilege: Data Import permission)


Importing product details from external source to the CRM system is one of the most important activities while migrating data from legacy systems to Zoho CRM.


You can import products, if you are authorized to perform this operation. Otherwise, Import Products button in Products Home page will be hidden in your user interface. By default, product ownership is held up with the users, who import the products. You can change the product ownership while importing by adding a product owner column in import (CSV/XLS) file and map to the Assigned To field. This will automatically assign products to particular users. Use the exact Zoho CRM users' names while creating the product import file, otherwise product details are not created in Zoho CRM.


Tips:


Before importing products into Zoho CRM, you must have the products details in a CSV/XLS file.

You must have privilege to import the products in Zoho CRM.

Before importing the products into Zoho CRM close the CSV/XLS file and the Spreadsheet program.

Remove apostrophe any place in the CSV file (For example, ABC's).

You can import a maximum of 1000 products in one import cycle.





To import product details from external sources


Click the Products tab.

In the Products: Home page under Product Tools section, click the Import Products button.

In the Import Products page, browse the Products-related data in CSV/XLS format and then click the Submit button.

In the Fields Mapping page, map the CSV/XLS column header with product related fields in Zoho CRM.

Click the Import button. It will take a few seconds to complete the importation.

In the Products: Home page, imported products are displayed under the Products List section. You can continue the importation further or complete the operation.

Associating Products with Other Records

(Access Privilege: Read permission)


You can create a 360-degrees view of the product to display all the associated details, such as products, trouble tickets, open activities, history of the completed activities, attachments, and notes:


Price Books: To add different list prices to the product.

Open Activities: To add tasks and events to product.

Closed Activities: To display the closed tasks and events to product.

Cases: To add cases to the product.

Solutions: To add solutions to the product.

Attachments: To attach documents to the product.

Notes: To add notes to the product.

To associate Products with other Records


Click the Products tab.

In the Products Home page, under the Product List section, select the required product.

In the Product: <Product Name> page, do the following:

Edit the Product details.

Create activities, such as tasks and events.

Attach documents and notes.

You can close the Product page once all the required information is updated for the product.

Changing Product Owner

(Access Privilege: Read/Write permissions)


It may be very useful to change the owner of some of the products when there are changes in your organization structure. You can change the owner of a single product or multiple products.


To change owner of products individually


Click the Products tab.

In the Products: Home page, select the product.

In the Product: <Product Name> page, click the Edit button.

In the Product: <Product Name> page, change the product owner from the Product Owner lookup field.

Click Save to update the product owner.

To change owner of products in bulk


Click the Products tab.

In the Products: Home page, go to the Product List section and select the check boxes corresponding to the products. You can also select all the products.

Click the Change Owner button.

In the Products: Change Owner page, select the user from the Select New Owner pick list and click the Update Owner button to change the owner of the products permanently.


Note: Products ownership will be changed to another user, irrespective of its existing owner. Use this operation carefully, otherwise products belonging to different users will be changed to new user. To overcome this problem, first you may search the products with a required owner name then change the owner in bulk.


Exporting Products

(Access Privilege: Data Export permissions)


Occasionally, it is very useful to export the products from Zoho CRM to a spreadsheet programs for further data analysis.


To export products to external sources


Click the Products tab.

In the Products: Home page under the Product Tools section, click the Export All Products button.

In the File Download pop-up dialog, click Save to save the Products files in *.CSV file format

Printing Product Details

(Access Privilege: Read permission)


You can view a printable form and print the product details using browser’s Print function.


To print product details


Click the Products tab.

In the Products: Home page, go to the Products List section and select the required product.

In the Product: < Product Name> page click the Printable View link.

In the Product: < Product Name> page, click the Print Page button to print the document.

Viewing Reports

(Access Privilege: Read permission)


You can directly access some of the standard reports pertaining to products from the Products Reports section. By default, the following reports are displayed under Products module:


Products by Category

Products by Support Termination date

Products by Cases

To view products report



Click the Products tab.

In the Products: Home page, go to the Products Reports section.

Click the required report link. The report is displayed in Reports page, which can be further customized as per your requirements.

For more details about reports customization refer to Chapter 19: Working with Reports.


Deleting Products

(Access Privilege: Read/Write/Delete permission)


Rarely, you may need to remove the unnecessary products, which are not tracked further. This will help you manage your products in a better way. You can delete products either individually or in bulk.


Warning: The deleted potentials are temporarily stored in Recycle Bin. If required you can restore the deleted potentials again. But if you delete potentials from Recycle Bin, you cannot restore again.



To delete products individually


Click the Products tab.

In the Products: Home page, select the product to be deleted.

In the Product: <Product Name> page, click Delete.

In the Confirmation dialog, click OK to delete the product permanently.

To delete products in bulk


Click the Products tab.

In the Products: Home page under the Products List section, select the products to be deleted using the Select check box.

Click the Delete button.

In the Confirmation dialog, click OK to delete the selected products permanently.

Customizing Products

(Access Privilege: Customize ZohoCRM.com permission)


Customization of the Products module includes, renaming the tab name, modifying the pick list values in standard fields, adding new custom fields, modifying Product page layout, and show/hide the related list views according to your Product catalog management process requirements.


For more details, refer to Customizing Zoho CRM


Customizing Tax Rates

To be started




27 Comments

shahtc, 253 - days ago


as discussed, product should be integrated with customer account.... when we open the product, we can see which customers are buying that product.


colin@positionmeonline.com, 233 - days ago


I was adding a new product, and wanting to describe a service which was packaged with 1.5 hours of training. Usage Unit was 'Hours', and Qty/Unit = 1.5. But your form didn't allow me to use '1.5', forcing me to put it at '2'. FYI.


Adam, 197 - days ago


Colin,<br><br>We will fix it at the earliest. Thanks for your time and effort to bring the issue to our knowledge.<br><br>Thanks,<br>Adam.


Guest, 151 - days ago


any way to save images tied to specific products?


Zoho CRM, 150 - days ago


We are working on it and your request will be considered for our future updates.


Thanks,

Adam.


Antony Tersol, 135 - days ago


On the product details / product information page, there is a field for vendor name, lookup comes from vendors.


The field isn't present in the Product field list, so when importing a product file, there's no way to associate existing field, so have to enter manually for each record.


Any way around this?


Antony Tersol, 135 - days ago


I see, it is present on the import Map Fields.


How does it get specifiied to be on the product page, when it doesn't appear on the field list?


Shirley Ng, 128 - days ago


I agree that a product should be associated with customers. It would also be nice if we could upload / hot link multiple images to a product.


Shirley Ng, 128 - days ago


Another request : associate a product with Sales Orders, Quotes and Invoices, so that when we see a number in the "QTY in demand" field, we can scroll down and find out who is ordering how many of that product. Same with quotes and invoices.


Zoho CRM, 127 - days ago


Hi Shirley,


We have plans to implement the image for the products. Once its done, we will keep posted the update.


Thanks,

Adam.


Appealing Signs, 122 - days ago


Like comment No.2.... we find that only using whole numbers in the "Qty ordered" field is very frustrating. We work in meterage, and need to charge part meters at times. Also the same for hourly rates. One other thing that is also annoying is that the same product can't be chosen more than once. We may produce many jobs for a client from the same materials. We need to be able to do this. The same goes for hours. It would also be far better if we had custom descriptions available "on-the-fly". So that we could describe exactly what each item is for.

ie. 3 hours fixing hole in wall

2 hours painting wall.


etc etc


Zoho CRM, 108 - days ago


Hi Shirley Ng,


We have plans to bring customization of the fields that you see in the sections. Once that is implemented, you can bring the necessary field that you have for the customer regarding how many product he/she has requested. With this you will get all the information in the same module.


Thanks,

Adam.


Zoho CRM, 108 - days ago


Hi Appealing Signs,


We will consider your request and will analyze and try to include it to our future road map.


Thanks,

Adam.


mywald, 59 - days ago


Is there a way to create an assembly of parts and subassemblies of parts to define a completed product?


amar_try, 59 - days ago


Hi mywald,


Yes. You may goto Setup --> Product Settings --> Fields List and create the custom fields with the assembly parts and sub assemblies of parts to have the complete product details in the Product tab.


Thanks,

Adam.


psanner, 55 - days ago


When i want to bill hours of a freelancer at a fixed rate i would like to do the following:


Having the freelancer as a vendor

Having his rate as a product.


But this force me to have an "inventory" of hours for that vendor.


How can i circumvent this? Especially for consulting "products" not having the inventory "on" would be very helpful. Any recommendations?


Thanks


Peter


Edo, 25 - days ago


I'm new to Zoho CRM.



How can I make report to see a list of buyer/vendors of selected product?



Even better, to see when the buyer make SO of product, quantity, etc.



Thanks,


Edo


amar_try, 24 - days ago


Hi Edo,


You will be able to create a new report on Vendors module and select the related modules that you want to get information from and set the criteria to show based on the specified product.


You may also have different fields with the information that when will the buyers will make the SO and have a field to mention the quantity to get the report based on the criteria that you give.


Thanks,

Adam.


guest, 24 - days ago


any news on the images of specific product ???



is there any way i can use multiple filters or criteria for search?


amar_try, 23 - days ago


Hi,


Currently providing the product image feature is not available. As a work around, you may provide the product image's location in the custom field (Text Field).


Ex: <img src = "http://www.website.com/image.jpeg">


Search using multiple filters will be added to our road map and we will keep posted the update once the feature is done.


Thanks,

Adam.


olivermaxwell, 11 - days ago


Hi,


I want to create a suite of subscription based products - starting with paid membership of my organisation. I need to be able to record the sale of each "membership" with date started, date renewal due, and ideally sending an email to the account manager to automate renewals and welcome messages.


Is there a 'subscription' template for products? Help please!


Oliver


amar_try, 11 - days ago


Hi Oliver,


Currently we don't have the feature you request. We will analyze and take it up for our future roadmap.


Thanks,

Adam.


Guest, 8 - days ago


Hi,



I want to be able to make up a product by combining a number of products together to make up a kit.



Is this possible?


amar_try, 8 - days ago


Hi,


Yes. You can have the main products in the drop-down field and have the sub products in a single Multi-Select pick list. Once you select the main product, you can select the sub products for that from the multi-select pick list. Currently auto-populating of the sub-products is not available. We will be including that in our future updates.


Thanks,

Adam.


guiwald, 1 - day ago


Hi,

As Peter, I would like to sell "hours". But I need to have this "product" in my inventory.


In other way, is there a specific way to manage "services" and not "products" ?


amar_try, 10 - hours ago


Hi guiwald,


Yes you can have the product in the inventory modules in the Product Name section. With the help of the lookup you will be able to add the products from the product module/tab and calculate the amount by entering the number in quantity.


If you want to work with Services, you may goto Setup --> Tab Settings --> Rename tabs and rename the existing Products tab to Services tab and use it with the fields that you need by customizing it from Setup --> Product Settings --> Fields List.


Thanks,

Adam.


Vora, 0 - seconds ago


Adam,


We want all our sales reps to be able to view our products, is there any way we can assign the products to all sales reps. They all sell the same products.


Thank you,

Nisarg

Hi Nisarg,

You may goto Setup --> Admin Settings --> Data Sharing Settings and change the Products module with Public access so that all the sales reps will be able to access the products.

Thanks,
Adam.

Is there any way I can specify a secondary source (Vendor) for a product other than as a Text field?

Hi drosene@virtuals.us,

You can goto Setup --> Product Settings --> Fields List to add a look up type field and choose the Vendor from the drop down. This will help you to link the Product and Vendor with the secondary information.

Thanks,
Adam.

Our product is a monthly subscription for our service. Is there anything like that in the product settings?