When your manager wants to have a word with you regarding a potential customer and the possibility of winning a deal, you may not always prefer to sit in a conference room and discuss the details. When you want to give a quick update about the latest developments in organizing a user conference, having a meeting might seem best. However, it would take up your valuable time in booking meeting rooms, notifying others, and making the necessary arrangements for the meeting.

Zoho CRM and Slack teams up to give you the option to be where you are and attend these discussions. It would definitely be a time saver. So the next time you want to get an update on a deal, you need not send an email or book a meeting room. You can just share the CRM record with your team on Slack and ask an update on it.

With this integration you can:

• Share records with users and channels in Slack to start a discussion. This includes all the modules that have a business card view.
• Share a chart from a CRM report or dashboard with users and channels in Slack.
• Create an instant action associated to a workflow rule that can notify users or channel members in a team on Slack .
• Get reminders in Slack for all the activities in your CRM calendar.

Availability

Set up Slack Integration

The user with the administrator profile needs to enable the integration first and add the team on Slack to Zoho CRM. CRM Data can be shared only to the users and channels in those teams.

To set up Slack integration

1. Go to Setup > Marketplace > All> Slack.
2. Click Setup now.
3. In the Slack integration page, click Add to Slack.
   
   If you had already added your teams to CRM, click Allow another team to add more.
4. In the pop-up, enter your team's Slackdomain and click Continue.
   If you are already logged in to your team on Slack, it will be listed in the pop-up. You can select one and authorize to integrate it with Zoho CRM.
5. Specify the email address and password for the Slack domain and click Signin.
   
6. View the list of items that Zoho CRM will be allowed to access in Slack and click Authorize.

Share a Record with a Team on Slack

You can share records with users and channels in Slack to start a discussion. This includes all the modules that have a business card view. Also, share a chart from a CRM report or dashboard with users and channels in Slack.

Note that, if you have not authorized data sharing before you will be prompted to do so when you share a record.

To share a record with a team on Slack

1. Click on a record that you want to share.
2. In the record detail's page, click for more options and then click Share via Slack.
3. In the pop-up, enter the following details:
   • Enter a message that needs to be posted along with the business card view in Slack.
   • Choose the Team on Slack from the drop-down list.
     Only the teams that the admin has added and you are part of will be listed.
   • Choose if you want to NotifyToUsers or Channels.
   • Based on the previous selection, choose the user/channel.
   • Click Save.
     

To share a report with a team on Slack

1. Click on a report that you want to share.
   Note that only reports with charts can be shared.
2. In the report's page, click ChartOptions > Share via Slack.
3. In the pop-up, enter the following details:
   • Enter a message that needs to be posted along with the report.
   • Choose the Team on Slack from the drop-down list.
     Only the teams that the admin has added and you are part of will be listed.
   • Choose if you want to NotifyToUsers or Channels.
   • Based on the previous selection, choose the user/channel.
   • Click Save.
     

Add Instant Action to Notify via Slack

When workflow rules are triggered, instant actions are executed immediately. One such instant action is to notify users in a team on Slack . For example, you created a workflow rule that is triggered when a big deal is won. In this workflow rule, you can create an instant action to notify your manager and team mates about the big deal. Sharing it via Slack gives you the advantage of having a two-way conversation instantly.

To add workflow instant action

1. Go to Settings > Setup > Automation > WorkflowRules.
2. In the WorkflowRules page, select a rule to which you want to add Slack notification as an instant action.
3. Click InstantActions > Notify > via Slack.
   
4. In the pop-up, enter the following details:
   • Enter a message that needs to be posted as notification.
     Enter # and select a field to include field values as part of the message.
     
   • Choose the team on Slack from the drop-down list.
     Only the teams that the admin has added and you are part of will be listed.
   • Choose if you want to NotifyToUsers or Channels.
   • Based on the previous selection, choose the user/channel.
   • Click Save.
     

Get Reminders for CRM Activities in Slack

This integration also provides reminders for events, tasks and calls scheduled in CRM. You can get timely reminders for all the activities scheduled in your calendar.

To turn on reminders via Slack

1. Go to Zoho CRM's Calendar.
2. Click Options > Preferences.
3. In the Preferences pop-up, clear the Turn off reminder via Slack checkbox.
4. Choose the team from the drop-down for which you want to turn on the reminder.
5. Click Save.
   

Enable SalesSignals notifications via Slack

Customer gets in touch with you via multiple communication touchpoints such as phone, chat, email, customer support tickets and so on. SalesSignals picks it up and provides real-time notifications whenever customers communicate via these channels. See Also SalesSignals

On integrating Zoho CRM with Slack you can choose to receive these SalesSignals notifications via Slack as well. This will help you promptly get back to your customer regardless of whether you are on Zoho CRM or Slack.

To enable SalesSignals notifications via Slack

1. In Zoho CRM, go to Setup > Channel > SalesSignals.
2. In the SalesSignalsSettings section, under the Slack column, select or clear checkboxes for the respective communication services.
   For example, if you select the Missed checkbox under Call you will begin receiving notifications on Slack for every missed call in Zoho CRM.
3. Once you have completed the settings, click Save.

Delete a Team on Slack from Zoho CRM

Users with Administrator profile can add as well as delete Team on Slack s that are added in Zoho CRM. On deleting, the particular team will be removed from the organization's CRM account and none of the users from the team will be able to post to it via Zoho CRM. Also, instant actions added in workflow rules will be deleted from the rule.

To delete a team on Slack

1. Log in to Zoho CRM with Administrator privileges.
2. Go to Setup > Marketplace > All > Slack.
3. Click Manage corresponding to the Slack Integration.
   All the teams added by the administrator will be listed.
4. Click on the Delete icon corresponding to the team on Slack that you want to delete.

Enter Slash commands to fetch CRM information

Often, when you have sales discussions with your teams on chat around a particular deal or a customer, you may wish to pull up further CRM information about a specific record in order to have a more contextual discussion. It might be a hassle to keep switching between Zoho CRM and Slack just to refer to a record. Now with this integration between the two applications in place, you can directly use Slash commands to fetch specific CRM records without leaving the chat window.

You can use the following slash command to fetch records from a module.

Purpose	Slash Command	Example
To fetch all records from a specific module	/zcrm module [value]	/zcrm leads

To further drill down your search, you can specify criteria in the slash commands. For instance, fetch "a lead whose last name is Smith and Company is Zylker and Phone starts with +1". This will give you fewer records, so it's easier to get to the right one.

There are two ways to narrow down your search.

1. Global search: Search for the value entered across CRM.
   Syntax: /zcrm module_name search_word
   Example: /zcrm leads zylker
   This will bring up all records in CRM that contain "Zylker".
    
2. Module search: Further drill down search by looking for a record in a specific module based on criteria.
   Syntax: /zcrm module_name [fieldlabel] comparator [value]
   Example: /zcrm leads [last name]=[watson]
   This will bring up all records from the Leads module, whose last name is "Watson".

Following are the comparators supported for each field type:

Field Type	Comparators supported
Text field	starts with (or) begins with ends with is (or) = contains
Number field	= > < >= <=
Boolean / Check box	is = (values specified can be true or false)

Example:

/zcrm leads [phone] starts with [555,234,912],[company] contains [zyl],[email] starts with [peter, smith],[company] is [zylker].

Meaning

(phone starts with 555 or 234 or 912) and (company contains zyl or company is zylker) and (email startswith peter or smith).

Following is a table that contains a list of slash commands you can enter and their examples.

Purpose	Slash Command	Example
To fetch all records from a specific module	/zcrm module [value]	/zcrm leads
To fetch a record with a defined field value	/zcrm module [field]=[value]	/zcrm leads [last name]=[watson]
To fetch a record with multiple defined values	/zcrm module [field1]=[value1] [field2]=[value2]	/zcrm leads [last name]=[watson] [lead source]=[tradeshow]
To fetch a record with in which the field value could be any of the values entered.	/zcrm module [field]=[value1,value2,value3]	/zcrm leads [lead source]=[webform, tradeshow, cold call]
To fetch a record in which the defined field starts with the mentioned value.	/zcrm module [field] starts with [value]	/zcrm contacts [first name] starts with [james]
To fetch a record in which the defined field ends with the mentioned value.	/zcrm module [field] ends with [value]	/zcrm contacts [last name] ends with [butler]
To fetch a record in which the defined field contains the mentioned value.	/zcrm module [field] contains [value]	/zcrm accounts [email] contains [onc]
To fetch a record in which the defined field is greater than the mentioned value.	/zcrm module [field] > [value]	/zcrm leads [annual revenue] > [50000]
To fetch a record in which the defined field is lesser than the mentioned value.	/zcrm module [field] < [value]	/zcrm deals [amount] < [20000]
To fetch a record in which the defined field is greater than/equal to the mentioned value.	/zcrm module [field] >= [value]	/zcrm deals [discount] >= [15]
To fetch a record in which the defined field is lesser than/equal to the mentioned value.	/zcrm module [field] <=[value]	/zcrm leads [age] <= [40]
To fetch a record in which the defined field is true/false as mentioned in the criteria.	/zcrm module [field] is [true/false]	/zcrm contacts [email opt out] is [true]

To enter a Slash command

1. Go to the particular chat window where you wish to share CRM info.
2. In the message box enter one of the commands seen above. Example,
   /zcrm leads smith
3. Once you enter the command, you will see the matching search results.
   This result is only visible to you, the current user.
4. To share this with fellow users, click the Share this [record] button.
   
   Now this record will be shared with your peers.

Deactivate Slack Integration

You can deactivate the entire integration by clicking on the Deactivate link. On deactivating, all the options in Zoho CRM to share via Slack will no longer be available.

To deactivate the Slack integration

1. Log in to Zoho CRM with Administrator privileges.
2. Go to Setup > Marketplace > All > Slack.
3. Click Manage corresponding to the Slack Integration.
4. Click the Deactivate link.