Canvas for Zoho CRM
Implementation for Zylker Realtors

The Context

Zylker Realtors is a full service commercial brokerage company based in New York. They manage their property management needs in Zoho CRM. They have a database of their property enquiries, clients, property listings, builders and so on in their CRM under different modules.

While they can carry out their day-to-day activities in CRM and engage with customers perfectly well, there are a few hassles when it specifically comes to the detail page of each record.

Multiple teams referring to a single standard layout

Zylker Realtors has three major teams working on every deal.

While all of them have access to a customer record, each team is focused on a different aspect of the customer record.

While the real estate agent needs to know primary deal details, property details and upcoming activities, the marketing specialist is more interested in social media conversations and campaign details. Similarly the legal team's focus is more on the documentation aspects of the deal such as contracts and terms.

However, all three teams have access to a single database where every detail is present, which could clutter the page and make each team run around the system for details that they specifically need for their processes.

Create profile-based custom layouts using Canvas

Canvas offers the flexibility to not only organize data components according to the needs of an organization, it goes an additional step further to let an admin customize the layout for each department in the organization. This profile-based customization is a key feature of Canvas that will solve the challenges of Zylker Realtors.

So with the Canvas layout, Zylker could have an Agent View and a Marketing Specialist view and a Legal team view for the same customer record.

You can create multiple detail-page views for different profiles using Canvas. So essentially the same set of details on a record detail page can be reorganized differently for different profiles based on their responsibilities and functions. For instance, following are two views for the same customer "Chloe Meyer"— one is ideal for the real estate agent and the other for the marketing team.  

In both pages, what is relevant for a particular team has been made available to them immediately when they access the page. Other details have been organized in the form of multiple switchable tabs.

Therefore Canvas addresses the challenges of Zylker Realtors by offering the flexibility to design different views of the same record based on the functions of different teams. This profile-based customization goes a long way in making the detail page more relevant and contextual for the user. Zylker users now no longer have to rely on a single standard view for multiple teams.

How to create profile-based custom layouts using Canvas

To create a Canvas layout,

For this Canvas Layout called the Agent View, the design plan is for the page to be separated into three major parts:

Canvas Page Design Plan

Part 1

The first part of the page will have Client details column on the left . This will contain four sections:

Part 2

The second major part of the Canvas view will be the Overview tab taking up most of the page to represent the following data components:

Part 3

The second major part of the Canvas view will be the Overview tab taking up most of the page to represent the following data components:

To execute the design for this plan, do the following actions as mentioned below in the Canvas Builder.

Part 1 — Client Details column on the left

Follow the steps below to build the Client Details column on the left.

Part 2 — The Overview Tab

Follow the instructions below to build the Overview tab on the Agents View Canvas

Part 3 — Other Tabs

Click the Plus icon right next to the Overview Tab and add the following related lists in the form of tabs:

Resize each of these related lists (under each tab) to cover the top fold of the page.

That's a wrap! You now have a good draft of the Agents View. Save the layout. Under Canvas Assignment, make sure to enable the Agent View Canvas as the default layout for the Real Estate Agents Profile.

Note: These are the suggested steps. Feel free to resize components, style them differently and place them where you see fit for your context.

While the Agents View is ready, it may not be ideal for other teams in the organization. For instance, the marketing team is more interested in social media conversations, emails and campaign details. So the Zylker could simply clone the Agents View and alter the following details alone, to create the Marketing Canvas view.

Change #1 — Background

Change #2 — Enquiry Source highlighted:

Change #3 — The Social and Campaigns related lists are given focus under the Overview tab.

Note: These are the suggested steps. Feel free to resize components, style them differently and place them where you see fit for your context.

You now have a good draft of the Marketing Canvas View. Save the layout. Under Canvas Assignment, make sure to enable the Marketing Canvas View as the default layout for the Marketing specialists Profile.

That's a wrap! You now have not only created a tailor-made design for your page, you have created profile-based canvas layouts that are customized for different functions of two different teams.

This addresses Zylker's solution of profile-based customization for the problem of multiple teams dealing with the same database for their various activities.