Understand page layouts with a scenario 

Here is a simple scenario in which we will demonstrate the use of page layouts in Zoho CRM. With this as an example, you will be able to implement page layouts for your organization depending on your company’s requirements.

Assume that there is a large-scale mobile phone sales and services company called Zylker Mobiles. They sell brand new phones and also accommodate mobile phone service requests. The sales and service of mobile phones follow a different set of processes.

• The assessment of requirements for sales is different from that of mobile service. While a request for the purchase of a mobile phone may call for stock verification first, a request for mobile phone service calls for issue assessment.
  
• The people in charge of mobile sales are different from those in charge of mobile service.
  
• The follow-up processes for mobile sales are different from that of mobile service.
  

Below is the list of actions we are going to follow in order to demonstrate the use of page layouts in Zoho CRM for Zylker Mobiles.

Part I – Building Page layouts

• Create two layouts - Mobile Sales and Mobile Service in the Deals module.
  
• Build the two layouts with the required fields and sections. The deal stages for Mobile Sales are going to be different from that of Mobile Service.
  

Part II - Choosing layouts on record creation

• Demonstrate the choice of layout during the creation of a record, be it via import, web-forms, APIs or the individual creation of a record.
  

Part III – Understanding the layout field

• Understand how the layout field can be used to create layout based custom views, auto-follow rules, approval process and lead assignment rules.
  

Part IV – Setting up workflow rules

• Set workflow rules required for mobile sales and mobile service layouts depending on the processes followed at Zylker Mobiles.
  
• Demonstrate the execution of workflow processes as configured for the layouts.
  

PART V – Creating reports and dashboards

• Create reports and dashboards for a module based on the page layout.
  

To create a new layout

1. Go to  Setup > Customization > Modules and Fields .
   
2. From the list of available modules, click the module for which you wish to create a new layout.
   
3. In the  Module Layout  page, click  Create New Layout.
   
4. Name the layout –  Mobile Sales  and add fields and sections to the layout as required.
   
5. Once all the fields have been added, click  Save Layout.
   
6. On saving the layout, you will be prompted to define the permissions for the layout. In the  Layout Permission  popup, enter the user profiles that will have access to the layout.
   
7. Now clone this layout by clicking  Create New Layout. 
   
   
8. In the  Create New Layout  popup, choose which layout to clone this new layout from.
     
   
9. Name the  Layout  as  Mobile Service  and add new fields to the layout as required.
     
   
10. Once you have created the required fields, click  Save Layout.
    
11. On saving the layout, you will be prompted to enter the user profiles that will have access to the layout. Enter the profiles and click  Save .
    

Now, both the layouts of the  Deals  module –  Mobile Sales  and  Mobile Service  have been created.

Quick Create Form

The quick create tab in the layout will let you capture information related to look-up records. You can customize the form by adding fields aside from the system-defined default fields. It is layout-specific, so you can create different forms for each layout.

To add fields in quick create form

1. Go to Setup > Customization > Modules and Fields.
   
2. From the list of available modules, click the module for which you wish to create a new layout.
   
3. In the Module Layout page, click Quick Create.
   
4. Drag and drop fields as required.
   
5. Click Save.
   

Detail View Tab

The detail view tab has two components: Business card and Related list. You can customize the business card by adding upto 5 standard or custom fields. Like quick create, detail view is also layout specific so you can create different detail view for each layout. 

You can drag and drop fields to the related list section, re-order or modify the columns in the list view and create custom related lists.

 To add fields in business card

1. Go to Setup > Customization > Modules and Fields.
   
2. From the list of available modules, click the module for which you wish to create a new layout.
   
3. In the Module Layout page, click Detail View.
   
4. In the Business card, click Customize.
   
5. Select the fields. You can choose upto 5 fields.
   
6. Click Done.
   
   The record detail page will display the customized business card.
   
   
   
   

To customize related list fields

1. In the Detail View page, scroll down to the Record's Related List. 
   
2. Click Customize > select Fields that you want to be displayed.
   
3. Click Save.
   You can also add a new related list by clicking on the add icon.

Assign Layouts to User Profiles

When you create multiple layouts, you can control how users view and access the layout. Using Layout Assignment, you can assign layouts to profiles.

Besides assigning layouts to user profiles, you can also specify which layout must be the default layout for the profile. The layout that a record belongs to can always be changed later, if required. 

Choose layouts on record creation

After you have created the layouts, you will be able to choose the layout at different record entry points. Some of them are mentioned below. In our example, whenever you create a deal, you will be prompted to choose which layout the deal has to be created in.

• Creating records individually
  
  
• Importing records
  
  
• Records via web forms (leads/contacts/cases)
  
  
• Records via APIs:  When records are pushed to CRM via APIs, they are pushed to the layout defined by the Layout ID in the API. If a layout is not defined for a record, it is assigned to the Standard Layout for the module.
  

Understand the layout field

When you create a new layout for a module, a system-generated field called  Layout  gets created along with other fields automatically. The Layout field carries the layout name through which the record is generated in the layout.
  

Since the Layout field is another CRM field, you can use this field in various CRM functions such as creating custom views, automation of record assignment, approval process and auto-follow rules.

Creating custom views

You can create custom views based on the layout. For example, a custom view called  Mobile Service deals  will enable a user to easily see all records that belong to the  Mobile Service  layout.

Auto-follow rules

You can choose to auto-follow your peers’ records that belong to particular layout. This way, you will be notified of any changes made to the record via Feeds in Zoho CRM.

 

Lead assignment rules

You can automate assignment of leads/contacts/cases to CRM users based on the layout that they belong to. For example, you can create a rule that says all leads that belong to the  Mobile Sales  layout should be assigned to a particular sales rep.
  

This way, leads that come in via webforms and other third-party integrations such as Google Ads will be automatically assigned to the user mentioned in the assignment rule. When an assignment rule is not mentioned, the record will be automatically assigned to the Standard layout for the module.

Approval process automation

You can also automate the submission of records from a particular layout for approval by managers.
  

Setting up workflow rules

Zylker Mobiles requires several processes to be automated for the Deals modules. Following are some of them.

• Whenever the stage of a deal in the Mobile Sale layout is Closed Won, assign a task called “Initiate QA and Dispatch” to Charles Stone.
  
• Whenever the stage of a deal in the Mobile Service layout is Closed Won, assign a task called “Initiate Service” to Fathima Yilmaz.
  
• Whenever the Stage of a deal is updated to Issue Assessment, send an alert to the associated contact - “Your request is being assessed”.
  
• Whenever the field “Reason for return” in the Mobile Sales layout is updated to Faulty device, automatically move the record from Mobile Sales to the Mobile Service layout.
  

If you look at these processes, most of them are dependent on the layout. Let us see how to create workflow rules in each of these cases.

Whenever the stage of a deal in the  Mobile Sale  layout is Closed Won, assign a task called “Initiate QA and Dispatch” to Charles Stone.

Create a new workflow rule for the  Deals  module.   
  

Choose to execute on  a record action . Select the  Rule Trigger  as  Edit. 

 Set the Rule Criteria as the following:

• Stage is Closed Won
  
  AND
  
• Layout is Mobile Sales
  
  

This way, only when both the criteria are met, the workflow rule will be executed. This ensures that the task is created only when a deal from the Mobile Sales layout is updated to Closed Won.  

Assign a task  – Initiate QA and dispatch  – to the respective sales rep – in this case, Charles Stone.

Now, whenever Zylker Motors wins a mobile sale deal, a task will be automatically assigned to Charles Stone for him to initiate dispatch.

Result of the rule 

The stage of a deal called  Big Deal – April , from the  Mobile Sales Layout  has been updated to  Closed Won .

The task  Initiate QA and dispatch  is now automatically assigned to Charles Stone.
  

Similarly let us look at how the workflow processes for the rest of the cases are configured.

Whenever the stage of a deal in the  Mobile Service  layout is Closed Won, assign a task called “Initiate Service” to Fathima Yilmaz.

This is similar to the previous case. The only difference is that in the Rule Criteria, in stead of Layout is Mobile Sales, you will mention that Layout is Mobile Service and then create a task for Fathima Yilmaz.

This way, whenever Zylker Motors wins a mobile service deal, a task will be automatically assigned to Fathima Yilmaz for her to initiate service.

Result of the rule  

The stage of a deal called  Service- large scale , from the  Mobile Service Layout  has been updated to  Closed Won . The task  Initiate Service  is now automatically assigned to Fathima Yilmaz.

Whenever the Stage of a deal is updated to  Issue Assessment , send an alert to the associated contact  - “Your request is being assessed”.

In this case, it is  not  required for you to mention the Layout type in the rule criteria, as this stage occurs only in the Mobile Service layout in our example.

Result of the rule 

The stage of a deal called  April service enquiry , associated to contact, David Smith, from the  Mobile Service Layout  has been updated to  Issue Assessment . The email “ Your request is being assessed”  is now automatically sent to David. 

A very powerful feature of layouts is that you can automate the shift of a record from one layout to another by writing a simple workflow rule for field update. Let us look at this case with an example.

Customers may sometimes return mobile phones they purchased for many reasons. In most cases, the reason for return is that their device was faulty. So in Zylker Mobiles, they decide to automatically move the return of faulty devices from the  Mobile sales  layout to their  Mobile service  section.

Let’s say there is a field called “Reason for Return” in the Mobile Sales layout. If this field is updated to “Faulty device”, the layout should be updated to Mobile Service.

Result of the rule 

Now when the  Reason for Return  field is updated to  Faulty device , the record is automatically moved to the  Mobile Service layout.

Create reports based on multiple layouts

You can also create reports and dashboards for a module based on the different layouts created for the module. For example, the Zylker Mobiles team would like to know the sum of deals in the Mobile Services layout as against that of the Mobile Sales layout.

Here is a Summary report of deals grouped based on the Layout and the corresponding activity information. 

Here is the report:
  

From the report, you can also create a dashboard for the same information.