Zoho Connect Basics
What is Zoho Connect?
Zoho Connect is a team collaboration software, that lets you bring together your employees, partners, vendors and everybody who adds value to your work, and also, provides you with the space and the right tools to communicate and get work done faster.
How can Zoho Connect help businesses to communicate better?
With Zoho Connect, you have access to many tools that can help you share and discuss better, together:
- Post a message or update on your wall, or the network or group wall, and get conversations started.
- Start private conversations with anyone in your network.
- Smart Chat that lets you have a one-on-one conversation with anyone in your network.
- Chat channels to hold discussions in real-time.
What type of businesses can use Zoho Connect?
Zoho Connect is for businesses and teams of any size, and from any industry. If you want a secure platform to collaborate with all your co-workers, and get work done, then Zoho Connect is for you.
Zoho Connect Security
How secure is Zoho Connect?
Zoho Connect provides users with a secure collaborative platform. To know more about the security policy, click here.
What is two-factor authentication in Zoho Connect?
Two-factor authentication is an additional step to make sure your account remains safe and sound. Here's how it works: After you provide your Zoho Connect login credentials, you will be prompted to enter a code, that you can either receive as a text message to your registered number or generate it using an app, say, OneAuth. Once you enter the code, your login is complete, and you will be directed to your Zoho Connect page.
Creating a network
How to create a Network in Zoho Connect?
When you sign up for Zoho Connect, you will be prompted to choose between an internal and an external network. The internal network brings together all the members in your team or organization, and an external network lets your partners, vendors, clients and other stakeholders be a part of it.
How many networks can I be a part of?
Internal Network: You can be a part of only one internal network at a time. To join another internal network, you will have to be removed from the existing one.
External Network: You can any be a part of any number of external networks.
What is the difference between Internal network and External networks?
An internal network is exclusively for teams to share ideas with each other, discuss and work together. External networks also come with the same set of features as the internal, but you can add your partners, clients, vendors, and other stakeholders and work together with them.
How do I delete a network?
You can delete your Zoho Connect network if you are the organization admin. To do this, you need to open the drop-down menu in the top-right corner of the page, click on Setup, and then click on Delete Network. You can backup your data before deleting the network by clicking Export.
Zoho Connect Setup
Can I add my company's logo to Zoho Connect?
Your company logo can be added to Zoho Connect in the free & enterprise plans. To do this, you need to be the organization administrator. From the drop-down menu in the top-right corner of your page, click on Settings, and then click Customization. Under Logo & Favicon, you will be able to see the existing ones. Click Change, right next to the image to upload a different one.
Can I upgrade, downgrade or cancel anytime?
The organization administrator can upgrade, downgrade or cancel the subscription, anytime. To do this, click on Manage Subscription, from the drop-down menu in the top-right corner of the page. In the new page, you can review your existing plan, choose a different one, and cancel your subscription.
How do I change the language in Zoho Connect?
Each user can change the language in Zoho Connect by following these steps:
- Go to Zoho Accounts (https://accounts.zoho.com/)
- Click on My Profile Info -> Personal information
- Look for Language -> select your preferred language and then click on Save.
- Now you can go to your Zoho Connect network and refresh your browser once in order to view the changes.
- Zoho Connect supports the following languages: Arabic | Assamese | Bengali | Burmese | Chinese | Traditional Chinese (Taiwan) | Czech | Danish | Dutch | Finnish | French | German | Gujarati | Hebrew | Hindi | Hungarian | Indonesian | Irish | Italian | Japanese | Kannnada | Korean | Malay | Marathi | Norwegian | Polish | Portuguese | Portuguese (Brazilian) | Punjabi | Romanian | Russian | Spanish | Swedish | Tamil | Telugu | Thai | Turkish | Urdu | Vietnamese
When I try to add a member to Zoho Connect, I get an error message saying, "Already a member of another internal network". What should I do?
When you get this error, it means the person you are trying to invite is already a part of another organization account. A user can be a part of only one organization at a time, and he/she can't be a part of your network until they leave the existing one.
If the person you are trying to add is an org admin, then he/she can follow the below steps to delete the organization. If not, then the org admin has to be contacted to delete the organization:
- Access the Zoho Org control panel - https://mail.zoho.com/cpanel/index.do.
- Under Dashboard, select Delete Organization.
- Click on Delete and enter the password to confirm.
Note that deleting an organization would also delete all the data across the organization based services in that account.
What is the difference between an Org admin and Network admin?
Org admin manages the entire network and can add users, and access all the options under setup. Network admins also help with the same by managing the settings in the Network wall, but they cannot invite users. To know more about roles and permissions in Zoho Connect click here
My feed & Company wall
What is My feed in Zoho Connect?
"My Feed" is a dedicated space that gives you a real-time view of activities on the company wall and groups you are a part of, and updates from co-workers you follow. You can post updates, create events or polls, and choose to share them on the company wall, or group wall. You can also choose to share a post privately with a specific set of people or groups.
How does company wall work in Zoho Connect?
Company wall can be used to post network-wide announcements. Any message posted to the company wall is visible to all members of the network, and all of them can participate in it as well.
What is the difference between Network wall and My Feed?
The company wall or network wall is for announcements and messages to be made or sent to the entire network. All members of the network will be able to view and comment on posts made on the network wall. My Feed is a dedicated space for posts related to the individual user. Each user gets their own My Feed page, where they are updated in real-time on posts where they've been @mentioned, and posts made in groups they are a part of, or if any of the groups has been mentioned in a post. Network-wide updates also appear in the My Feed page.
Groups
How to create groups in Zoho Connect?
Based on the permissions, admins and users can create groups anytime. Go to the 'Groups' section in the left menu and click the '+' icon next to 'My Groups'.
What are the different types of groups that one can create in Zoho Connect?
With Zoho Connect, you can create three types of groups:
Open: In this type, all members in the network can join and participate in the group. To be a part of an open group, all you have to is click on "Join", seen in the right, next to the name of the group in the "All Groups" page.
Public: The posts made in these groups can be viewed by all members in the network, and they can participate in it as well, but only the admin can add members, and only the group members can access the apps within the group.
Private: Only those who are part of this group can view, participate, and access all the apps in the group.
How many groups can we create in Zoho Connect?
You can create up to 15 groups in both internal and external network for the free plan. You can create any number of groups in the enterprise plans.
Can all network members create private groups?
If you are the org admin, you can allow all members in your network to create private groups, or you can give the privilege only to network admins. You can do this by opening your "Setup" page, and then clicking on "Policies" under "Network Settings".
Events
How can I create events in Zoho Connect?
You can click on the Calendar icon on top of the post editor. You can fill in the details of your event, invite members to be a part of it, and post it on your wall or a specific group wall. Or you could go to a group and create an event within it. You can also create an event by going to the 'Events' tab on the left menu.
Can I integrate my events with the external calendar apps?
Zoho Connect offers a Calendar integration that lets you add events to Zoho Calendar, Google Calendar, iCloud Calendar and Outlook Calendar.
Custom Apps
What are custom apps and how can I use them?
Custom Apps lets you create your own app, to suit the needs of your team. Zoho Connect's custom app builder has a simple drag-and-drop interface. All you have to do is place all the items you need inside the app-builder, and the app is ready in no time.
Do I need coding knowledge to create a custom app?
No coding needed to build your custom app, just drag and drop the things you need, and the app you need can be built easily.
How many custom apps I can create inside a network?
For enterprise users, there is no limit on the number of custom apps that can be created at the network or group level. Users who are in the free plan can create up to 5 custom apps at network level. Custom apps at group level cannot be created in the free plan.
Data Export
How to export data from Zoho Connect?
To export your data from Zoho Connect, you need to be a network admin. From the drop-down menu in the top-right corner of the page, select Setup, and then Export, and click on New Export. The export will include all public conversations in users' wall and public groups. You can choose to export all data, or select a few to be exported, and also select a time period for the export data. You can choose between JSON and XML for your data files, and these will be available as a .zip file download. You will receive an email when the export is ready for download.
What data can be exported?
The following data can be exported: Conversations or posts, blogs, wiki.
- Conversations or posts and Manuals belonging to the entire network, or public groups can be exported by using the Select Location option.
- The same cannot be done for Forums as it is available only at the network level.
Chat & Private Conversations
How can I start a private conversation with any member?
To send a private conversation, click the lock icon in the post editor and type out the person's username or group names with an "@", and hit the share button.
How to access the chat function in Zoho Connect?
The chat function can be seen at the bottom of your screen. You can click on Smart Chat to start a conversation with anyone in your network. You could also add your co-workers to the 'Contacts' to quickly start a chat with them.
Mobile Apps
Can I use Zoho Connect on my mobile?
Yes, with the Zoho Connect Android and iOS mobile apps, you can access Zoho Connect from anywhere you want to.