1. Zoho CRM: Old UI Retirement - 15 July 2026 Deadline
If you or anyone on your team is still using the old Zoho CRM interface, you need to act before 15 July, 2026. After that date, the old UI will be permanently retired and everyone will be automatically moved to the Next Gen UI.
The Next Gen UI, which Zoho calls CRM For Everyone, has been rolling out in phases over the past year, and most organisations are already on it. But if your team has been switching back to the old interface, that option disappears on 15 July. Zoho has been displaying in-product banners since late May 2026, and will continue showing reminders through to 13 July.
What's new in the Next Gen UI
The new interface brings a meaningful set of collaboration and visibility improvements:
- Teamspaces: a dedicated workspace for each team to manage their own modules
- Team Modules: custom modules teams can build and manage for their own processes
- Module Views: Split, Grid, Chart, and Timeline views across modules
- Connected Records and Workflows: link records across modules and automate actions across teams
- Interactions Tab: a single consolidated view of all customer touch points
- Zoho Projects integration: bring projects directly into your Teamspace
- Dark mode
The switch is automatic, so no action is required for the migration itself. But we strongly recommend making the move now rather than waiting. Switching early gives your team time to explore the new interface before the deadline, rather than being forced into it mid-month.
If you need help with the transition, Zoho has a CRM For Everyone resource gallery and their support team is reachable at support@zohocrm.com.
2. Zoho Analytics: May 2026 Product Updates
The May 2026 Analytics update is a solid release across AI, visualisations, and data management. Here are the highlights.
Ask Zia: Key Highlights and Agent Thinking Process
Two useful additions to Ask Zia in this release. First, Zia can now generate Key Highlights alongside your query results, a narrative summary explaining what the data shows, why certain trends or anomalies are occurring, and what they might mean for the business. Rather than interpreting charts yourself, Zia surfaces the relevant observations directly.
Second, Zia now shows its Agent Thinking Process, a step-by-step breakdown of how it interpreted your question and arrived at its response. For teams relying on AI-generated insights, this transparency is genuinely useful for verifying outputs and building confidence in what Zia is surfacing.
Geo Map and KPI Widget Enhancements
Geo maps now respond to active user filters. Selecting a country from a filter automatically zooms the map to that region, removing the need to build separate maps for different markets. Map labels can also now be displayed in local languages, which is a useful touch for regional reports shared with non-English-speaking audiences.
KPI widgets now support custom background colours for comparison indicators, making it easier to signal positive or negative performance at a glance without reading the numbers closely.
Large Dataset Export Notifications
Large exports now run in the background rather than freezing the UI. Once your file is ready, you'll receive a notification to download it, so you can keep working in Analytics uninterrupted during long exports.
3. Zoho Bookings: Email Blocklist
Zoho Bookings has introduced an Email Blocklist, a straightforward but genuinely useful feature for any business dealing with spam bookings, fake accounts, or repeated invalid booking requests.
How it works
You can block individual email addresses or entire domains from booking through your booking pages. Blocking alex@example.com prevents that specific address, while blocking example.com restricts anyone from that domain entirely. When someone attempts to book using a blocked email, they'll see a custom message you've configured, so you can communicate the reason clearly rather than just returning an error.
How to set it up
1. Open Admin Center
2. Click Email Blocklist under Data Administration
3. Choose whether to block an email address or domain, add a note for your own reference, and click Save
4. Optionally configure a custom block message for customers to see on the booking page
Availability: This feature is available on premium plans only.
4. Zoho Cliq: Rest API v3
This one is primarily for developers building integrations on top of Zoho Cliq. Zoho has launched v3 of the Cliq REST APIs, which is a significant overhaul, covering consistent response structures, unified pagination, proper HTTP method usage, and full API coverage for platform components that were previously configurable only through the UI (bots, slash commands, message actions, functions, and datastores). The v3 documentation has also been rebuilt from the ground up with AI tooling, an updated Postman collection, and OpenAPI spec support.
v2 remains available as a legacy option while you migrate. The full breakdown is well worth reading if you're working with the Cliq API.
Stay Updated
That's it for Episode 14 of The Zoho Report! We hope these updates help you work smarter with your Zoho applications.
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