Zoho Unified Client Portal plugin for WordPress

Introduction

Welcome to Catalyst Connect’s Client Portal Plugin for WordPress. This application serves to extend Zoho data to third party stakeholders who may need to access or update information throughout the Zoho product suite. There are 3 main benefits to using this app to support your Zoho setup:


  1. You can create a consolidated customer service experience for your stakeholders by giving them a single login to manage their relationship with you across multiple Zoho products.
  2. You can customize the user interface to seamlessly integrate with your current website and configure unique functionality for each stakeholder by deploying multiple portals with their own branding and permissions.
  3. You can extend functionality by taking advantage of our single sign on with the WordPress database to integrate eCommerce solutions, provide access to gated content or iframing third party sites and resources into the portal.


The plugin supports  direct integrations with CRM, Desk, Sign, Projects, Subscriptions, Books, Workdrive and Google Maps. The plugin also supports indirect integrations with Survey, Forms and Analytics.

How the plugin works:


The plugin needs to be installed on a WordPress website. If your website is currently built on another CMS/platform we recommend installing WordPress on a subdomain to run the portal. Once installed, the plugin will need to be connected to each Zoho App. These connections are handled via Zoho’s API version 2.0 and will give the plugin the necessary permissions to access data from that app to display in the portal. The plugin itself does not store any data from Zoho, everything is either retrieved or pushed back into Zoho in real time and transmitted through TLS encryption. 


The plugin works with a number of Zoho applications, however you must have Zoho CRM connected first. The reason for this is that most Zoho Apps tie data back to the CRM or more specifically the Account (and/or Contact) record in the CRM. For example, if your client is XYZ Industries and John Doe works at XYZ Industries, you will enter XYZ Industries as an Account in Zoho CRM and John as a contact who belongs to the XYZ Industries account. You will then be able to invite John (a Contact in Zoho CRM) to the portal. By default upon logging in, he will be able to see all records related to the Account he belongs to. It is very important to have your Zoho account configured correctly to ensure that John has access to support tickets, invoices etc. that belong to XYZ Industries.

 

There is also a possibility that you do not use the Accounts module and all tickets, invoices, etc. are tied directly to the Contact.

 

We offer two types of portal setups to optimize the user experience - Account Based portal and Contact Based portal. Please note that once you select one option, you will not be able to revert to the other option without uninstalling, reinstalling and reconfiguring the plugin in WordPress.

 

Account Based Portal: If you use the native Zoho CRM Account (and native Contact) module, then please choose portal type "Default" in the Zoho API settings section at the onset of setting up and connecting Zoho apps to the plugin.

 

Contact Based Portal: If you do not use your Accounts module, or only some of your contacts have accounts associated with them, use the Contact Based portal option.

 

In summary, the link that ties everything back to a user in the client portal will be the native Contact record in the CRM. 

Please watch the following video to get a quick tour of the Unified Zoho Client Portal Plugin for WordPress.


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