Foundation Zoho (eBook)

Ali Shabdar is an independent cloud consultant to several businesses and entrepreneurs. He has more than 10 years of experience in the IT industry from programming and system analysis to implementing Web 2.0 technologies. He guest-blogs occasionally for different websites and is currently working for Plus Holding as new media manager in Dubai, where he lives with his wife, Maryam.

Dedication Page 4
Contents at a Glance 5
About the Author 15
About the Technical Reviewer 16
Acknowledgments 17
Introduction 18
Who should read this book? 18
What you need to know 18
How this book is structured 19
Chapter 1: Getting Up and Running with Zoho 21
What is Web 2.0? 21
The cloud 22
Office 2.0 24
SaaS and PaaS 24
SaaS advantages 25
What about Zoho? 25
Getting started 26
Creating a Zoho account 26
Using Zoho Personal 29
Customizing Zoho Personal 31
Making Zoho easier to reach 38
Prism 39
Fluid 41
Google Gears 42
How secure is your data? 43
Getting help 43
Summary 43
Chapter 2: Processing Your Words 45
Processing Your Words 45
Getting started 46
The environment 47
Going through the MenuTab 50
Working with documents 62
Creating your first document 62
Formatting the document 65
Adding more document elements 67
Adding an image 67
Adding a table 69
Adding an equation 75
Adding endnotes and footnotes 78
Adding a hyperlink 81
Printing 81
Formatting the page 82
Printing via PDF 85
Sharing and collaborating 87
Giving public access to documents 87
Sharing documents 89
Collaborating in action 93
Doing more with Writer 96
Dumping your trash 96
Using templates 97
Creating new templates 97
Using the Zoho Template Library 100
Working off the cloud 104
Setting up feeds 108
Changing some settings 109
Using keyboard shortcuts 110
Getting help 111
Summary 111
Chapter 3: Of Numbers and Sheets 113
Getting started 114
The environment 114
The environment 114
Sheets 116
Menu bar 117
Toolbar 119
Working with sheets 121
Creating your first spreadsheet 125
Basic formatting 127
Entering data 130
The formula magic 131
Adding a chart 140
Sharing and collaboration 148
More sheet features 157
Versioning 157
Naming cells 163
Import and export 164
External data sources 166
Using macros 171
Your first macro 172
Running the macro 180
Unsupported actions in macros 183
Pivot tables and charts 183
Creating a pivot table 184
Creating a pivot chart 193
Working with templates 197
Getting help 202
Summary 203
Chapter 4: Present Yourself 205
Basic features 205
The environment 206
Working with presentations 207
Creating your first presentation 208
Touring the editor 209
Adding new slides 214
Adding objects 226
Adding embedded objects 233
Finishing the presentation 239
Sharing and collaborating 242
Publishing your presentations 242
Sharing and collaborating 246
Collaborating in action 248
More Show 252
How to use the master layout 252
Taking your cheat sheet with you 254
Presenting it to the world 255
Printing your presentations 262
Running a slide show automatically 263
Making it interoperable 265
Getting help 267
Summary 267
Chapter 5: All in One Box 269
Getting started 269
The environment 270
The sidebar 271
Other bars 272
Basic operations 272
Getting organized with folders 272
Dealing with files 275
Creating documents 275
Opening and editing documents 276
Uploading files 278
Downloading files 280
Tagging documents 281
More Docs 283
Searching for files 283
Using zipped files 284
Managing document versions 286
Sending documents 288
Working in groups 289
Sharing documents 297
Getting help 299
Summary 300
Chapter 6: Live in the Cloud 302
Zoho Mail 302
The environment 303
Reading messages 305
Composing messages 307
Using more features while composing 310
Replying to and forwarding messages 311
Administrating your messages 311
Customizing Mail 316
My Preferences 316
Labels 318
Antispam 318
POP accounts 319
Personalize 323
Filters 323
Folders 325
Signatures 325
Vacation reply 326
E-mail for warding 327
Importing and exporting 328
Using Mail off the cloud 329
Zoho Chat 332
Getting started with Chat 334
Doing more with Chat 338
Live support 338
Shout boxes and live chat 339
Events 340
Chat preferences 341
Zoho Planner 341
Getting started with Planner 341
Doing more with Planner 350
Reminders 350
Sharing 351
Settings 353
Getting help 354
Summary 354
Chapter 7: Publish in the Cloud 356
Zoho Notebook 357
Getting started 357
Adding an image 361
Adding new pages 363
Adding more objects 366
Sharing your books 375
More Notebook 379
Tracking changes 379
Taking notes as you go 380
Zoho Wiki 384
Getting started 385
Working with pages 389
Adding more to pages 395
Unleash your wikis 399
Working in a group 400
Publishing wikis 402
Customizing Wiki 404
More Wiki 407
Creating pages from scratch 407
Monitoring the changes 410
Communicating inside wikis 411
Zoho Share 412
Getting started 413
Sharing in action 414
Configuring Share 418
Getting help 420
Summary 420
Chapter 8: Zoho Utility Applications 422
Placing Zoho everywhere 422
Connecting to Microsoft Office 425
Browser plug-ins 430
The Firefox plug-in 430
The IE plug-in 431
Zoho on the go 434
Developing Zoho 443
Summary 444
Chapter 9: The Plaza 446
Getting started 446
Setting up your online office 449
General settings 449
Domain settings 452
User settings 456
Mail settings 457
Groups settings 458
Application settings 459
Policy settings 460
Other settings 461
Using Business 463
The desktop 463
Business groups 463
The user view 465
Getting help 470
Summary 471
Chapter 10: Manage Your Business 473
CRM in a nutshell 474
Why CRM? 474
SaaS and CRM 475
Zoho CRM 475
Getting started 475
The environment 477
Configuring the basics 478
Configuring the account information 479
Configuring the signature 480
Configuring the users 482
Backing up your data 483
Using Zoho CRM for marketing 484
Managing campaigns 485
Adding campaign dependencies 489
Managing leads 493
Adding a new lead 493
Adding lead dependencies 494
Modifying leads 498
Transferring leads 501
Importing leads 503
Exporting leads 508
Reporting leads 508
Sending bulk e-mails to leads 509
Using Zoho CRM for sales 510
What are you selling? 510
Creating vendors and manufacturers 510
Creating products 513
Managing the inventory 517
Catching the opportunities 522
Turning opportunities into sales 527
Creating Quotes 527
Printing quotes 528
Creating sales orders 531
Creating invoices 532
Forecasting your business 533
Using Zoho CRM for support 535
Managing cases 535
Managing solutions 537
More CRM 539
Reports 539
Dashboards 542
Getting help 546
Summary 547
Chapter 11: Manage Your People 549
Zoho People 550
Getting started 551
Configuring People 551
Configuring security settings 552
Configuring organization setting 557
Configuring the tabs 558
Implementing the current organization 560
Creating departments 560
Creating designations 562
Creating employees 563
Reviewing the organization 564
Managing human resources 566
Using the Employee portal 567
Customizing the employee form 568
Changing e-mail alerts 575
Exporting employees 579
Importing employees 580
Embedding employee form in a web site 581
Managing dummy users 582
Managing the Checklist 585
Configuring checklists 585
Creating new checklist items 587
Creating checklists 588
Working with HR tasks 589
Recruiting people 590
Assigning recruiters 590
Posting job openings 591
Adding résumés 593
Working on résumés 594
Hiring people 596
Accepting online job postings 597
More Zoho People 602
Self-service 602
Accessing the employee profile 602
Submitting general forms 603
Submitting compensation forms 605
Using People for recruitment agencies 606
Getting help 607
Summary 607
Chapter 12: Manage Your Invoices 610
Getting started 611
Configuring Invoice 614
Configuring the company profile 614
Configuring logos 616
Configuring currencies 617
Configuring tax information 618
Configuring online payments 618
Using Invoice 620
Managing the items 620
Importing Items 620
Adding items one by one 622
Performing basic tasks on items 623
Managing customers 624
Importing customers 624
Adding customers one by one 624
Performing basic tasks on customers 626
Managing the estimates 627
Creating estimates 627
Performing basic tasks on estimates 629
Adding payments to invoices 632
More on invoices 634
Monitoring Invoice 635
Getting an overall view 635
Monitoring customers 636
Getting help 637
Summary 638
Chapter 13: Manage Your Projects 640
Zoho Projects 641
Getting started 641
Configuring Zoho Projects 643
Adding new users 645
Adding new clients 647
Using Zoho Projects 650
Creating your first project 650
Navigating the UI 652
Managing milestones and tasks 653
Creating milestones 653
Creating tasks 655
Scheduling meetings 658
Using the calendar 660
Managing documents 661
More Zoho Projects 665
Billing clients 665
Logging hours 665
Invoicing clients 667
Reporting projects 668
Communicating with peers 672
Using the forum 672
Using the wiki 674
Using the chat 675
Back home 676
Getting help 680
Summary 680
Chapter 14: Take Control of Your Meetings 682
Zoho Meeting 682
Getting started 683
Using Meeting 684
Creating a meeting 684
Participating in a meeting 690
Running a support session 693
Managing meetings 698
Configuring Meeting 700
Getting help 701
Summary 701
Chapter 15: Data Is Everything 703
Why Zoho data applications matter 704
Getting started with Creator 705
Thinking database 706
What is a table? 706
What are data types? 707
What is a view? 707
Visualizing a database 708
The Creator way 708
Using Creator 709
Creating an application from a template 709
Customizing the form components 711
Customizing the form 718
Setting notifications 719
Running the application 720
Customizing views 724
Sharing the application 727
Controlling user permissions 729
Publishing the application 732
More Creator 736
The control panel 736
Buying and selling applications 737
Claiming your developer badge 738
Managing applications 739
Managing the data 740
Unleashing the cloud 743
Getting started with Reports 744
Creating a reporting database 745
Using Reports 749
Using filters 751
Adding data manually 753
Adding formula fields 754
Modifying the table structure 755
Using the upload tool 757
Sharing reports and collaborating 757
Publishing reports 761
Embedding reports in websites 761
Accessing data through links 762
Making your BI data public 765
More Reports 765
Working with charts 766
Editing charts structure 770
Creating views from scratch 773
Creating pivot views 774
Creating summary views 777
CloudSQL 779
Zoho API 780
Getting help 780
Summary 781
Index 783