Zoho Federation, Is It Possible?
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Does anyone know of a way to federate services in Zoho? For example, we use Zoho Cliq. Many of our customers also use Zoho Cliq. Is there any way to federate and approve their users or some of their users to talk to us via Cliq?
Or to use our Zoho accounts to manage services that they have? For example multiple customers of ours have Zoho Invoices, but we can't be added to theirs because we have our own Zoho accounts.
Thoughts?
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@scottalanmiller said in Zoho Federation, Is It Possible?:
Or to use our Zoho accounts to manage services that they have? For example multiple customers of ours have Zoho Invoices, but we can't be added to theirs because we have our own Zoho accounts.
Thoughts?
I believe Zoho partners can manage other companies Zoho services. Basically Zoho consultants.
So you should look into that.
https://www.zoho.com/partners/ -
@scottalanmiller said in Zoho Federation, Is It Possible?:
Does anyone know of a way to federate services in Zoho? For example, we use Zoho Cliq. Many of our customers also use Zoho Cliq. Is there any way to federate and approve their users or some of their users to talk to us via Cliq?
Federated services are usually federated identity. I don't think that's what you want.
There shouldn't be a problem using Cliq between different companies. You just need to add whoever you want to communicate to your contacts. That send them an invite and then you can communicate. That is how I do to communicate with other Zoho users in other companies.
Exactly what is it you want to accomplish?
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@Pete-S said in Zoho Federation, Is It Possible?:
@scottalanmiller said in Zoho Federation, Is It Possible?:
Or to use our Zoho accounts to manage services that they have? For example multiple customers of ours have Zoho Invoices, but we can't be added to theirs because we have our own Zoho accounts.
Thoughts?
I believe Zoho partners can manage other companies Zoho services. Basically Zoho consultants.
So you should look into that.
https://www.zoho.com/partners/In the past, we looked but that was for resellers, not IT pros
And sometimes it isn't about managing, often in fact. We want to be able to communicate.
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@Pete-S said in Zoho Federation, Is It Possible?:
@scottalanmiller said in Zoho Federation, Is It Possible?:
Does anyone know of a way to federate services in Zoho? For example, we use Zoho Cliq. Many of our customers also use Zoho Cliq. Is there any way to federate and approve their users or some of their users to talk to us via Cliq?
Federated services are usually federated identity. I don't think that's what you want.
There shouldn't be a problem using Cliq between different companies. You just need to add whoever you want to communicate to your contacts. That send them an invite and then you can communicate. That is how I do to communicate with other Zoho users in other companies.
Exactly what is it you want to accomplish?
A mix of things. With Zoho Invoice, we need to work as "accountants" for customers. With Cliq, we want to be able to talk to them.
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@scottalanmiller said in Zoho Federation, Is It Possible?:
@Pete-S said in Zoho Federation, Is It Possible?:
@scottalanmiller said in Zoho Federation, Is It Possible?:
Does anyone know of a way to federate services in Zoho? For example, we use Zoho Cliq. Many of our customers also use Zoho Cliq. Is there any way to federate and approve their users or some of their users to talk to us via Cliq?
Federated services are usually federated identity. I don't think that's what you want.
There shouldn't be a problem using Cliq between different companies. You just need to add whoever you want to communicate to your contacts. That send them an invite and then you can communicate. That is how I do to communicate with other Zoho users in other companies.
Exactly what is it you want to accomplish?
A mix of things. With Zoho Invoice, we need to work as "accountants" for customers. With Cliq, we want to be able to talk to them.
I don't use Z Invoice so no clue about that but I use Cliq everyday. Why can't you communicate?
This is how I do it:
https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/zoho-cliq/cliq-user-guide/contacts/contacts/articles/how-to-add-users-to-my-contactsNote the last part on the page above:
Organization Policy
Communication can be established with an external user under the Free plan of Cliq, only if the admin has enabled the organization policy 'Allow chats with users who are not a part of this organization'.
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@Pete-S Yes, we've gotten external free plan people to work. But customers on Zoho as their messaging platform don't seem to work. We were invited by some today and when we try to accept it says we can't as we are in a different organization.
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@scottalanmiller said in Zoho Federation, Is It Possible?:
@Pete-S Yes, we've gotten external free plan people to work. But customers on Zoho as their messaging platform don't seem to work. We were invited by some today and when we try to accept it says we can't as we are in a different organization.
It's a bit tricky in Cliq because there are different ways to invite people. They are probably doing it the wrong way.
I know it works because I communicate daily with people who are on the paid plans, as well as free plans and also with non-Zoho users.
That being said, I usually invite them instead of the other way around, because it's easier.
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Is this the error you get when you accept the invite?
In that case I know what the problem is.
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The problem is that they have clicked on "+ Invite Users":
It makes sense at first but this is for inviting your colleagues only, aka those already in your Zoho Organization or new users you want to add to your organization. It's not what you want!
The proper way to add users in other organizations (aka external users), click on + under Contacts.
Add the email address to the one you want to invite.
Then you have to click on the suggested user and select the Next button that appears after you click.
Now you can add whatever message you want to the invite:
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If you want to create a channel where multiple internal and external users can communicate, you need to be on the paid Cliq version. Then you have the option to create External channels. Those connected to your external channel do not have to be on paid Cliq version though.
BTW, if you are on Zoho Workplace for instance, you are on the free edition of Cliq. I know, it's confusing.
In Cliq admin settings look under Organization and Licensing.
Check if you have External channels in your plan.
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@Pete-S said in Zoho Federation, Is It Possible?:
If you want to create a channel where multiple internal and external users can communicate, you need to be on the paid Cliq version. Then you have the option to create External channels. Those connected to your external channel do not have to be on paid Cliq version though.
BTW, if you are on Zoho Workplace for instance, you are on the free edition of Cliq. I know, it's confusing.That's weird as we can do external now, but not external Zoho customers. Only external non-Zoho customers.
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@scottalanmiller said in Zoho Federation, Is It Possible?:
@Pete-S said in Zoho Federation, Is It Possible?:
If you want to create a channel where multiple internal and external users can communicate, you need to be on the paid Cliq version. Then you have the option to create External channels. Those connected to your external channel do not have to be on paid Cliq version though.BTW, if you are on Zoho Workplace for instance, you are on the free edition of Cliq. I know, it's confusing.
That's weird as we can do external now, but not external Zoho customers. Only external non-Zoho customers.
Those are called guest users in Zoho lingo.
You probably don't need external channels. You can communicate with external users just fine without having external channels.
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I usually would recommend to us the External Channel like people do with Slack
https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/zoho-cliq/cliq-user-guide/channel/how-to-use-channels/articles/how-do-i-invite-users-from-other-organizations-to-join-an-external-channel -
@dbeato said in Zoho Federation, Is It Possible?:
I usually would recommend to us the External Channel like people do with Slack
https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/zoho-cliq/cliq-user-guide/channel/how-to-use-channels/articles/how-do-i-invite-users-from-other-organizations-to-join-an-external-channelWith Cliq you can have group chats as well as external channels and I'm assuming it's the same with Slack.
The recommended approach by Zoho is to use group chats for ad-hoc conversations and to use channels for more permanent team communication.
I think support issues and customer conversation belongs to the one-on-one and group chats while long term project collaboration is best served by channels.
That's why I think most a lot of people can work fine without external channels. You don't get external channels in the free tier of Zoho Cliq.
