Working with advanced filters

Working with advanced filters

Zoho CRM's advanced filter is a useful tool for finding information in a specific CRM module. Once you've filtered the records, you can perform actions like sending emails, adding tags, changing record owners, updating fields, and more. You can even save filters if you use them frequently. Please note that saved filters are user-specific.


You can use advanced filters in any module in the CRM. Let's look at some common use cases:
Leads module
  1. Untouched leads from a specific region

  2. Leads without tasks for the next 2 weeks

  3. Leads with files added as attachments




Contacts module
  1. Contacts you haven't called in the last month

  2. Contacts who are decision makers in deals

  3. Contacts who've purchased a particular type and quantity of products

Accounts module
  1. Accounts with high value deals in the proposal stage

Deals module
  1. Opportunities associated with a specific product line

Inventory modules
  1. Sales orders with line items related to a specific product

  2. Products that've received good feedback

Custom modules
  1. Project Head Teachers with Students of a particular department and domain

  2. Properties with viewings scheduled this week

  3. Insurance policy holders with dependents who are spouses

  4. Job applicants with atleast 3 years of work experience

What are advanced filters?

Advanced filters are sets of filters found inside every module view.

You can collapse or expand advanced filters by clicking on the Filter icon.


You can use them to filter records based on the following:
Module's fields
Related modules
Subforms
Latest email or activity status
Record status
Module's fields


Related modules
You can filter by the presence or absence of records in related (child) modules. You can also add fields from the related (child) modules (including notes, attachments, tasks, meetings, etc.) for increased precision.


Subforms
You can filter by the presence/ absence of line items in subforms within a module. You can filter further by adding the subform fields in the criteria.


Latest email or activity status


Record status
You can filter based on a record's status, like touched/untouched, modified/unmodified, locked/unlocked, and so on.


 Choose a factor or a combination of factors to find exactly what you're looking for in that module.

Filter records using advanced filters

To filter records using advanced filters

  1. Go to the desired module.
  2. Select the required module list view.
  3. Under Filter [Records] By, select the desired combination of criteria.
  4. Click Apply Filter. The records that meet the criteria will be displayed.

  5. You can select records and assign suitable follow-up activities or run macros on them.
Idea
Tip: You can quickly search for the option you want instead of browsing through the entire list of options available in the filter.

To save a filter

  1. Go to the desired module.
  2. Select the required module list view.
  3. Under Filter [Records] By, select the desired combination of criteria.
  4. Click Apply Filter.
  5. Click Save Filter to save it for future use.
    Please note that you will see the "Save Filter" button after you've applied a filter.



Idea
Tip
  1. If you have 2 or more saved filters, you can reorder them according to your preferences.  To reorder saved filters, you must click and drag a filter to the required position in the Saved Filters list.

  2. Once you've saved the filters, you can see the number of records in each filter that will be updated in real time.
    For example, let's say you've saved a filter in the Deals module called "High-revenue deals". As the number of records matching the filter's criteria changes, the updated count will be displayed beside the filter's name.
    This will help you quickly get a snapshot of the number of records under each of your saved filters and prioritize your actions accordingly.
Limits
  • You can save upto a maximum of:
  • 10 filters/view for Enterprise and above editions and
  • 5 filters/view for Free, Standard and Professional editions.

  • Saved filters are specific to each user.
  • You can select a maximum of three subforms or related modules.
  • You can select a maximum of five fields for each subform or related module.

Use advanced filters effectively

Let's look at a few use cases to see how we can use advanced filters effectively. These examples are just a few possibilities; there are countless other scenarios you can devise based on different search criteria.

Use Time Tracking Filters including Touched, Untouched, Record Action, and Related Record Action

Advanced filters include a set of time-tracking filters, whose purpose is to easily let you filter records that have been worked on or not worked on in a specified time period.


For example, you can filter out leads that have been "untouched" for six months. You don't need to run a separate report; the time-tracking filter called "Untouched records" will give you this picture.

Below are the time-tracking filters and their definitions:

  • Touched Records: Gives you records that have been updated in the specified period. This includes changes made to related child records as well.
    For example, if you're running this filter on the Contacts module and an associated deal has been edited in the specified period, this contact will also be considered "touched" or worked on, and will be displayed in the results.
  • Untouched Records: Gives you records that haven't been updated at all.
    For example, if you're running this filter on the Contacts module, the filter will show contacts which haven't been updated at all in the given period.
  • Record Action: This filter shows records that have been modified in the specified period, but only if a field in the record has been edited. This does not include changes made to the related child records.
    For example, if you're running this filter on the Contacts module, contacts whose direct fields have been edited will appear in the results. If an associated deal has been edited, this contact will not appear in the results.
  • Related Records Action: Gives you records only when their related child records have been updated.
    For example, if you're running the filter on the Contacts module and an associated deal has been updated, this contact will appear in the results. This contact will not appear in the results if the contact alone has been updated.

In essence, Touched records = record actions + related record actions.

In all of these filters, you'll find the following parameters:

  1. User and system: Refers to the records updated both by the user and the system.
  2. User or system: Refers to records updated either by a user or the system.
  3. By user: Refers to records updated by a user (i.e., updated either by a user only or by a user and the system).
  4. By system: Refers to records updated by the system (i.e. updated either by the system only or by the system and a user).
  5. Only by user: Refers to the records touched only by users and not the system.
  6. Only by system: Refers to records touched only by the system and not users.

Find sales orders whose line items include a specific product
When you're selling multiple products, you may need to filter sales orders by product to streamline order management, optimize inventory levels, and craft targeted marketing strategies. In Zoho CRM, line items are added in subforms. Using advanced filters, you can filter records using subform fields.
To find sales orders by product
  1. Go to the Sales Orders module.
  2. Select the required module list view.
  3. Under Filter Sales Orders By, go to Filter by Subforms.
  4. Select Ordered Items.
  5. By default, Sales Orders with any Ordered Items will be chosen. Leave this as it is.
  6. Click Add Field and select the Product name is [name of product(s)]. Add other fields and options as needed.
  7. Click Apply Filter.

Discover untapped leads

You work on a fresh set of leads every week. Over time, you lose track of the leads that needed a second or third follow-up. In reality, among those idle leads, there might just be a great deal waiting for you—but only if you follow up on it. Advanced filters can filter out such records for you within seconds.

To discover untapped leads
  1. Go to the Leads module.
  2. Select the required module list view.
  3. Under Filter Leads By, select the following combinations:
    1. Select Activities > Without any activity > This year.
    2. Select Notes > Leads without Any Notes > Created Time > This year.
      You can choose additional options as required.
  4. Click Apply Filter. The records that meet the criteria will be displayed.
  5. You can select records and assign suitable follow-up activities or run macros on them.

Discover records that are likely to convert

You can always be aware of the chances of converting a lead and winning a deal with Conversion Prediction by Zia. While this makes it easy for you to prioritize the leads and deals with high chances of conversion, you can even discover the ones you thought had less or no chance of conversion, but are trending up. Using advanced filters, you can pull leads and deals that are trending up recently with better chances of conversion than before, and make sure that you don't miss out on any opportunity.

In the Leads module, 

  1. Select the required module list view.
  2. Under Filter Deals By, select the following combinations:
    • Select Prediction > Likely to convert > Low
    • Select Prediction Score > Lesser than 10
    • Select Recent prediction score > is Trending up > in last 2 days
  4. You can even filter to see leads that are trending down or select any number of search combinations as required.
  5. Similarly, you can filter deals based on their conversion prediction.

Keep a track of sales activities

You want to keep a track of your sales activities as well as that of your subordinates. With advanced filters, you can narrow down all deals to which there is no activity associated for the next one month but closing date is within the current month. You can add the potential amount as another criterion, which will further narrow down the search.

  1. Go to the Deals module.
  2. Select the required module list view.
  3. Under Filter Deals By, select the following combinations:
    1. Select Activities > Overdue > Tasks
    2. Closing Date is > This Month

      Click More to see more search criteria.
  4. Click Apply Filter. The records that meet the criteria are displayed.
  5. You can select records and assign suitable followup activities or run macros on them.
To further drill down the search, you could also mention the potential amount. So if you get a list of records for deals worth more than 50000 USD that are closing this month, but for which there are overdue activities, then this is something you need to pay close attention to.

Besides overdue tasks, you can also filter the following information about deals:
  1. Deals closing this month but no activity, notes or emails associated to them. Which means they are left idle.
  2. Deals from trade show that have been lost, which you may want to reopen and perhaps make a second follow up.

Advanced filters thus make it easy for sales managers and sales reps to hunt down such cases and act on them instantly.

Filter contacts based on their deal stages easily
Consider this scenario. You're looking to send emails and other relevant documents only to those contacts who are in the value proposition stage. Manually searching for each contact who's in that particular stage is time-consuming. Through advanced filters in the Contacts module, you can zero in on those contacts easily.
  1. Go to the Contacts module.
  2. Under Filter Contacts By, select Deals > Contacts with Any Deals.
  3. Click Add Field.
  4. Select Stage > is > Value Proposition.
  5. Click Apply Filter.
Contacts matching these criteria will be displayed. You can select all these contacts and send a mass email, update records, or perform any other bulk action as required.

Track records based on Campaign responses
When you filter records based on the response of your selected campaign, you will be able to approach your potential customers in a better way with a refined message.
 
Aside from the offline campaigning methods like Conference, Advertisements, Banner Ads, etc., Zoho CRM allows integration with various online campaigning tools such as Zoho Campaigns, Zoho Surveys, Zoho Webinars, and Zoho Backstage.The customer responses in both offline and online campaigns are recorded in the CRM which can be used to filter out certain leads or contacts like leads who are invited or contacts who have replied to the email campaign and so on.
 
These responses from the offline and online campaigns are captured in the member and service status fields respectively.
  1. Member Status lists the options that are either system-defined or customized by the admin. When a record is associated to a campaign, the user selects the member status manually to update the lead/contact's status. Thus, the member status field values may not be the actual customer responses and are editable by the user.
  2. Service Status lists the values that are synchronized with the integrated campaigns. These values are the direct campaign responses from the customer and cannot be edited by the user.
Let's say, of all the recipients whom you targeted in the recent campaign, 12 have opened your email and clicked the links in the email, 8 of them have registered to the upcoming webinar. Now, using the advanced filter, you can sift through the target recipients based on their member status and service status to nurture further and engage the respondents.
Info
Notes:
  1. Member status field will be displayed for both offline and online campaigns.
  2. Service status field will be displayed only for the online campaigns.
To filter leads or contacts based on campaign status
  1. Go to the Required (Leads or Contacts) module.
  2. Under Filter Contacts By, select these combinations:
    1. Select the Campaigns checkbox.
    2. Specifiy the Campaign name and choose the respective campaign from the suggestions. You can choose up to 5 campaigns at a time.
    3. You can also select the Campaign type and Campaign status from the respective drop downs to narrow down your search suggestions.
    4. If your Campaign Name belongs to any offline campaigns, choose the Member status to be "Opened" and "Clicked" from a list of other options.
    5. If you choose the Campaign Name that is associated to the online integrations - Zoho Webinar, Zoho Campaigns, Zoho Backstage, Zoho Surveys, a supplementary filter, 'Service Status' gets enabled.
    6. Select the required option. In this case Clicked and Opened.
    7. Click Apply Filter.

Campaigns - Advanced Filter
Now all the recipients who either just opened your email or opened your email and clicked links are listed here. These Leads/ contacts are your prime prospects to be convinced and converted to business.

Filter records using Visitor Tracking information

The purpose of having a website is complete only when you are able to keep a track of who visits it, make inferences about how people use it, when exactly they visit it etc. This information will help you serve your web visitors better and convert those visits to customers.

That said, advanced filters in CRM can help you make such inferences about leads and contacts who visit your website with the help of visitor tracking parameters. You will be able to filter out leads and contacts based on fields such as Average Time Spent on the site, chats missed, browser used to visit the site and so on. Following are a few scenarios in which visitor tracking information could help you make some important inferences.


Follow up with important contacts through missed chats

Let's say you have a list of contacts who are at a particular stage of conversion. For instance, you have contacts with whom you're closing deals this month. You can drill down more specifically by selecting a potential amount for these deals. Some of these contacts may have messaged you on chat, but you might well have missed those messages. Through advanced filters, you can instantly filter out these contacts. Here's how:

  1. Go to the Contacts module.
  2. Under Filter Contacts By, select these combinations.
    1. Select Deal Amount >= 50,000
    2. Select Deal Stage > Proposal / Price Quote
    3. Go to the Visitor Tracking section and select Chats > Missed > In the last 1 week
  3. Click Apply Filter. 

  • You can select any number of search combinations like this, based on your specific needs.


Track leads based on the average time spent on your website

Tracking your leads based on the average time they've spent on your website is also an effective way of converting them to deals. When your leads are spending more time on the site, you know that they're interested.Take these steps to track them:

  1. Go to the Leads module.
  2. Go to the Visitor Tracking section.
  3. Click Average Time Spent (Minutes).
  4. Select >= 1 minute from the picklist.
  5. Click Apply Filter.

Tracking leads based on email address of attender

You have filtered out contacts based on their stages in the sales pipeline. Sales managers can track the progress that their sales reps have made by entering the email address of the sales rep who has attended to specific leads. Let's say, for instance that you're searching for leads associated with Charles Stone, your sales rep. Here's what you'll do:

  1. Go to the Visitor Tracking section.
  2. Click Attended By.
  3. Type the email address of the sales rep. (eg. charles.stone@zylker.com)
  4. Click Apply Filter. 

Now, all leads that Charles Stone has attended to will be displayed.


Browser compatibility
When you filter leads based on what browser your leads have used, it becomes easier to enhance the design of that website for that browser. Say, for instance, you are looking for leads who have used Google Chrome to access your website. If a large number of leads are found through the filter, you can improve the browser compatibility.

Act instantly on the insights discovered

Advanced filters not only enable you to discover quick insights but also follow up on the results obtained. For example, you have discovered potential leads that have gone unnoticed. You have filtered out deals that need your attention. But what next?

The moment you filter out records, advanced filters let you can act on them instantly. There are quick actions that can be taken on the records such as Macros, Mass update, Assign owner and so on. From the very same results page, you can follow up on the records instantly.

  1. Go to the desired module.
  2. Select the required module list view.
  3. Under Filter [Records] By, select the desired combinations.
    You can select any number of search combinations as required.
    Click More to see more search criteria.
  4. Click Apply Filter.
    The records that meet the criteria are displayed.
  5. You can select records and assign suitable followup activities or run macros on them.

    • Related Articles

    • List view and saved filters in Zoho CRM iOS app

      A list view displays records from a module in a list format, showing relevant data based on pre-defined criteria. Businesses often manage a large volume of records, and finding the right one to follow up on can be challenging. List views solve this ...

    • Lookup Filters

      Some of the features are available only to specific customers. Overview Lookup filters in Zoho CRM help streamline data selection by ensuring users can only choose relevant records when associating data across modules. This reduces the risk of errors ...

    • Setting Advanced CRM Analytics

      The Advanced CRM Analytics (powered by Zoho Analytics) helps you to analyze CRM data and create insightful reports and dashboards for your business. This integration allows, the users to understand the data and make better decisions by making: ...

    • Setting up Advanced CRM Analytics

      The Advanced CRM Analytics, powered by Zoho Analytics helps you to analyze CRM data and create insightful business intelligence reports & dashboards. With this integration, Sales & Marketing can slice and dice the data and make better data-driven ...

    • Working with the Social Tab

      Integrating your CRM account with Social media, fosters communication with customers through social media that ensures real time data exchanges. While social media platforms offer you the opportunity to connect with several people, you need a CRM to ...