What is the purpose of automation?

Automation helps you configure mail alerts for improved workflow, create checklists to track tasks, schedule reminders for key events, set multi-level approvals and integrate with third party APIs. By automating most of your everyday HR activities, you can eliminate redundancy, increase accuracy, and ensure your data is always timely and complete.

What are the steps involved in creating a workflow?

Workflows are used to automate your HR Processes. There are four steps involved in creating workflows.

Step 1 : Give basic information.

Note: Workflows are triggered for the forms you select. So it is important to select the appropriate form.

Step 2 : Trigger Process. There are two triggers
Execute based on action - workflow gets executed based on actions like create, edit, Field update, Approve, Reject or delete
Execute based on date - workflow gets executed based on a selected date field.

Step 3: Setting Criteria

Workflow gets triggered provided the criteria is satisfied.

Step 4: Action

The Action could be in the form of mail alerts or checklists or field updates or webhooks or custom functions.

Time-based action: These are workflows which are triggered based on a specified time.

While configuring mail alerts, there is an option called 'Person performing the action'. What does this mean?

The person performing this action refers to the user who is actually triggering the action like Requestor(create/ edit actions), approver(approve/reject actions).

In case of reminder alone "Person performing this action" refers/ points out to the employee's record(the user whose record is in question)

Where are checklists used?

Checklists function is used when you would like to assign some tasks based on some trigger. When an employee joins your organization, you will have the need to create a checklist with things to be done before the employees join - like arranging for the desk, phone, laptop etc.

There are other scenarios too like the Exit process of an employee. Before the employee leaves the organization, you will need a checklist to list the things to be collected from the employee, forms to be filled etc. Checklists can be used here.

Where are Field updates used?

Field updates are used to update the field values of a form based on the input given or action taken in any other form. 

Example 1 : Used in employee exit process. 

When an employee resigns from the organization, the employment status in employee form will be edited to 'Resigned' when the employee submits the exit details form. 

Example 2 : Team change request

When an employee submits a request in the team change form, the department or the team name can be updated in the department field of the Employee form.

What are webhooks?

Webhooks are user-defined HTTP callbacks. In other words, it is a simple event notification via HTTP post. It will notify a URL by POSTing a message when certain events happen. To be clearer, it communicates with the third party applications by sending instant notifications every time when a user performs an action in the Zoho People organizational account data.

How do I configure a webhook?

  • From Home, go to Setup (gear icon) > Automation > Webhooks
  • Click New Webhook
  • Name the Webhook
  • Add a description
  • Specify the third party URL to notify
  • Select API method type: POST or GET
  • Select the form name or the module from the list
  • Specify the parameter name and the corresponding parameter value. You can add only 10 entity fields as parameters specify the parameter in user defined format. Eg: XML, JSON etc., specify the custom parameter name and parameter value. You can add only 5 custom parameters.
  • Click Save

What are custom functions?

Custom function lets you create user-defined functions that can be reused anywhere in Zoho People. You can maintain and edit custom functions and the script will be in one central location. These functions are mainly created to manipulate data, connect with a third party and internal applications and update responses in Zoho People.

How do I create a custom function?

  • From Home, go to Automation > Custom Functions > Add Custom Function
  • Select Form Name
  • Provide Function Name and click Edit arguments
  • Provide Method Name, under Method Arguments, Specify customer value or Show people field
  • Click Save
  • Provide the script and click Save & Execute Script
  • Provide the required field and click Execute
  • The executed message will be displayed and if not, please click Execute Again to retry the execution

How to map a custom function to workflow?

  • From Home, go to Workflow > Automation > Add Workflow
  • Provide all the required details
  • Under Action, click Custom Functions and click either the add icon to add the custom function to the workflow or the folder icon to map the custom function
  • Click Save