Review Process

Review Process

Why is review process required in business?

It is always the best practice to analyse, and most importantly, verify the information that enters the organisation’s database. In the long run it helps in maintaining a clean database and saves a lot of time and effort. Here is an example to explain. Let us say, a firm receives hundreds of loan applications everyday through manual and online submissions.

The agents enter the application details in a CRM, from where each request goes through various processes and moved to different departments within the company. When applications reach a certain stage in the loan approval process, some of them are rejected for reasons like invalid documents, incorrect information, and less number of employed years among other examples. This could be avoided if they were reviewed and approved beforehand by a team of reviewers and then allowed to enter the subsequent sales processes. 

Again, manually reviewing the data for accuracy, validity, and appropriateness by team of reviewers is not feasible. It will be difficult to maintain the pace and accuracy when there are hundreds of records to check, especially the ones that automatically enter the CRM system through web forms or portals. Zoho CRM's Review process can function as a checkpoint and prevent erroneous data from entering the system. The records under review process are not displayed in a module's list view and are considered locked, therefore preventing any automation processes on them such as workflows, approvals, or blueprints.

Additionally, during the review period, CRM users can always send emails to the applicants or submitter to communicate to them about the approval of their submissions and in case of rejection, the reason for the same. 
Note
You can create a review process for records that enter your CRM account through web form, API, portal, and integration with other applications.


Understanding the review process in Zoho CRM

You can configure review process for both standard and custom modules in Zoho CRM. , and single module can have multiple processes associated with it. A few selected fields of a record can be ascribed to review and the reviewer need to either approve or reject the field values and in turn the record as a whole. 

Below is a flowchart representing the review process flow:

Configure review process: Similar to the workflow rules, you first need to configure a review process. The records that meet the criteria mentioned in the rules of a review process will be awaiting for approval in the My Jobs module.

Review records: The reviewer then analyzes and cross-checks the information in the fields that are marked for review. Against each field the reviewer can approve or reject. In case of rejections, the user can additionally select the reason for the same.
Steps involved in setting up a review process 

Enter process details

You can set up multiple review processes for a single module by creating one each for the layouts in the module. In the first step, you will have to specify basic information such as, the process name, description, desired module, and layout. Let us take the example of a loan verification process to understand this feature.

Define condition to initiate the rule

In this step you have to specify the records that need to be reviewed. You can either allow all the records to be reviewed or define a criteria so that only selected records are sent for review. In our example, review process will be initiated only for the applicants that are entering the CRM system through web forms and advertisements.

Choose the set of field for review 

In the third step, you can select the fields that you want the reviewer to cross-check. In this example, we can select the annual income, number of dependents, other insurance details (if any), and past loans details to be reviewed before sanctioning a loan.

Create rules/conditions

In this step, you can add multiple rules. Each rule will include two elements: additional criteria to filter records further and the users to whom the records that meet this sub criteria will be assigned for review. For instance, in our example, two rules are added.

  • Rule 1 - If country is Canada and the province is Quebec, assign Mike as a reviewer.

  • Rule 2 - If the application is for personal medical insurance, assign David as a reviewer.

  • Others - All the other records that do not meet the criteria in the above two rules will be assigned to Rachel.

Similarly, you can create up to five rules in a review process. 
Note
  1. You can select the reviewers from either of the categories: users, roles, groups or record owners. You can select up to 5 reviewers.
     
  1. The Others option makes sure that, all the records that do not meet the criteria will be assigned to the selected user, so that every record is reviewed.

Add actions for the process

You can select the actions that must be performed once the records are submitted, reviewed or rejected. The actions include: 
  1. Send notification on submission (The reviewer and the record submitter will receive an email notification).
  2. Send notification on review completion
  3. Send notification on rejection
  4. SLA (service level agreement) escalation - SLA is the waiting period of a record in the review stage after submission or resubmission. The selected CRM user will receive a notification about the escalation.
Note that the notification upon submission, review completion, and rejection are sent to the record submitter, reviewer, and the CRM administrators.

Configure reasons for rejection

The following reasons for rejection are available by default: Invalid Entry, Data Insufficient, and Data does not match. When a field is rejected by reviewers, they can choose the reasons for rejecting the record. You can add more reasons and have up to 10 such reasons for rejecting a field. 

Configuring Review Process

To configure review process

  1. Go to Setup > Process Management > Review Process.
  2. In the Review Process page, click Create Rule.

  3. In the  New Review Process page, enter the following details:
    • Process Name - Enter the process name.
    • Description - Enter a description for the process.
    • Choose Module - Select the module from the drop-down list. 
    • Choose Layout - Select a layout from the drop-down list.
  4. In Choose a condition to initiate the rule, specify the criteria and click Next.
    Click the Add icon to enter more criteria.
  5. In the Field set, choose the fields that need to be reviewed.
  6. Click Continue.
  7. In Rule 1, mention the sub-criteria for the users to review, and choose reviewers.
    • Click Based on criteria to specify the criteria for the records.
    • Click All records, if you do not want to specify a criteria.
    • Click Continue.
    • In Who should review, click Choose Reviewers.
    • Select users, groups, roles or record owners from the drop-down list.
    • Select the user and click Add.
    • Click Save.
  8. Click Instant actions and select the required checkbox (es) and click Save. 
  9. Click the Configure Reasons For Record Rejection link to add or edit reasons for rejection.
    • Click the + icon to add more reasons.
    • Click the - icon to remove the reasons.
  10. Click Save, to save the entire review process.
Points to remember
  1. The type of fields that can be sent for review are: 
  1. Single line and multi line
  2. Email
  3. Phone
  4. Date and Date/time
  5. Number
  6. Currency
  7. Decimal
  8. Percentage
  9. Long integer
  10. URL
  11. Pick List
  12. Multi-Select 
  13. Checkbox
  14. File Upload
  1. The fields mentioned above if present in a Subform can also be sent for review.
  2. When one of the fields is rejected, the option to reject the entire record will be available.
  3. You can create a review process for different layouts. If you delete a layout which has records that need to be reviewed, then you will be prompted to choose an alternative layout to continue with reviewing of records. If the new layout does not have any review process, then the record will be added to the respective modules for further process.
  4. If you have enabled the web form approval option, then the records will enter the review process after the web form approval is completed.
  5. Before entering a review process, a record will always go through other data validations and approvals in CRM: validation rule, web form approval, layout rule. 
  6. Information sync from one Zoho application to CRM and vice-versa (such as Zoho Desk to CRM, Zoho Creator to CRM) will take place only after the record completes the review process.
  7. In case of integrations, the review process will execute only if v2.1 API is being used to create a record. For example, if a record is created in CRM via Zoho Forms or Zoho Creator then you must ensure that the API version is v2.1. If v2 API is used, then you must pass "process":["review_process"].
  8. Review process will not execute if the v1 API is being used. 

Approving or Rejecting records and field values

Records that are pending for review are displayed under the My Jobs tab, from where the reviewers can access it. Alternately, the records can be found under a custom view in the Leads module called " Leads in review", this view will be visible to the reviewers and administrators.

List view of records in review process

The following details about the record will be displayed in the list view:
  1. Record name
  2. Number of fields in that record that are under review
  3. Review status like rejected, review in progress, pending for review
  4. Name of the users who created the review process
  5. The date on which the record was submitted for review
  6. The process that the record belongs to
  7. The module to which the record belongs
  8. The layout to which the record belongs

Note:
  1. Records can be mass deleted ONLY by the CRM administrators.
  2. Records that are awaiting review for more than 3 months will be deleted automatically from the CRM system.

Approving or rejecting fields 

The reviewer can select the record that needs to be reviewed from the My Jobs view or the custom view in the leads module "Leads in review" to approve or reject the fields. The number of fields that need to be reviewed in the selected record are displayed in the records detail page. The reviewer can navigate the fields using the navigation arrow.

To approve or reject fields

  1. Go to the My Jobs module and select Review Process from the drop-down list. 
  2. Select a record with Pending for Review status.
    In the record's details page, the fields that need to be reviewed will show a tick icon.
  3. Click on the icon to Approve or Reject.

    Note that a record is considered as rejected if one field is rejected by the reviewer. The reviewer can reject a record even without reviewing some fields.

Viewing Review History

Once a record is reviewed and approved it will be added to the module's list view as a record. From there you can view the review history of a record that will list out information like: date on which the record entered the process, fields that were reviewed or re-reviewed, fields that were approved and the date on which the record was reviewed. Other details about the record's journey in the review process will be stored in the Timeline.
To view review history
  1. Select a module and choose a record.
  2. Click the More icon and select Review History.
     

Viewing review process usage

In review analytic we have provided four predefined reports that will give you an insight on the different review processes and help you evaluate their performance. 
Report typeDescription
Average waiting time in review processIdentify delays or stagnancy in review process by observing the average waiting period of a record in the review process.
Review status by record count
Total number of records at different review statuses: 
  • Pending for review
  • Review in progress
  • Rejected
  • Pending for re-review
Field status by record countList of fields that underwent the review process and the number of fields that were approved or rejected in the process. 
Rejected reason by record count Records are categorized based on the reason for rejection. 

To view review analytics

  1. Go to Setup > Process Management > Review Processes > Review Analytics.
  2. In the Review Process Usage page, select the desired report.
  3. Filter the report by module, layout and review process name. 

Reordering the Processes

The review processes that you created will be displayed in My Jobs tab under review process. These processes are listed in the order of creation, that is, the most recent process will be listed first. Whenever, a record matches review criteria of more than one process it will enter the review process in the order that they are listed. However, if you want the records to follow a particular order while entering, you can reorder the processes.  

To reorder the processes

  1. Go to Setup > Process Management > Review Process.
  2. In the Review Process page, click Reorder Processes.
  3. Drag and drop the processes.
  4. Click Save.
Note
You can search the processes by process name or the fields in the field set.

Deactivating or Deleting a Process

You can delete or deactivate a process that you want to discontinue. Before deleting or deactivating any review process, you must consider the following points:

For deleting a process:
  1. You can move your mouse pointer on a process that you want to delete and click the Delete icon. 
  2. You will not be able to delete a process, if records are lined-up for review or undergoing review.
     
  3. If the rejected records from a process that is deleted is resubmitted for review, it will enter the existing process based on the satisfied criteria and sub criteria. Also, the process will be selected based on the order in which they appear in the list of review processes. 
For deactivating a process:
  1. You can toggle off a process to deactivate. If the process has pending records, you will be prompted to take either of the following actions:
  2. Reject the record(s).
  3. Move the records to the system.
  4. Exit the records out of the process and run through other active processes.
  5. In the last two actions, there are chances of a record being added as "Unreviewed" in the system. You can view such records from the My Jobs tab and approve, delegate or reject them.



  6. If a process is deactivated, then the resubmitted and new records will enter one of the active processes based on the criteria and sub-criteria mentioned in the other processes.
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