The most valuable feature I have found in Zoho CRM is custom functions. You can achieve anything with it. From integrations with other applications, it is instant. I love it for that. Custom functions also help us automate some tasks that you might find Zoho CRM has some limitations with its inbuilt features. So, functions have come in handy for me personally, a lot. Automation capabilities in Zoho CRM have helped me streamline sales and marketing tasks for my customers. We internally do not use the Zoho-to-Zoho integration. The in-marketplace integrations, such as with Zoho Books and Zoho Project, usually have limitations in terms of syncing data. We usually use functions to push data and it is instant. When the sales team has completed the nurturing of leads, converting them to contacts and making a sale, we usually push the sale and customer to Zoho Books for finance to manage their statements, invoicing, and sales orders. Another instance of automation using custom functions is the automatic filling in of fields. We have the feature for lookup fields, but lookup fields will not really help when it comes to conditions. You want to fill this field if certain conditions have been met. Sometimes you might find you are dealing with up to 10 fields. It is usually easier just to write a custom function that will fill the field based on certain conditions that you put.
