What needs improvement with Zoho Creator?

My impression of Zoho Creator's dynamic form builder is that it's pretty good. The downside is that it looks very functional but not always the prettiest looking app. If you're building something that's going to be customer facing, the functionality can almost always be built. Looks-wise, that can be more of a challenge. There is a Pages feature where you can use custom CSS to style things further, but it's still somewhat limited. The biggest downside is the design flexibility. There are limitations with Deluge, though it depends on what you're trying to do. As long as you know what you're doing with Deluge, it's pretty easy to avoid those limitations. Another common limitation is that an API call can only wait for a response for 30 seconds. When using the OpenAI API, sometimes because of the nature of AI, it takes a while to respond and generate that response, so the connection can time out. I would evaluate the analytics tools of Zoho Creator as limited. Zoho has a separate product called Zoho Analytics, and the expectation would be that you would connect Creator to Zoho Analytics and do your reporting through there. There are some limited functionalities built in, but really you would be plugging it into Zoho Creator. The biggest area for improvement is the look and feel when building a customer portal as it's not that customizable. The whole point of Zoho Creator is that you're building an app for yourself, so all of the limitations are down to what you as a person are able to technically do within the software.

One significant issue with Zoho Creator is the lack of backup when items are deleted, unlike CRM where backups are available. Additionally, there is no import history. While logs exist, we cannot undo imports, which is possible in CRM. Another limitation involves large automation processes with multiple functionalities due to statement limitations. A function can have about 5,000 statements. When dealing with loops, such as fetching data record by record, optimization of lines becomes necessary.

AI is a developing tool that could enhance many aspects. Utilizing a more advanced UI and UX capability paired with more customization and ready-made modern templates for mobile and web apps could improve mobile responsiveness and branding controls. Additionally, regarding connections, not just with Zoho apps but also with external ones, there is a need for more pre-built connectors so users do not always require custom APIs. Optimizing the handling of large data sets, providing more enterprise-grade development options, and ensuring full offline mobile apps with automatic background sync would also be beneficial. Furthermore, reducing dependency on Deluge scripts for simple automations and introducing a more intuitive drag-and-drop workflow builder would make a difference. There is indeed a large team collaborating, so they can gain from stronger visual control and improve tracking for production development workflows.

Improvement could come from the ability to implement and create custom dashboards or subforms in Zoho Creator.

I want to see improvements in Zoho Creator focusing on AI capabilities because there currently seems to be very little AI usage in Zoho compared to the advancements in other software.

Sometimes, codes that are working fine can suddenly throw errors without any specific reason. This requires reaching out to support for resolution. In terms of scalability, there are certain limitations if the data volume is large due to execution limits.

The solution has limitations on development. It will not be suitable if you have 4000-5000 users.

Zoho Creator falls short on data management, so we must connect it to other databases to handle larger datasets. However, it may still be sufficient for smaller databases. Better templates and examples for support teams or programming could be improved. Learning the Zoho Creator language, known as "Deluge," can be challenging for native programmers, so having clear examples and training materials would benefit users.

The UI must be improved. It is difficult to find things in Zoho. There needs to be some R&D. It is fine for a technical person, but non-technical people will find it difficult.

The platform's technical support services need improvement. Most of the time, when we contact them regarding some error, they do not answer our queries. Sometimes, their solutions don't help us solve the problem. Additionally, the platform has multiple support channels, including chat, email, and portal. But it is time-consuming to deal with them.

We face issues while moving from one form to another form. We have a negative impression of the tool's support since they do not provide us assistance with our queries. They don't have solid answers to our questions.

I would say that we are looking for a single portal for customers across all Zoho apps. That is something that is on the roadmap. We do that because we listen to notifications and roadmaps, including the newsletters that come our way. So right now, every single product has its own customer portal. We are looking for a single portal across all Zoho apps. Zoho Creator has a lot of reporting capabilities. I would look to drill deep into it to ensure that those reporting capabilities are intuitive for neither a programmer nor an analyst. Because right now, what's happening, the integration with Zoho Analytics gives a very extensive base for the reports, but in Analytics, only an analyst prepares reports. So I would look into something in that area because Creator, as an application, collects data, and the data is only useful as far as the graph tools or the pivot table goes. As a non-programer can use the low-code knowledge of Creator to build an app, there should be no hassle in the method to generate reports and dashboards that gives meaning to the data.

Sometimes technical support does not answer our queries.

Zoho provides different channels for support, like chat and email. There's also a multi-brand support self-service support portal, but it's time-consuming to deal with it. If we create a portal on Zoho, we need to pay an additional cost per user. It's a flexible platform, but there are limitations, such as the EBI. We need to purchase additional EBIs and other features that some businesses require. If we are developing complex applications, we need to set up many virtual automation and use API calls. If we have data in various tables and need to import it all at once, it can be challenging to import it all. There are multiple data modeling relationships, so it is difficult to import into raw data.

Just building more pre-built integrations so that you can pull data from the wider Zoho ecosystem as well as other systems into Creator would be quite useful. And I think close integration with Microsoft Suite would also help.

It's very difficult for me to speak on the areas of the solution that need improvement since I am not the one who is going through the training. So, I have to speak with my team to know about the areas of the solution that need improvement. Zoho Creator's UX design needs to be improved. At the moment, if you want to make a good user interface, it is difficult to design an application that provides a better user experience or customer delight. Also, all the use cases and my understanding regarding the solution were primarily for the back-end support team only. Basically, it is not a customer-facing application that one can develop using Zoho Creator. It is more about the back-end support type of application or the one you want to use within your office for a smaller audience. So, I'm not sure whether one can develop some applications for an enterprise-level customer. I think that is an area where the solution can improve. Catalyst is also a platform Zoho provides, and combining both Zoho Creator and Catalyst can be great. So, it can be a lethal combination considering that someone wants to use it to build some application.

Zoho Creator could benefit from improvement in regard to the user interface and user experience of the forms. The forms themselves could benefit from being made more interactive, with increased flexibility and customization options for both developers and users. This would allow for a more engaging experience when interacting with the forms and provide more opportunities for customization to meet individual needs and preferences. The portal functionality allows administrators to provide limited access to specific users through the creation of a client portal, by assigning email addresses and providing a unique login link. This functionality is a valuable tool for providing secure access to sensitive information for clients, but there may be opportunities for further improvement in this aspect of Zoho Creator. If a new version of Zoho Creator were to be released tomorrow and I had the opportunity to incorporate a feature that would make my life easier, I would suggest that they focus on improving the stability of forms, particularly when dealing with larger forms and multiple fees. This is because I have noticed that performance tends to slow down in these situations. Therefore, I believe that developers should prioritize making the platform more efficient.

When you're developing database-type applications, there is no way to see the actual database tables. They call them forms, and I don't like that. Zoho should also provide better user guides.

Understanding the role hierarchy and permissions can be a bit tricky. Secondly, the licensing pattern needs to be more simplified. They should allow for more UI customization. In fact, I don't think any of the low-code platforms allow that. If they added that, it would be a nice tool to explore and it would be adopted by many organizations as well.