Bigin by Zoho CRM
Setup & Usage Guide

🏢 Account Setup

After signing up for Bigin, spend 10 minutes configuring these essentials before inviting your team or adding data.

🔧 Organization Profile

1. 1
   Go to Settings → General → Organization
2. 2
   Enter your Organization Name (appears on emails and forms)
3. 3
   Upload your Logo — PNG or JPG, recommended 200×200px
4. 4
   Set your Time Zone so activity timestamps are accurate
5. 5
   Set your Currency — the default for all deal values (can add more later)
6. 6
   Set Business Hours — used for SLA calculations and activity scheduling
7. 7
   Add your Website URL and Phone number for records

📋 Fiscal Year

Set your fiscal year start under Settings → General → Fiscal Year. This aligns your dashboard goals and quota tracking to your business calendar (e.g., April–March for India, July–June for Australia).

🔔 Notification Preferences

Under Settings → Notifications, choose how Bigin alerts you — in-app bell icon, email digest, mobile push. Set separately for: deal assignments, activity reminders, workflow triggers, and team mentions.

👤 Users & Roles

Control who can see and do what in your Bigin account. Small teams often use two roles; growing teams define custom roles per department.

🎭 Default Roles

➕ Inviting a User

1. 1Go to Settings → Users → Invite User
2. 2Enter the user's email address
3. 3Assign a Role
4. 4Click Send Invitation — they get an email to set a password and join

🔐 Custom Role Permissions

Create custom roles under Settings → Roles → New Role. For each module (Pipelines, Contacts, Companies, Products, Activities, Reports), set granular permissions:

• View — can read records
• Create — can add new records
• Edit — can modify existing records
• Delete — can remove records
• Export — can download data

📥 Importing Data

Bring your existing contacts, companies, and deals into Bigin from spreadsheets, other CRMs, or CSV exports.

📄 Importing Contacts from CSV

1. 1Go to Contacts → (☰ menu) → Import
2. 2Download the Sample CSV template to see the expected format
3. 3Fill in your data — Name, Email, Phone, Company, etc.
4. 4Upload your CSV file
5. 5Map columns — match your CSV headers to Bigin fields
6. 6Choose duplicate handling: Skip, Overwrite, or Create new
7. 7Click Import — a summary shows records added, skipped, errors

🔄 Other Import Sources

💳 Plans & Editions

Bigin offers three tiers. Start free, upgrade as you grow.

📊 Creating Pipelines

A Pipeline is Bigin's core concept — a visual board where deals move left-to-right through your sales or operational stages. Create one per process (sales, onboarding, renewals, support).

➕ Creating a New Pipeline

1. 1Click Pipelines in the left nav → click + next to "Team Pipelines"
2. 2Choose Start from Scratch or select a Template (Sales, Support, Onboarding, Real Estate, etc.)
3. 3Enter the Pipeline Name (e.g., "Inbound Sales")
4. 4Define your Stages — click + to add stages, drag to reorder
5. 5Set the Deal Value Currency for this pipeline
6. 6Assign Pipeline Owners (who manages this pipeline)
7. 7Click Create

📋 Pipeline Templates Available

🎯 Pipeline Stages

Stages represent the steps your deals go through. Design them to match exactly how your sales or operational process actually works.

✏️ Managing Stages

1. 1Open the Pipeline → click Settings (⚙️) → Stages
2. 2Click + Add Stage to add a new stage
3. 3Drag stages to reorder them
4. 4Click a stage name to rename it
5. 5Set the Probability % per stage (used for deal value forecasting)
6. 6Mark a stage as a Closing Stage (Won or Lost)
7. 7Toggle Stage Restriction — prevents moving deals backward accidentally

🏗️ Example Stage Structures

💼 Deals & Records

Each card on your pipeline board is a Deal (also called an Opportunity or Record). It represents one potential sale or business operation you're tracking.

➕ Creating a Deal

1. 1Click the + button in any pipeline column, or click New Record at the top
2. 2Enter Deal Name (e.g., "Acme Corp – Website Redesign")
3. 3Link to a Contact and/or Company
4. 4Set Deal Value and Currency
5. 5Set Closing Date (expected close)
6. 6Assign to a Sales Rep (Owner)
7. 7Add any custom fields, tags, or notes
8. 8Add Products if applicable
9. 9Save — the deal appears in the pipeline board

📋 Deal Detail View

• Timeline — full history of all emails, calls, notes, and stage changes
• Activities — open tasks, upcoming calls, scheduled events
• Notes — internal notes visible to your team (not the customer)
• Files — attach contracts, proposals, documents
• Products — items associated with this deal
• Stage History — track how long the deal spent in each stage
• Related Contacts — all people involved in this deal

🖱️ Moving Deals Through Stages

In the Kanban board view, simply drag and drop the card to the next column. Or open the deal and change the stage from the dropdown at the top. Stage Automation triggers fire automatically when the stage changes.

✅ Closing a Deal

Move a deal to a Won stage to mark it as a successful sale. Move to Lost and select a reason (required if you've configured lost reasons) to track why deals didn't close — this data is invaluable for improving your process.

👁️ Pipeline Views

Switch between different ways to visualize your deals based on what task you're doing.

🔍 Filtering Deals

Click the Filter icon to narrow deals by: Owner, Stage, Deal Value range, Closing Date, Tag, custom fields. Save filters as Custom Views for one-click access later (e.g., "My Overdue Deals", "High Value Q4 Deals").

⚡ Stage Automation

Stage Automation triggers automatic actions whenever a deal moves into a specific stage. No manual steps required from your team.

⚙️ Setting Up Stage Automation

1. 1Open a Pipeline → click a Stage name → select Stage Automation
2. 2Choose When a record enters this stage
3. 3Add Actions:

🔗 Sub-Pipelines & Templates

Sub-Pipelines are secondary workflows attached to a parent pipeline. They let the same contact or company flow through multiple processes — for example, first Sales, then Onboarding, then Renewal.

➕ Creating a Sub-Pipeline

1. 1Open a Team Pipeline → click + Add Sub-Pipeline
2. 2Name it (e.g., "Customer Onboarding")
3. 3Define its own stages independently of the parent
4. 4Optionally connect it to a parent stage (auto-trigger when parent deal reaches that stage)

🗺️ Common Multi-Pipeline Setups

• Sales → Onboarding → Renewal — Full customer lifecycle
• Sales → Support Tickets — Post-sale support tracking
• Inbound Leads → Partner Leads — Separate funnels, same team
• Online Sales → In-Person Sales — Channel-specific pipelines

👥 Adding Contacts

Contacts are individuals — leads, prospects, and customers. Every deal in your pipeline should be linked to at least one contact.

➕ Creating a Contact Manually

1. 1Click Contacts → New Contact
2. 2Enter First Name and Last Name
3. 3Add Email (used for sending emails directly from Bigin)
4. 4Add Phone (used for click-to-call)
5. 5Link to a Company
6. 6Set the Deal Stage they're currently in (optional)
7. 7Add Tags for easy filtering (e.g., "VIP", "Referral", "Trade Show 2025")
8. 8Fill any Custom Fields relevant to your business
9. 9Save

🏷️ Contact Fields & Layout

Bigin provides standard fields (Name, Email, Phone, Company) and lets you add unlimited custom fields to capture information specific to your business.

📝 Standard Contact Fields

➕ Adding Custom Fields

1. 1Go to Settings → Modules → Contacts → Fields → New Field
2. 2Choose Field Type: Text, Number, Date, Checkbox, Picklist, Lookup, URL, Multi-select
3. 3Enter Field Label (what users see)
4. 4Set whether it's mandatory
5. 5Drag it to the right position in the Page Layout

📋 Contact Detail View

Clicking a contact opens their 360° profile — everything about them in one place.

• Contact Info Panel — all fields, email/call/WhatsApp buttons
• Timeline — chronological history of every interaction (emails sent/received, calls, notes, stage changes)
• Deals — all pipeline records this contact is associated with
• Activities — open tasks and upcoming events for this contact
• Notes — internal notes from any team member
• Files — documents attached to this contact
• Emails — full email thread history if email is connected
• Social — linked social media profiles

🔍 Filtering & Views

Slice and dice your contact database to find exactly who you need for outreach, reporting, or bulk actions.

1. 1In the Contacts list, click Filter (funnel icon)
2. 2Add conditions: Owner = me, Tag = VIP, City = London, Last Activity > 30 days ago
3. 3Combine filters with AND / OR logic
4. 4Click Save as View to store this filter for future use

📋 Useful Saved Views to Create

• My Contacts — Owner = current user
• Uncontacted Leads — No activity in last 7 days + Stage = New
• Hot Leads — Tag = Hot OR Lead Score > 80
• By Region — Country or City = specific location

🏢 Adding Companies

Companies (also called Accounts) represent the organizations your contacts work for. Linking contacts to companies gives you a complete view of all deals and relationships within a single organization.

1. 1Click Companies → New Company
2. 2Enter Company Name
3. 3Add Website, Phone, Address, Industry, Number of Employees
4. 4Set Annual Revenue (useful for deal sizing)
5. 5Add custom fields relevant to B2B (e.g., CRM Tier, Contract Value)
6. 6Save — now link contacts to this company

🔗 Linking Contacts to Companies

Multiple contacts from the same organization can be linked to a single company record, giving you account-level deal visibility.

1. 1Open a Contact → find the Company field
2. 2Start typing the company name → select it from the dropdown
3. 3Or open the Company record → Related Contacts → Add Contact

The Company record then shows all linked contacts, all deals associated with any of those contacts, and the total pipeline value for that account.

📦 Adding Products & Services

Create your product/service catalog so reps can attach items to deals — keeping deal values accurate and generating quote line items.

1. 1Go to Products → New Product
2. 2Enter Product Name and Product Code (SKU)
3. 3Set Unit Price and Currency
4. 4Choose Unit of Measure (each, hour, license, month)
5. 5Add Description and Category
6. 6Mark as Active to make it available for deals
7. 7Save

💼 Products in Deals

Attach one or more products to a deal to itemize what's being sold and auto-calculate the total deal value.

1. 1Open a Deal → scroll to the Products section
2. 2Click Add Products → search your catalog
3. 3Set Quantity and adjust Unit Price if needed
4. 4Apply a Discount % per line item
5. 5The total auto-calculates and can update the Deal Value

💳 Payment Links

Generate a unique payment link for a deal and share it with the customer via email, WhatsApp, or SMS — they click and pay instantly.

1. 1Open a Deal → click Generate Payment Link
2. 2Set the Amount (defaults to deal value)
3. 3Set Expiry Date for the link
4. 4Copy the link and share via email, WhatsApp, or SMS
5. 5When the customer pays, the deal is marked and you're notified

✅ Tasks

Tasks are to-do items linked to contacts or deals. Use them to track follow-ups, reminders, and delegated work.

1. 1Click Activities → Tasks → New Task (or + from a contact/deal)
2. 2Enter Task Subject (e.g., "Follow up on proposal")
3. 3Set Due Date and Time
4. 4Set Priority: High, Normal, or Low
5. 5Assign an Owner (yourself or a team member)
6. 6Link to a Contact and/or Deal
7. 7Set a Reminder (email or in-app notification)
8. 8Add internal Notes
9. 9Save — appears in Activities dashboard and on the linked record

📞 Calls

Log calls manually or use Bigin's built-in telephony to make calls directly from the CRM — calls are automatically recorded and linked to the contact.

📝 Logging a Call Manually

1. 1Open a Contact or Deal → click Log a Call (or Activities → Calls → New)
2. 2Set Call Date & Time
3. 3Set Duration
4. 4Choose Direction: Inbound or Outbound
5. 5Set Call Status: Completed, Not Connected, Left Voicemail
6. 6Add call Notes/Summary

☎️ Click-to-Call (Built-in Telephony)

With Bigin's built-in phone, click any phone number on a contact to call directly from your browser. The call logs automatically with duration, recording (if enabled), and a note field. Set up under Settings → Telephony → Bigin Phone.

🔌 Third-Party Telephony

📅 Events & Bookings

Events are time-blocked calendar activities — meetings, demos, site visits, discovery calls. Bookings allow customers to schedule directly into your calendar.

➕ Creating an Event

1. 1Go to Activities → Events → New Event
2. 2Enter Event Title and Location (or Zoom/Meet link)
3. 3Set Start and End Date/Time
4. 4Add Participants (contacts + internal users)
5. 5Link to a Deal
6. 6Enable Send Invitation to email participants automatically

📆 Booking Pages

Share a Bigin booking link with prospects — they pick a time from your available slots, and the event auto-creates in Bigin and syncs to your calendar. Set up under Activities → Bookings → New Booking Page.

📆 Calendar Sync

Sync Bigin activities with Google Calendar or Outlook so your CRM schedule and personal calendar stay in perfect alignment.

1. 1Go to Settings → Integrations → Google / Microsoft
2. 2Click Authorize and sign in to your Google/Microsoft account
3. 3Choose Two-way sync (recommended) or one-way
4. 4Choose which Bigin calendars to sync (Events, Tasks)
5. 5Events created in Bigin appear in Google Calendar (and vice versa)

✉️ Email Integration

Connect your work email so you can send, receive, and track emails directly from contact and deal records — keeping all communication in one place.

🔌 Connecting Your Email

1. 1Go to Settings → Email → Configure
2. 2Choose your provider: Gmail, Outlook, Zoho Mail, or generic IMAP/SMTP
3. 3Sign in and authorize Bigin to access your inbox
4. 4Choose Inbox Sync — incoming emails from contacts auto-link to their records

📧 Sending Emails from Bigin

1. 1Open a Contact or Deal → click the Email button
2. 2Compose or select an Email Template
3. 3Use merge fields: {{FirstName}}, {{DealValue}}, {{OwnerName}}
4. 4Send — the email logs on the contact timeline automatically

📊 Email Tracking

• Open Tracking — get notified when the contact opens your email
• Click Tracking — know which links they clicked
• Reply Detection — replies auto-log to the contact timeline

💬 WhatsApp Integration

Connect your WhatsApp Business account to send and receive WhatsApp messages from within Bigin. All conversations are logged on contact records.

1. 1Go to Settings → Messaging → WhatsApp → Configure
2. 2Connect via WhatsApp Business API (requires a Meta Business account)
3. 3Verify your business phone number
4. 4Once connected, open any Contact with a phone number → click WhatsApp icon
5. 5Chat in real time — messages appear in the contact's Messages tab

📧 Mass Emails

Send bulk emails to a segment of your contacts — announcements, promotions, follow-up campaigns — directly from Bigin.

1. 1Go to Contacts → select contacts (use filters to segment) → click Send Email
2. 2Or use Messages → Mass Email → New Campaign
3. 3Choose or create an Email Template
4. 4Select your Contact Segment (filter by tag, stage, region, etc.)
5. 5Schedule or send immediately

⚡ Workflow Rules

Workflows are if-then automation rules. When a trigger happens and conditions are met, Bigin automatically performs actions — saving your team from repetitive manual tasks.

⚙️ Creating a Workflow

1. 1Go to Settings → Automation → Workflow Rules → New Rule
2. 2Select the Module (Contacts, Deals, Companies, Activities)
3. 3Name the rule (e.g., "New Lead — Welcome Email")
4. 4Set the Trigger: Record Created, Record Edited, Field Updated, Date/Time
5. 5Set Conditions (optional): e.g., "Only if Stage = New Lead"
6. 6Add Actions (can be multiple):

💡 Workflow Ideas

• New contact created → send welcome email immediately
• Deal closing date passes with no movement → create urgent follow-up task
• Deal value > $50,000 → assign to Senior Account Executive
• Contact's birthday (custom field) → send greeting email
• Follow-up task created → send Slack notification via webhook

🎯 Stage-Based Automation

While Workflows run on any module event, Stage Automation is specifically triggered by a deal moving into or out of a pipeline stage. It's the most powerful automation in Bigin for sales teams.

🔄 Entry vs. Exit Actions

🔔 Signals & Notifications

Signals are real-time alerts that tell you when a contact interacts with you — opening an email, clicking a link, calling, visiting your website, or mentioning you on social media. Act at exactly the right moment.

📡 Signal Sources

• Email Open/Click — contact opened your tracked email or clicked a link
• Incoming Call — contact is calling you right now
• WhatsApp Reply — contact responded to your WhatsApp message
• Support Ticket Update — contact's ticket changed status (via Zoho Desk)
• Social Mention — contact mentioned you on X (Twitter)
• Form Submission — contact filled a web form

Configure which Signals you receive under Settings → Signals → Configure. Signals appear as a notification bell in the top nav — clicking them takes you directly to the relevant contact or deal.

📝 Web Forms

Create embeddable forms for your website. When someone submits the form, they're automatically created as a Contact (and optionally a Deal) in Bigin — eliminating manual data entry for inbound leads.

1. 1Go to Settings → Web Forms → New Form
2. 2Choose the Module: Contacts, Companies, or Deals
3. 3Drag and drop Fields to include on the form
4. 4Set which fields are Required
5. 5Design with your brand colors and logo
6. 6Set Auto-assignment rules (which rep gets the lead)
7. 7Set a Thank You message or redirect URL
8. 8Copy the embed code and paste it into your website HTML

📊 Building Dashboards

Dashboards give you a bird's-eye view of your pipeline health, team performance, and business metrics. Build up to 10 components per dashboard.

➕ Adding Dashboard Components

1. 1Go to Dashboards → Edit Dashboard → Add Component
2. 2Choose a Chart Type: Bar, Line, Pie, Donut, Funnel, KPI Tile
3. 3Choose the Module and Measure (e.g., Deals → Sum of Deal Value)
4. 4Group by Stage, Owner, Source, Month, etc.
5. 5Set a Date Range filter
6. 6Save and drag/resize components on the dashboard

📈 Recommended Components

• Pipeline Value by Stage — funnel chart showing total deal value per stage
• Deals Won This Month — KPI tile with count and value
• Win Rate % — (Won deals / Total closed) over time
• Activities by Rep — bar chart of tasks/calls per salesperson
• Revenue by Lead Source — pie chart to know where your best deals come from
• Overdue Activities — table of past-due tasks
• Average Deal Cycle Time — how long deals take to close

📋 Reports

Bigin's Reports module lets you create tabular or summary reports on any module data — then export or schedule them.

📊 Standard Reports

🔧 Custom Reports

1. 1Go to Reports → New Report
2. 2Select Module (Deals, Contacts, Activities)
3. 3Choose Report Type: Tabular, Summary, or Matrix
4. 4Select Columns to include
5. 5Add Filters and Sort Order
6. 6Save and Schedule it to be emailed weekly

🎯 Goals & Targets

Set sales quotas for individuals or teams and track progress against them in real time on the Dashboard.

1. 1Go to Dashboard → Goals → New Goal
2. 2Choose Goal Type: Revenue (deal value), Activity count (calls/tasks)
3. 3Set the Target Value (e.g., $100,000 in closed deals)
4. 4Choose Period: Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly
5. 5Assign to a User or Team
6. 6Track progress on the Dashboard as a progress bar or KPI tile

🏷️ Custom Fields

Every business is unique. Add custom fields to any module to capture the data that matters to your specific workflow.

📐 Field Types Available

➕ Adding a Custom Field

1. 1Go to Settings → Modules → [Module Name] → Fields
2. 2Click New Field
3. 3Choose Field Type, enter Label, set mandatory
4. 4Drag to position in Page Layout
5. 5Save — field appears immediately on all records

📄 Page Layouts

Control which fields appear on each module's detail page, their order, and how they're organized into sections.

1. 1Go to Settings → Modules → [Module] → Page Layout
2. 2Drag fields between the Layout and Available Fields panels
3. 3Create Sections (e.g., "Deal Info", "Contact Details", "Internal Notes")
4. 4Set fields to 1-column or 2-column layout
5. 5Mark fields as Read-Only for certain roles
6. 6Save — changes apply immediately to all users

🏷️ Tags

Tags are free-form labels you apply to contacts, companies, and deals for flexible organization, filtering, and segmentation.

• Add tags from any record's detail view — just type in the Tags field
• Apply multiple tags per record (e.g., "VIP", "Q4 Target", "Referral", "Tech Industry")
• Filter the Contacts or Deals list by one or more tags
• Use tags as workflow conditions (e.g., send email if Tag = "Trade Show 2025")
• Bulk-tag contacts by selecting them in list view → Actions → Add Tag
• Manage all tags under Settings → Tags — rename or merge duplicates

🔵 Zoho Ecosystem Integrations

Bigin is part of the Zoho family — it connects seamlessly with other Zoho apps for a complete business operating system.

🔴 Google Workspace Integration

Connect Bigin to your Google account for seamless email, calendar, and contacts sync.

• Gmail — Send and receive emails from Bigin; incoming emails auto-match to contacts
• Google Calendar — Two-way sync of events and activities
• Google Contacts — Import and sync contacts from Google
• Google Meet — Schedule Meet calls from deal records with auto-generated links
• Google Ads — Capture leads from Google Ad lead forms directly into Bigin contacts

Set up via Settings → Integrations → Google → Authorize. All users connect their own Google account individually.

🔷 Microsoft 365 Integration

Connect Bigin to Microsoft 365 for Outlook email, calendar, and Teams calling support.

• Outlook Email — Full two-way email sync; emails log on contact timelines
• Outlook Calendar — Activities sync to and from your Outlook calendar
• Microsoft Teams — Initiate Teams calls from deal records; calls auto-log
• Office 365 Contacts — Import your Outlook address book to Bigin

Set up via Settings → Integrations → Microsoft → Authorize with Microsoft.

🛒 Marketplace & APIs

Extend Bigin beyond its built-in capabilities with third-party apps and developer tools.

🔌 Key Third-Party Integrations

🔑 Bigin API

Bigin provides a REST API for developers to build custom integrations. Access via Settings → Developer Space → API Keys. Generate an API key and use it to create, read, update, or delete any record programmatically.

✉️ Email Templates

Create reusable email templates for common scenarios — follow-ups, proposals, check-ins, notifications. Use merge fields to personalize at scale.

1. 1Go to Settings → Email Templates → New Template
2. 2Enter Template Name (internal reference)
3. 3Enter Subject — use merge fields like {{Deal Name}}
4. 4Compose the Body using the rich text editor
5. 5Insert Merge Fields: {{Contact.FirstName}}, {{Owner.Name}}, {{Deal.Value}}
6. 6Add your Email Signature
7. 7Save — now available when sending emails or creating workflows

📞 Telephony Setup

Set up calling directly within Bigin so your team can make and receive calls from the CRM without switching apps.

📲 Bigin Built-in Phone

1. 1Go to Settings → Telephony → Bigin Phone
2. 2Choose a Phone Number from available numbers in your country
3. 3Configure Business Hours and voicemail greeting
4. 4Enable Call Recording (check local laws)
5. 5Assign numbers to Users or a shared pool
6. 6Use the dial pad widget in Bigin to make calls

🔌 Third-Party Phone Providers

Don't want Bigin Phone? Connect your existing provider via the Marketplace: Twilio, RingCentral, Aircall, Vonage, JustCall, Avaya. Each has a Bigin integration available in Settings → Marketplace.

🔒 Security & Data

Bigin takes data security seriously. Use these settings to protect your CRM data and comply with privacy requirements.

🔐 Security Settings

• Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) — enforce 2FA for all users under Settings → Security Policy
• IP Restrictions — restrict login to specific IP addresses or ranges
• Session Management — set auto-logout duration for idle sessions
• Password Policy — enforce minimum length, complexity, expiry
• Audit Logs — see who changed what, when (all record history is logged)

💾 Data Management

• Export Data — export any module as CSV under the module's ☰ menu
• Data Backup — Settings → Data Administration → Backup (weekly automated backups)
• Recycle Bin — deleted records stay in recycle bin for 60 days before permanent deletion
• GDPR Compliance — mark contacts as opted-out; honor deletion requests via Settings → GDPR