Sessions need a laptop or desktop.
If you’re on your phone now, that’s fine. Enrol now and we’ll email you a link so you can pick up when you’re at a computer.
Zoho CRM · Foundations
Turn an export into a sales pipeline you can read.
What you’ll end up with
One finished Zoho organisation. A cleaned lead list with one record per firm, a view that answers who is worth an account manager’s time, accounts, contacts and deals for every firm that passed, a board showing money per stage, and an export a colleague can open.
12
hours in all — about 8 guided, 4 on your own
6
sessions. Each designed to be completed in one sitting
Free
No payment and no card required.
Finishing gives you a completion record showing the work you built, and all three levels earn the Alongrail Certificate in Zoho CRM. See what you’ll build →
You don’t need prior experience with Zoho CRM. There’s no payment and no card required.
From two raw files to a finished pipeline
01105 min
Get the leads in front of you
Oakmere's marketing export is in a Zoho CRM of your own, the organisation knows what currency and what time zone it works in, and you have read off a chart how many of those names the CRM actually accepted — which is not how many the file holds.
02120 min
One spelling for every place
Four towns that arrived written fifteen ways between them now read one way each, and the chart that showed the mess now shows four bars you could put in front of the owner.
03115 min
The records that are not leads
The two lines the export tool wrote about itself are out, every firm that was entered more than once is now one record with the right details kept, and the count proves both.
04100 min
The leads worth an account manager's time
A saved view that answers one question — which of these firms is worth a call — with its rule written down, the columns a salesperson needs and nothing else, and the biggest at the top of the rows.
05125 min
One lead becomes a firm, a person and a deal
Every firm on the Worth a call list is now three things instead of one — a firm, a person at that firm, and for the first of them a possible sale with a value and a date on it — and you can say what each of the three is for.
06140 min
The pipeline, in money
Every firm on the shortlist now has a deal with a value and a date, three of them repaired because a spreadsheet had written their values as text, and a board that shows what is in play at every stage of the sale — in pounds, adding itself up, and moving when you move a card.
What you need before you start
A laptop or desktop
Sessions need a laptop or desktop. If you’re on your phone now, that’s fine. Enrol now and we’ll email you a link so you can pick up when you’re at a computer. Zoho CRM runs in the browser, on Windows or a Mac.
Chrome or Edge
Alongrail runs in the browser too, in its own tab beside Zoho CRM.
The course files
Everything you work with is in the download.
What’s free
The whole course: every session, both parts, the files, and your record. Alongrail charges nothing for it. No payment, and no card at any point.
The software
None. The Zoho CRM Free plan covers every control this course teaches. There is no card to give. Signing up opens a fifteen-day trial of a paid plan first, and nothing this course teaches stops working when that trial ends.
The data you’ll work with
Every file is invented — the companies, the people and everything in them are made up for the course, and the files are deliberately messy, the way real business data is. Cleaning them is part of the work.
Before you start
The course covers Zoho CRM, in your browser.
- A computer with Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari — Zoho CRM runs in the browser and nothing is installed
- A Zoho account, created at zoho.com/crm/signup.html before session one. The sign-up needs an email address and no card. It opens a fifteen-day trial of a paid plan: every control this course teaches is on the Free plan, so nothing here stops working when that trial ends, but the trial will show you controls this course never sends you to
- The two export files downloaded from this course's own files page and findable on your own computer: oakmere-leads.csv, which holds 407 rows, and oakmere-deals.csv, which holds 32. Every start file this course names is on the same page
- Nothing in this course is real. Oakmere Acoustics Ltd is invented, every firm in the file is invented, and every name, address and email in it is invented. Nothing in this course sends an email to anybody. Never put a real marketing list through a course
- The Free plan holds 5000 records across every module together, imports 1000 at a time, saves 5 views per module, allows 3 users and gives 1 GB of storage. This course finishes a long way inside all of them
- A second Zoho CRM organisation, for the on-your-own runs. Oakmere's work and Pinfold's cannot share one: the Leads module would hold both firms' records and every count in both runs would be wrong. Make the second one the same way you made the first, with a second email address, before the first on-your-own run
Alongrail teaches the software and gives you a record of what you built, with a link to the work itself. What happens with it afterwards is yours. We don’t place people and we take no part in anyone’s recruitment process.
Enrol free and start now.
Sign in, confirm the one thing the course needs, and session 1 opens. No payment, and no card at any point.
If something goes wrong on the way, press “Something’s wrong” in the panel, or write to hello@alongrail.com — we reply within one working day.
Frequently asked questions
What you build
Start with one raw marketing export of four hundred-odd leads and finish with a working Zoho CRM — the leads in, the rows that are not leads out, one spelling for every place, the firms worth pursuing turned into accounts, contacts and deals, and a board showing what is in play at every stage of the sale, in money, adding up by itself.
A Zoho CRM organisation holding a cleaned lead list with one record per firm, a saved view that answers who is worth an account manager's time, an account and a contact for every firm that passed it, a deal for each with a value and a closing date, a board showing the pipeline as money per stage, and an exported file of that pipeline a colleague with no Zoho account can open.
How a session works
- Open Zoho CRM
- Share your screen
- One instruction
- You do it
- It confirms it
- Next
You open Zoho CRM and share your screen. Alongrail reads what’s there and gives you one instruction. You do it. It confirms the step landed, then gives you the next one. If something doesn’t match what you see, one button gets you back on track.
Guided
In the Fields list, tick Region. The chart fills in.
One field on the axis, one measure as the value.
then
On your owna different company’s data
Same job, a different company's files. Alongrail stays quiet until you ask.
Guided, then on your own.
The second part of every session uses a different company’s data, with the same kind of mess in different places. Alongrail stays quiet until you ask. It’s the work your record points to.
About 12 hours in all·about 8 guided·about 4 on your own
What you earn — the record, the certificate and a sample
Completion record
- Name
- Your name
- Course
- Zoho CRM Foundations — turn an export into a pipeline you can read
- Completed
- The date you finish
- Project
- The pipeline you built on your own →
- Skills demonstrated
- Set up a customer relationship manager's organisation so that money and dates mean one thing across it · Import a comma-separated export into a module, match its columns to the right fields, and find out what the import refused and why · Bring a column to one value per thing by building the question first and changing every record that answers it in one gesture · Find the rows an export added that are not records, and the firms entered more than once, and take both out with the count proving it · Save a view that answers one reader's question, with the conditions, the columns and the order that reader needs · Turn a lead into the firm, the person and the possible sale it actually represents, one at a time and in bulk · Read a sales pipeline as money per stage, and know what moves when a deal moves
What was built
A Zoho CRM organisation holding a cleaned lead list with one record per firm, a saved view that answers who is worth an account manager's time, an account and a contact for every firm that passed it, a deal for each with a value and a closing date, a board showing the pipeline as money per stage, and an exported file of that pipeline a colleague with no Zoho account can open.
The 6 sessions, and when each was completed on their own
Each session was completed twice: once with step-by-step guidance on one company’s data, then on a second company’s data from a brief, with guidance only when asked. Every check passed on both. Alongrail records the sessions, the checks and the dates; the dashboard itself is the learner’s own, hosted where they chose.
A completion record for Zoho CRM Foundations, now. It names the course, the date you finished, the skills you demonstrated, and links the pipeline you built on your own. It’s private until you publish it, and you can unpublish it at any time.
The record is a description of work you did, not a claim about you. Anyone who opens it can see the work for themselves.
The Alongrail Certificate in Zoho CRM when all three levels are complete. Foundations is the first of three. Practitioner and Professional are in development, with no dates. See the track →
Your screen stays yours
It looks when you ask. Never otherwise. Images of your screen are not stored. What Alongrail sees →
Nothing you build is public until you publish it. Your record is private until you say so, and you can unpublish it at any time.
What’s Zoho CRM?
Zoho CRM is the software this course is built in. It runs in your browser.
You won’t learn it by watching hours of tutorials. You’ll learn it by building something real with it.
Who you’re building it for
Oakmere Acoustics Ltd designs and fits acoustic treatment — for offices that have gone open-plan and regretted it, for recording studios, and for schools that cannot hear themselves teach.
Marketing has had a good year. A stand at a trade show, a webinar for school business managers and a form on the website have between them produced four hundred-odd names, and they arrived as one spreadsheet.
Nobody can do anything with it. The same firms appear more than once. Four towns are spelt fifteen ways between them, so nobody can even say how much of this is in the north. Two of the rows are not firms at all — they are lines the export tool wrote about itself.
The sales team is two people. They cannot call four hundred firms, and they have no way of telling which forty are worth the week.
And the owner wants one number at the board meeting: what is actually in play, and at what stage.
Your job is to build the pipeline that answers it.
Do I need to know Zoho CRM already?
No. The course assumes you’ve never opened it.
What if I get stuck?
Press the button in the panel and say what you see. Alongrail works out where you actually are and picks the instruction back up.
Why 12 hours, when other courses are 40?
Because the time is spent doing the work rather than watching it. About 8 hours is guided; the rest is you building the same thing again on your own.
What does Alongrail see on my screen?
Only the window you choose to share, and only when you ask it to look. Images of your screen are not stored by Alongrail. What Alongrail sees →
Can I use a Mac?
Yes. Zoho CRM runs in the browser.
What if I miss a week?
Nothing closes. The dates are there to help you keep moving, not to catch you out.
What’s the “on your own” part?
The second half of every session: the same work on a different company’s data, with Alongrail quiet unless you ask. Both parts are needed for your completion record.
Is it really free?
Yes. No payment, and no card at any point.
Who can see what I build?
Nobody, until you say so. Your record is private until you publish it, and you can unpublish it at any time. What you build stays in your own files or account; where a step publishes something to the software’s own site, the step says so and says who can see it.
Where this course sits
Zoho CRM Foundations is Foundations in Zoho CRM. The track has three levels; each one you complete earns its own record, and all of them together earn the Alongrail Certificate in Zoho CRM. All the courses →