Every 5 minutes

Post new Zoho CRM leads to Slack

Sales sees each new lead's name, company and source within minutes.

Runs: Every 5 minutes
Apps: Zoho CRM
AI: Not needed
Access: ZohoCRM.modules.leads.READ

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: whenever a lead is added in Zoho CRM, post its name, company and lead source to #new-leads in Slack.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

Add to ChatGPT Add to Claude

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A lead fills in a contact form at 10:02 and expects a call. The assigned rep is on another call, nobody is watching Zoho CRM, and the lead is first noticed at 11:30 when the rep checks the lead list. By then the prospect has contacted two competitors. Studies on lead response vary, but the basic reality in sales is that the first company to respond often wins the conversation.

Every five minutes, Zoho CRM is asked for leads modified since the last check, and only those created after it are kept. Each new lead is posted to Slack with name, company, source and a link to the record. Because it uses a modified-since header, the check is light even in a CRM with many leads.

Works best for small sales teams who handle inbound leads from forms.

What you get out of it

Faster first contact
A message within five minutes puts a rep on the phone while the prospect is still looking at your website. Speed is the cheapest conversion tool a small sales team has.
Whole team sees the lead
Posting to a shared channel means anyone free can claim the lead. A lead is not stuck waiting for one person who happens to be in a meeting, and the first free rep picks it up.
Source is visible right away
The alert shows the lead source, so a rep opens the call knowing the lead came from the pricing page or a trade show. The conversation starts with relevance, which prospects can hear.
No dependence on notification settings
Zoho CRM's own notifications depend on each user's settings and are easy to miss. A channel message is seen where the team already works, which makes it much harder to overlook.
After-hours leads are not forgotten
Leads arriving overnight are waiting in the channel at the start of the day. The first person in picks them up in order, and nothing is left unnoticed until someone refreshes a list.
A shared sense of pipeline pace
A steady stream of lead posts shows the team how much inbound is arriving. Quiet days and busy days are visible to everyone, not only to the manager. Managers can see response speed in the timestamps.

How it works

What happens, step by step

Every 5 minutes ClickRuntime checks Zoho CRM for leads created since its last check, so each lead is posted only once.
For each new lead it picks out the name, company and lead source.
Each one is posted to your #new-leads Slack channel.

Before it runs live

Connect Zoho CRM

What you get

RunsEvery 5 minutes

Post new Zoho CRM leads to Slacktoday, 9:00Succeeded

Slack · #new-leadsNew lead: Sam Rivera (Northwind) · Trade Show

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
Combine it with other Zoho CRM steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.

new_lead_alert.pyexample

from datetime import datetime, timezone
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, state, notify, report_fetched

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    since = state.get("since") or datetime.now(timezone.utc).isoformat(timespec="seconds")
    r = http.get("https://www.zohoapis.com/crm/v8/Leads",
                 params={"fields": "Full_Name,Company,Lead_Source,Created_Time"},
                 headers={"Authorization": f"Zoho-oauthtoken {credentials.connection('zoho', 'work')}",
                          "If-Modified-Since": since})
    leads = [l for l in (r.json()["data"] if r.status_code == 200 else []) if l["Created_Time"] > since]
    report_fetched(len(leads))
    if not leads:
        return {"summary": "Nothing new"}
    for l in leads:
        notify.slack(f"New lead: {l['Full_Name']} ({l.get('Company') or '-'}) · {l.get('Lead_Source') or 'no source'}",
                     channel="#new-leads")
    state.set("since", max(l["Created_Time"] for l in leads))
    return {"posted": len(leads)}

FAQ

Common questions

Will old leads that are edited be posted again?

No. Only leads whose created time is after the last check are announced, so editing a lead's phone number or status does not make it appear as new. Only leads created after the last check are posted.

Can I send leads from certain sources to other channels?

Yes. The lead source can be used to choose the Slack channel, so partner leads go to one place and website leads to another. It is a small condition added before posting. The channel can depend on source.

Is a five-minute delay too slow?

The interval is adjustable. Shorter intervals reduce the wait, and the lightweight check keeps API usage modest. If you need truly immediate alerts, a Zoho CRM workflow webhook can trigger instead. Event-based alerts need a Zoho workflow webhook.

What permissions does it need?

ZohoCRM.modules.leads.READ. Nothing else in your accounts is used.

Does it need AI?

No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.

How many runs does it use?

One run each time it checks. Checks that find nothing new and stop right away aren't counted.

Can I change how it works?

Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

Every 15 minutes