Disclosure: I work at Skyfall Labs, an official Zoho Partner, so I have a commercial interest. The facts below are from Zoho's own help pages, linked at the end; advice is labelled as advice. Originally published on skyfallhq.net.
When sales teams share accounts across regions, industries or product lines, role hierarchy alone can feel too rigid. Territory management groups accounts by their characteristics instead of only by owner. This post sets out what Zoho's pages say, including choices that cannot be undone.
What it is, per Zoho
Zoho says a territory groups customer accounts within the sales force structure so they can be shared with sales staff, and that territories can be based on geography, industry, product line, expected revenue or verticals. Zoho says users with the Administrator profile can enable the feature. The overview page does not name editions, so check feature availability for your edition.
Roles versus territories, per Zoho's decision guide
- Both models give each record one owner. With roles, a record is visible to its owner, users above in the hierarchy and users granted access by sharing rules; with territories it is also visible to other users in its territory and to users in territories above it.
- A user can hold only one role but can belong to multiple territories.
- With roles a user gets a single forecast target; with territories, one per territory they belong to, and switching changes forecasts to suit territory requirements.
- Zoho says territory management need not be a requirement for every organization and that the choice depends on your sales structure and sharing model.
Setup, per Zoho
- Go to Setup, Security Control, Territory Management and click Get Started.
- Choose Start from Scratch or Extend from Role Hierarchy (which copies roles into territories). Zoho says you cannot switch between these two options after choosing.
- Once enabled, leads, contacts, accounts and deals get a Territories field and territory-based forecasts become available.
- Create territories under Territories, Create New Territory: name, manager, parent territory, users with Read Only or Read/Write/Delete permission (shared by all users in the territory), and rule criteria.
- Deal and Lead Territory Rule settings must be enabled before rules can be added for them.
Rules and limits, per Zoho
- Records are assigned automatically when created or modified and they meet the criteria; a record is not assigned to a sub-territory unless it also meets the parent territory's criteria.
- An account or contact can belong to a maximum of ten territories; a deal can belong to only one.
- Territory managers and administrators can assign records manually.
- Deleting a territory permanently removes its details, and sub-territories must be moved under another parent.
- Disabling makes territory information in accounts, contacts and deals inaccessible and permanently deletes existing territory-based forecasts; re-enabling keeps the territory structure.
- The page does not state a maximum hierarchy depth.
Pitfalls (practical advice)
This section is advice from experience, not vendor documentation.
- Decide on roles versus territories before enabling: the start-from-scratch or extend-from-roles choice is permanent per Zoho, and disabling deletes territory forecasts.
- Write the territory criteria on paper first (for example, which field decides a region) and check that the underlying data is consistent, or rules will assign records unpredictably.
- Because a sub-territory needs its parent's criteria met too, design parent rules broad enough to contain their children.
- Rehearse in a sandbox and review forecast settings with the sales manager first.
