Automating Attendance Tracking with Zoho Cliq Developer Platform

I wish remote work were permanently mandated so we could join work calls from a movie theatre or even while skydiving! But wait, it's time to wake up! The alarm has snoozed twice, and your team has already logged on for the day.

Keeping tabs on attendance shouldn't feel like guiding a flock of rebellious sheep. Hence, let's automate check-in and check-out notifications using the Zoho Cliq Platform Schedulers and the Zoho People API, eliminating the guesswork in attendance management and reducing the risk of errors associated with manual monitoring.

How does this solution benefit a business?

1. Real-time reminders reduce instances of ghost check-ins and ensure accurate recording of everyone's logged hours.
   
2. Essential for attendance tracking, payroll accuracy, compliance with labour laws, and audits.
   
3. The entire team stays informed, fostering a cohesive workflow that eliminates the need for micromanagement.      
   

Pre-requisites:  

Before beginning to script the code below, we must create a connection in Cliq with Zoho People. Once a connection is created and connected, you can use it in Deluge integration tasks and invoke URL scripts to access data from the required service.

Create a Zoho People default connection with any unique name with the scopes - ZohoPeople.Attendance.ALL , ZohoPeople.forms.ALL and ZohoPeople.leave.ALL

ⓘ Document for reference : Connections in Cliq 

 

How to obtain or locate the channel unique name in Cliq?

• Navigate to the top right corner of the channel and locate the three dots. Click it.

• In the menu that appears, select "Channel info" and a pop-up will open, displaying detailed channel information.

Hover over the "Connectors" section and click it. Under "API Parameters," you will find the Channel ID and unique name.

We need to create two schedulers, specifically one for check-in and another for check-out.

1. After a successful login in Cliq, hover to the top right corner and click your profile. Post clicking, navigate to Bots & Tools > Schedulers.
   
2. On the right, click the "Create Scheduler" button.
   
3. To learn more about schedulers and their purposes, refer to the Introduction to Schedulers.
   
4. Create a scheduler using your preferred name. Specify the following details: the scheduler name and a description.  
   

1. For the recurring period, choose the type "Weekly." Select Monday through Friday and set the time of execution to 11 AM or any other time that aligns with your company's check-in time, or customise the recurring period based on your specific use case.
   
2. Finally, click "Save & edit code" and paste the following code.
   

1. currentDate = zoho.currentdate;
2. currentDateString = currentDate.toString("dd-MMM-yyyy");
3. fromIndex = 1;
4. toIndex = 200;
5. // Get all active users
6. users = zoho.people.getRecords("employee",fromIndex,toIndex,{},"{CONNECTION_LINK_NAME}");
7. usersList = List();
8. usersList.addAll(users);
9. iterations = {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25};
10. // Get All Employees ( 4000 MAX )
11. if(users.size() == 200)
12. {
13. for each  iteration in iterations
14. {
15. fromIndex = fromIndex + toIndex;
16. toIndex = toIndex + 200;
17. users = zoho.people.getRecords("employee",fromIndex,toIndex,{},"{CONNECTION_LINK_NAME}");
18. if(users.size() > 0 && users.size() == 200)
19. {
20. usersList.addAll(users);
21. }
22. else if(users.size() > 0 && users.size() < 200)
23. {
24. usersList.addAll(users);
25. break;
26. }
27. else
28. {
29. break;
30. }
31. }
32. }
33.  
34. // Get all the employees checkedin from the morning.
35. getAttendenceEntries = invokeurl
36. [
37. url :"https://people.zoho.com/api/attendance/fetchLatestAttEntries?duration=240"
38. type :GET
39. connection:"{CONNECTION_LINK_NAME}"
40. ];
41. latestAttendanceRecords = getAttendenceEntries.get("response").get("result");
42. checkedInUsers = List();
43. for each  userRecord in latestAttendanceRecords
44. {
45. checkedInEmployeeEmail = userRecord.get("emailId");
46. checkedInUsers.add(checkedInEmployeeEmail);
47. }
48.  
49. // Get all the employees who applied for leave both approved and pending ( Remove PENDING to exclude only the leave approved employees )
50. leaveApprovedEmployees = invokeurl
51. [
52. url :"https://people.zoho.com/api/v2/leavetracker/leaves/records?from=" + currentDateString + "&to=" + currentDateString + "&dateFormat=dd-MMM-yyyy&approvalStatus=[APPROVED,PENDING]"
53. type :GET
54. connection:"{CONNECTION_LINK_NAME}"
55. ];
56. info  leaveApprovedEmployees;
57. leaveApprovedEmployeesList = List();
58. for each  member in leaveApprovedEmployees.get("records")
59. {
60. leaveApprovedEmployeesList.add(member.get("EmployeeId"));
61. }
62. info leaveApprovedEmployeesList;
63.  
64.  
65. // Add the users to yet to checkin list if they are not checked from the morning and not applied for leave
66. usersYetToCheckIn = list();
67. for each  user in usersList
68. {
69. employeeEmail = user.get("EmailID");
70. employeeId = user.get("EmployeeID");
71.     employeeStatus = user.get("Employeestatus");
72. if(!checkedInUsers.contains(employeeEmail) && !leaveApprovedEmployeesList.contains(employeeId) && employeeStatus.equals("Active"))
73. {
74. usersYetToCheckIn.add(employeeEmail);
75. }
76. }
77.  
78. // Mention the list of users in the channel.
79. if(usersYetToCheckIn.size() == 0)
80. {
81. info "No users were found yet to checked-in at 11 PM today. Great to see everyone wrapping in on time! ✅";
82. }
83. else
84. {
85. usersYetToCheckInString = "";
86. for each  user in usersYetToCheckIn
87. {
88. usersYetToCheckInString = usersYetToCheckInString + "[" + user + "](mail:" + user + ") \n";
89. }
90. usersYetToCheckInString = usersYetToCheckInString.subString(0,usersYetToCheckInString.length() - 2);
91. response = Map();
92. card = Map();
93. card.put("title","Employees who haven’t checked in yet ( " + usersYetToCheckIn.size() + " )");
94. card.put("thumbnail","https://i.pinimg.com/originals/85/e9/f3/85e9f3f5ac31fc5aab586e208297f43d.gif");
95. card.put("theme","modern-inline");
96. response.put("card",card);
97. response.put("text",usersYetToCheckInString);
98. info zoho.cliq.postToChannel("{CHANNEL_UNIQUE_NAME}",response);
99. }
    

1. Now, let's follow the same steps and create a scheduler for checkout reminders. Under the recurring period, choose the type as "Weekly." Select Monday through Friday and set the time of execution to 7 PM or any other time that aligns with your company's checkout time, or customise the recurring period based on your specific use case.
   
2. Click "Save & edit code" and paste the following code.
   

1. attendanceResponse = invokeurl
2. [
3. url :"https://people.zoho.com/api/attendance/fetchLatestAttEntries?duration=600"
4. type :GET
5. connection:"{CONNECTION_LINK_NAME}"
6. ];
7. info attendanceResponse;
8. todayDate = zoho.currenttime.toString("YYYY-MM-dd");
9. latestAttendanceRecords = attendanceResponse.get("response").get("result");
10. usersWithoutCheckout = list();
11. if(latestAttendanceRecords.size() > 0)
12. {
13. for each  userRecord in latestAttendanceRecords
14. {
15. userEmail = userRecord.get("emailId");
16. dailyEntries = userRecord.get("entries");
17. for each  dailyEntry in dailyEntries
18. {
19. if(dailyEntry.containsKey(todayDate))
20. {
21. todayEntryDetails = dailyEntry.get(todayDate);
22. attendanceLogs = todayEntryDetails.get("attEntries");
23. for each  logEntry in attendanceLogs
24. {
25. if(!logEntry.containsKey("checkOutTime"))
26. {
27. usersWithoutCheckout.add("{@" + userEmail + "}");
28. }
29. }
30. }
31. }
32. }
33. }
34. usersWithoutCheckoutString = usersWithoutCheckout.toString("\n");
35. if(usersWithoutCheckoutString.trim().length() == 0){
36. usersWithoutCheckoutString = "No users were found checked-in after 7 PM today. Great to see everyone wrapping up on time! ✅";
37. }
38. response = Map();
39. card = Map();
40. card.put("title","List of users who remain checked in ( " + usersWithoutCheckout.size() + " )");
41. card.put("thumbnail","https://media.tenor.com/Hd8nLZZTPRYAAAAi/alarm-clock-alarm.gif");
42. card.put("theme","modern-inline");
43. response.put("card",card);
44. response.put("text",usersWithoutCheckoutString);
45. info zoho.cliq.postToChannel("{CHANNEL_UNIQUE_NAME}",response);
    

Wrapping up and checking out for the day, hopefully

Whether you're from HR, tired of chasing attendance logs, or an enthusiastic team lead trying to increase your team's visibility and adjust workload accordingly, Cliq Platform's schedulers are essential and ensure that accurate tracking is consistent and compliance is maintained. Additionally, this would be scalable to handle organizations of any size.

If attendance tracking is a binge-watchable series, what plot twist would these reminders add to your team's script? Let us know in the comments below!

• Topic Participants

• Harsha SS

  

• Ram Freedman

  

• Sticky Posts

• Cliq Bots - Post message to a bot using the command line!

  If you had read our post on how to post a message to a channel in a simple one-line command, then this sure is a piece of cake for you guys! For those of you, who are reading this for the first time, don't worry! Just read on. This post is all about how

• Add Claude in Zoho Cliq

  Let’s add a real AI assistant powered by Claude to your workspace this week, that your team can chat with, ask questions, and act on conversations to run AI actions on. This guide walks you through exactly how to do it, step by step, with all the code

• Automating Employee Birthday Notifications in Zoho Cliq

  Have you ever missed a birthday and felt like the office Grinch? Fear not, the Cliq Developer Platform has got your back! With Zoho Cliq's Schedulers, you can be the office party-cipant who never forgets a single cake, balloon, or awkward rendition of

• Automate attendance tracking with Zoho Cliq Developer Platform

  I wish remote work were permanently mandated so we could join work calls from a movie theatre or even while skydiving! But wait, it's time to wake up! The alarm has snoozed twice, and your team has already logged on for the day. Keeping tabs on attendance

• Customer payment alerts in Zoho Cliq

  For businesses that depend on cash flow, payment updates are essential for operational decision-making and go beyond simple accounting entries. The sales team needs to be notified when invoices are cleared so that upcoming orders can be released. In contrast,

• Recent Topics

• PDF's Give Unsupported Type Error Message

  Many of the pdf files I add to Notebook work fine but in some cases when I try to open them on the Android App I get a message saying "Unsupported Type. Psst! You are using an older version of the app which does not support this note format. Please update

• Add Support for Authenticator App MFA in Zoho Desk Help Center

  Hello Zoho Desk Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement related to security for the Zoho Desk Help Center (customer portal). Currently, the Help Center supports MFA for portal users via SAML, JWT, SMS authentication,

• Resubscribe with Zoho Campaigns

  Hi, I am new to Zoho Campaigns and sent a campaign to a contact list with only my email address. I wanted to see what the footer links did, so clicked unsubscribe and now can't include my email address into any more campaigns. I don't have a sign up form on my website to resubscribe and can't find how to resubscribe anywhere else. Can you help?

• Add a way to connect Log360 Cloud logs with Zoho analytics

  Hi, Several month ago Log360 Cloud was added to zoho one - and this is great. But as far as I see there is no prebuilt way to connect Zoho analytics to the logs we have in Log360 Cloud. Please add a prebuilt connection like we have for so many other zoho

• Dynamic Multi-Staff Selection for Ad-Hoc Bookings

  Summary Allow customers or internal schedulers to select specific staff members at the time of booking, with Zoho Bookings automatically surfacing only the time slots where all selected members are simultaneously available. Current Behaviour Zoho Bookings

• Recurring event sync via Microsoft 365 Meetings

  I believe syncing Recurring through the Microsoft 365 Meetings integration is already in the works but I couldn't find a reference in the community to track the progress of this work.

• Share Edit while in Workflow

  There are times that while a writer document is in the middle of a workflow the user that's responsible for that stage of the workflow needs to bring in other people to work on the document. Currently there is no way for the user to be able to allow other's

• How can I use the API to add a drop-shipping address to a sales order for one-time use?

  I need to be able to add a drop-shipping address for one-time use to a sales order via the API. Adding every such address to the contact (customer), then feeding the shippingaddress_id into the sales order, is not an acceptable approach; we have some

• Need to set workflow or journey wait time (time delay) in minutes, not hours

  Minimum wait time for both Campaigns workflows and Marketing Automation journeys is one hour. I need one or the other to be set to several minutes (fraction of the hour). I tried to solve this by entering a fraction but the wait time data type is an integer

• Auto sync Photo storage

  Hello I am new to Zoho Workdrive and was wondering if the is a way of automatically syncing photos on my Android phone to my workdrive as want to move away from Google? Thanks

• sending email with another account

  Hello there, i write there for an our costumer request. They want to send email from CRM with a different email (confirmed and added to zoho profile). For example they use account@zilium.com but with this account they want to send (not only with email

• Major journey crash and not loading. Zoho Marketing Automation

  Hi all. Last night (19MAR, 2026) Marketing Automation for a specific journey completely crashed, and since the crash the specific journey has failed to load at all (blank journey canvas, no journey appears, no menu accessible) but other separate journey's

• Izettle or Sumup Integration for Zoho Books.

  The Stripe & Square clearing works great in Zoho Books. Any further integrations planned in the future for Izettle or Sumup? These card processors are very common for taking payments with a card reader.

• Is anyone experience missing functions in the new UI until hard refresh?

  The set of functions including search is almost always missing upon loading an app in the new UI. If you refresh, the functions return. (see second screenshot) Anyone else experiencing this?

• Adding Images to a Quote in Zoho CRM

  We are currently preparing to use Quotes in Zoho CRM and we are building out our Quote templates.  We came across an issue of not being to add Images of the products to the Quote - specifically in the body of the Quote templates.   This is a problem,

• Mail Search should allow grouping by conversation like Gmail.

  Having switched from gmail I have found the search function hard to use. Mostly because mail is not grouped by conversation in search. If I search for a word when looking for a conversation had with someone then sometimes 10 emails will come up from the

• Server-based Appication API access for Social, Sites, Flow, Pages.

  Hello, I am trying to hook up API access for a number of apps and I have hit a wall trying to add these scopes to the API feed. We cannot find the correct way to list the scope for these Zoho apps; Social, Sites, Flow, Writer. Error on web-page comes

• Zoho Landing Page "Something went wrong" Error

  Hello, Every time I try to create a new landing page, I receive a "Something went wrong" error with no explanation. I cannot create any new pages, which means we cannot use this application. I did create one landing page successfully over a month ago,

• Sync desktop folders instantly with WorkDrive TrueSync (Beta)

  Keeping your important files backed up and accessible has never been easier! With WorkDrive desktop app (TrueSync), you can now automatically sync specific desktop folders to WorkDrive Web, ensuring seamless, real-time updates across devices. Important:

• Cliq iOS can't see shared screen

  Hello, I had this morning a video call with a colleague. She is using Cliq Desktop MacOS and wanted to share her screen with me. I'm on iPad. I noticed, while she shared her screen, I could only see her video, but not the shared screen... Does Cliq iOS is able to display shared screen, or is it somewhere else to be found ? Regards

• Zoho → ShipStation Integration – Sales Order–Driven Fulfilment Workflow

  Hello All, I’m reaching out to explore the best way to integrate a shipping tool into our inventory which will speed our process up. We are looking to integrate ShipStation into our existing order-to-fulfilment workflow, as we’re keen to standardise on

• Newby Questions - Vendors, Customers, and Income vs. Other Income Clarifications

  Q1. For Deposits, there does not seem to be an option for "Income". "Other Income" is an option however. What is the process to add the option to assign a deposit to type "Income"? Q2. In many cases Vendors and Customer are the same. Vendors may purchase

• Zoho Booking - TIN vs ATIN & ITIN

  Zoho Booking Vendors allows for TAX ID values of SSN, EIN, ATIN an ITIN. There is no option for TIN. What is the method to properly add TIN to the list of taxable values for companies? For reference: Social Security Numbers (SSN) Individual Taxpayer Identification

• Bank Feed shows redacted description numbers (xxxx)

  Hi All, Is there any way to change this behaviour? Either Zoho or Yodlee is redacting important numbers from the transaction description, preventing us from being able to easily recognise and reconcile transactions. For example, a transaction with a description

• Can I write a check in Zoho Books with no associated bill?

  This currently does not seem possible, and I have a client that desperately needs this function if I am able to convert them with Quickbooks. Thank you in advance for your reply. 

• Handling large product migrations in Zoho?

  Hi everyone, How do you usually manage large product catalog migrations (10K+ SKUs) into Zoho One? Main concerns I’m thinking about: Avoiding downtime Preventing data loss Keeping supplier and product relationships intact Do you prefer bulk imports or

• Reassign Partially Saved Entries

  Hi, I would like to be able to go to Partially Saved Entries and like the option to delete them I would like the option to multi-select and be able to reassign them to another user to complete (Such as when a user has left the company). Thanks Dan

• Preventing auto-redirect to Parent Record on Save...

  Our users often create records from the related list on th left side of the screen. They click the blue "plus" button to create the record. This is handy, but for some modules, or situations, they would like to remain on the record AFTER clicking "Save",

• Introducing Version-3 APIs - Explore New APIs & Enhancements

  New Update - The end of life timeline for V2 APIs has now been extended to 30th June, 2026 Happy to announce the release of Version 3 (V3) APIs with an easy to use interface, new APIs, and more examples to help you understand and access the APIs better.

• Correlated subqueries not supported in Zoho Analytics. This creates huge limitations

  Running into a major limitation in Zoho Analytics: correlated subqueries simply don’t work, even in completely standard SQL patterns inside a JOIN. Example: LEFT JOIN "Bills" b ON d."Id" = b."Deal ID" AND EXISTS ( SELECT 1 FROM "Bill

• Unknown table or alias 'A1'

  I would like to create a subquery but i am getting the following error: Unknown table or alias 'A1' used in select query. This is the sql statement:  SELECT A1.active_paying_customers, A1.active_trial_customers, A1.new_paying_signup, date(A1.date_active_customers), 

• Feature announcement - Introducing recipient authentication via Didit in Zoho Sign

  Hi everyone! Zoho Sign already integrates with trusted providers like IDology (US), eID Easy (EU), and Stripe Identity. Today, we're excited to add another powerful option: Didit. Some benefits of using Didit: Unified ID verification Streamlined eKYC

• CRM x WorkDrive: File storage for new CRM signups is now powered by WorkDrive

  Availability Editions: All DCs: All Release plan: Released for new signups in all DCs. It will be enabled for existing users in a phased manner in the upcoming months. Help documentation: Documents in Zoho CRM Manage folders in Documents tab Manage files

• All new Address Field in Zoho CRM: maintain structured and accurate address inputs

  Availability Update: 29 September 2025: It's currently available for all new sign-ups and for existing Zoho CRM orgs which are in the Professional edition exclusively for IN DC users. 2 March 2026: Available to users in all DCs except US and EU DC. 24

• Super Admin Logging in as another User

  How can a Super Admin login as another user. For example, I have a sales rep that is having issues with their Accounts and I want to view their Zoho Account with out having to do a GTM and sharing screens. Moderation Update (8th Aug 2025): We are working

• What's New in Zoho POS - February 2026

  Hello everyone, Welcome to Zoho POS’s monthly updates, where we share our latest feature updates, enhancements, events, and more. Let’s take a look at how February went. Purchase and sell items on different units We have introduced a unit conversion functionality

• Regarding the integration of Apollo.io with Zoho crm.

  I have been seeing for the last 3 months that your Apollo.io beta version is available in Zoho Flow, and this application has not gone live yet. We requested this 2 months ago, but you guys said that 'we are working on it,' and when we search on Google

• Message as bot

  I would like to be able to send a Cliq message truly as a bot. the current implementation of this function, while it sends the message as a bot it sends that message inside a chat from the user how authenticated the flow cliq connection instead of directly

• Using a custom single line External ID form as merge fields in templates

  Hey everyone, We're looking to integrate a few external systems better with our Zoho CRM, and we had hoped to use external fields for this purpose. In this case, it would mean being able to use our own inoice system's invoice numbers are a direct id compatible

• Build an approval management system with Custom Modules

  Dear users, Task management is at the heart of project management. But not all tasks are created equal. You can have your tasks reviewed before any work begins, to improve transparency or stay within budget or as part of your process. Zoho Projects allows

• Next Page