Episode I : Exploring the World of Custom Functions in Zoho Desk

Episode I : Exploring the World of Custom Functions in Zoho Desk


Hello Again!
Welcome to an Automation Adventure in the World of Zoho Desk
Join us on a journey to explore how custom functions can enhance and extend the capabilities of Zoho Desk.
Automation is everywhere. From robotic arms assembling products on factory floors to automating tasks in the software world, automation has revolutionized how we work out stuff. But what does this have to do with Zoho Desk? 
Anline, a curious resident in the Zoho Desk world, is exploring how automation can transform her workflow.

Anline’s Quest in the Zoho Desk World  

Anline is building her own world within Zoho Desk, but she’s hit a few roadblocks. She wants to perform specific operations; like updating ticket statuses, fetching data from external services, and automate repetitive tasks. She knows Zoho Desk has the tools she needs, but where does she start?
DeskAutomate Services is here as a guide to the Automation City. The citizens of Zoho Desk World operate based on their licenses. Each license unlocks different levels of automation capabilities.
Anline has the Enterprise edition, which grants her the access to the most powerful tools: Custom Functions. How can this empower Anline?

The Power of Custom Functions  

Custom Functions are like magic spells in the Zoho Desk world. They give users flexibility to tailor automation to their exact needs. While basic automation features are available to all license holders, Custom Functions are exclusive to Enterprise users. These functions let Anline go beyond the basics and create automations that meet her unique requirements. What makes them even more accessible is Deluge, Zoho’s in-house scripting language.
But there’s a catch: Anline isn’t a coding expert in Deluge. How can she harness the power of Custom Functions without getting lost in complex scripts? DeskAutomate guides Anline to the prebuilt functions and a user-friendly framework, simplifying the coding process.
Whether you’re new to coding or an experienced developer, Deluge simplifies the process of creating Custom Functions with its intuitive interface and drag-and-drop functionality.

The Deluge Script Editor: Your Coding Playground  

To access the Custom Function window, go to Setup (S) >> Developer Space >> Functions >> New Function.
When you open the Custom Function window in Zoho Desk, you’ll find a user-friendly interface designed to help you build scripts using drag-and-drop options. Here’s what you’ll discover: Each section has predefined variables which you can drag and use based on your requirements.
1. Basic Commands
The Basic section includes essential commands like setting variables, adding comments, and inserting informational text into your script. These foundational elements help you structure your Custom Function logically.
          Example: businessDaysCount = 5; //<variable> = <expression>;
2. Conditional Logic
The Condition section allows you to add conditional operators such as if, else if, and else. These operators let you program decision-making logic into your Custom Function.
Example:
  1. if (TicketStatus == "Open")
  2. {
  3.     info "This ticket is still open.";
  4. }
3. Notifications
The notifications section lets you enter values to send emails or post messages via Cliq.
Example:
  1. sendmail
  2. [
  3. from : zoho.userid
  4. to   : support@zylker.com
  5. subject : "Ticket is created"
  6. message : "Thank you for your enquiry. A ticket has been created and our experts will respond to you."
  7. ]; 
4. Integrations
Zoho Desk makes coding easy for integrations. With drag-and-drop options, you can create webhook integrations and API calls without writing complex code from scratch. The Custom Function window provides all the necessary code snippets, so you can customize them to fit your requirements.
Example: contactRecord = zoho.crm.getRecordbyId("Contacts",9876787);
5. Collections
The Collections feature lets you gather and manage strings of data or specific information within your Custom Function. This is particularly useful when you need to process or analyze multiple data points.
Example:
  1. myList = Collect();
  2. myList.insert("ID1");
  3. myList.insert("ID2");
  4. myList.insert("ID3");
  5. for each ID in myList
  6. {
  7.    info ID;
  8. }
You can also enable the Syntax Builder within your Coding playground. Enabling this option will help you choose variables from the drop-down windows having prebuilt variables/Fields.

Mapping Parameters and Testing Your Script  

Once you’ve built your Custom Function, the next step is to map it to your Zoho Desk environment:
1. Edit Arguments
The Edit Arguments option lets you map params within your Custom Function to fields in your tickets. For example, you can link the Ticket ID, Ticket Owner, or Case ID to the corresponding fields in your Zoho Desk setup. This ensures that your Custom Function interacts seamlessly with your data.
2. Authentication and Connections
Zoho Desk uses OAuth tokens to establish secure connections for Custom Functions. Commonly, this involves using Zoho OAuth to make API calls within Zoho's scope. You can choose the appropriate scopes during authorization to ensure your Custom Function has access to the necessary data and functionalities.
Note: If you choose third-party applications, please create a connection using the required default or custom services.
3. Save and Test
After saving your script, use Save & Execute Script to test it with sample inputs. This lets you test the function, ensuring functionality, debug, and refine your code before deployment.
In the upcoming episodes, we'll dive into how Custom Functions work and contribute to expanding the capabilities within Zoho Desk.
See you in the next episode,
Regards,
Lydia | Zoho Desk. 

    • Sticky Posts

    • Register for Zoho Desk Beta Community

      With the start of the year, we have decided to take a small step in making the life of our customers a little easier. We now have easy access to all our upcoming features and a faster way to request for beta access. We open betas for some of our features

    • Share your Zoho Desk story with us!

      Tell us how you use Zoho Desk for your business and inspire others with your story. Be it a simple workflow rule that helps you navigate complex processes or a macro that saves your team a lot of time; share it here and help the community learn and grow with shared knowledge. 

    • Tip #1: Learn to pick the right channels

      Mail, live chat, telephony, social media, web forms—there are so many support channels out there. Trying to pick the right channels to offer your customers can get pretty confusing. Emails are most useful when the customer wants to put things on record. However, escalated or complicated issues should not be resolved over email because it's slow and impersonal.  When you need immediate responses, live chat is more suitable. It's also quick and convenient, so it's the go-to channel for small issues. 

    • Welcome to Zoho Desk Community - Say hello here!

      Hello everyone! Though we have been here for a while, it’s time to formally establish the Zoho Desk Community; we’re really happy to have you all here! This can be the place where you take a moment to introduce yourself to the rest of the community. We’d love to hear all about you, what you do, what company or industry you work for, how you use Zoho Desk and anything else that you will like to share! Here’s a little about me. I am Chinmayee. I have been associated with Zoho since 2014. I joined here

    • Webinar 1: Blueprint for Customer Service

      With the launch of a host of new features in Zoho Desk, we thought it’ll be great to have a few webinars to help our customers make the most of them. We’re starting off with our most talked about feature, Blueprint in Zoho Desk. You can register for the Blueprint webinar here: The webinar will be delivered by our in-house product experts. This is a good opportunity to ask questions to our experts and understand how Blueprint can help you automate your service processes. We look forward to seeing

    • Recent Topics

    • Empowered Custom Views: Cross-Module Criteria Now Supported in Zoho CRM

      Hello everyone, We’re excited to introduce cross-module criteria support in custom views! Custom views provide personalized perspectives on your data and that you can save for future use. You can share these views with all users or specific individuals

    • Cross module filtering is now supported in CRM

      Editions: All DCs: All Release plan: This enhancement is being released in phases. It is now available in AU, JP, and CN DCs. Help resource: Advanced filters The Cross-module filtering enhancement is now available to all CRM accounts in the following

    • Quotes

      Has anyone figured out how to automatically upload a quote that was signed via Zoho Sign and insert it directly to that leads file and push it through the pipeline to proposal signed status?

    • I wan to schedule a meeting report From previous Thursday to this thursday of this week on Every 6 pm want to recive this report in zoho CRM

      I wan to schedule a meeting report From previous Thursday to this thursday of this week on Every 6 pm want to recive this report in zoho CRM. How I Can achive this in Zoho CRM.

    • Importing a contact with a linked product

      Hi, I'm trying to import my contacts from an excel spreadsheet and each of those contacts have fields that relate to products. Is there a way that I can import the contact with their linked product? Some of the contacts in my spreadsheet have multiple

    • CRM - Workflow Rules to be applied and work across modules

      Hello, It seems that you can't use workflow rules in CRM to work across modules, is this correct? I need a customer account status to be changed IF there have been no new deals or new quotes in the last 6 months. I can't see this is possible? I can create

    • Auto assign account owner

      hi, i need to auto assign leads and accounts to an owner by rules. i have created all the territories i need, and all territories have their owner. but when i want to auto assign a new or an existing account to a user by the rules of territories, only

    • How do I enter phone extensions?

      How do I add a phone extension correctly so that when I dial the main number it will pause and dial the extension of the contact I want to talk to Greg

    • How do you make tabs and place certain leads in them?

      I am trying to figure out how to make a tab for my Florida contacts, California contacts and New York contacts. I make a new view named "Florida Leads" but when I click on it, ALL of my leads pop up in the same view... Is there a way to move leads into different categories? Thanks, Wayne

    • Boolean Fields in Mail Merge Displaying as Checkmarks

      I'm really liking the new mail merge functionality. It's replaced the Zoho Sign extension for us. One problem I've seen is that boolean operators (i.e. Checkbox fields) in CRM merge as "True" or "False". This looks a little ugly in my final document —

    • 5名限定 課題解決型ワークショップイベント Zoho ワークアウト開催のお知らせ(7/24)

      ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。Zoho ユーザーコミュニティチームの藤澤です。 7月開催のZoho ワークアウトについてお知らせします。 2ヶ月ぶりに、渋谷にて「リアル開催」します！ ▷▷詳細はこちら：https://www.zohomeetups.com/20250724Zoho ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Zoho ワークアウトとは？ Zoho ユーザー同士で交流しながら、サービスに関する疑問や不明点の解消を目的とした「Zoho ワークアウト」を開催します。 Zoho サービスで完了させたい設定やカスタマイズ、環境の整備など……各自で決めた目標達成に向け、

    • Web to lead form not working

      I am starting to use this Zoho product (3 users for free) to see if it really does what it should prior to making a purchase decision. One of the important parts of the ZOHO CRM is the ability to create a web form that auto generates a lead. We have set

    • Is this a valid email from Zoho or a scam?

      Hi, I received an email advising me to update MX records for Zoho mail. Is it legitimate? Thanks, Nelson. Dear Admin, You may know that your domain (eg, yourcompany.com) has an MX record that points to an email server configured to process email for your domain. We have noticed that some of our customers have used Zoho IP address (instead of DNS server name) in their MX records to specify the mail server. This is NOT recommended practice. Vendors will sometimes change IP addresses for number of valid

    • Canvas View - Print

      What is the best way to accomplish a print to PDF of the canvas view?

    • Updating task using excel file

      Hi, Is there a way to update existing tasks using excel file import?  Thanks

    • Tip 14: How to iterate a set of Deluge code a specific number of times.

      Hello folks, As you might already know, recursive functions are used to perform a particular action a specific number of times. We had explained this in detail in our Tip #2. Similarly, there is another way in which you can iterate a set of Deluge code 'n' number of times. All you need to do is to create a List and use the For each index task to iterate it for a specific number of times.    Here are a few use cases where this would be useful to you:  To create 'n' number of duplicate records for

    • Is it possible to register webhooks in Zoho CRM using API?

      Hello, I am trying to register a webhook in Zoho CRM programmatically (using the API). Specifically, I want to register a webhook that is fired when new Contacts are created in the CRM. I was able to setup a webhook using the UI, by creating a rule that

    • only lastname as index(?) field in custom module

      Hello, I have a small problem. I have created a custom module. The data records are only labeled with the last names. Also in the lookup etc.... It's stupid if you have different first names with the same surname. Then I only ever see the surname. In

    • Can't set conditional layout rule on lookup field in Zoho CRM

      Namaskaram Zoho CRM team,      Usually any fields of module except mandatory fields can be hide using conditional layout rules.  But that can't be set on lookup fields event that is not a mandatory fields.  Many users are in need of that.   Crafted with

    • Restrict Zoho One Account Notifications to Admins

      Hi Zoho One Team, I hope you're doing well. We recently noticed that end users are receiving administrative pop-ups in Zoho One, such as the DKIM configuration notice (screenshot attached). This type of notification is only relevant to administrators

    • All about Users in Zoho Projects

      To form a functional team, businesses should define different types of users in their team. Businesses can be effectively managed by inviting users to various roles. And, the person who has the administration privileges can invite or add users to various roles in the project. Two types of users Before going into the steps to add users to your portal or project, let's understand the different types of users:  Portal Users - Users who work for the projects in your team.                      ~ Portal

    • Announcing Kiosk 1.1 - Customize screen titles, configure new fields & actions, use values from your Kiosk to update fields, and more.

      Hello all We are back again with more enhancements to Kiosk. So what's new? Enhancements made to the Components Add titles for your Kiosk screens and adjust its width to suit your viewing preferences. Three new fields can be added to your screen: Percentage,

    • Cannot associate event with other objects when creating?

      I am attempting to associate an Event with one or more other objects when creating it via the API. According to the API docs, the "Related_To" property is a jsonobject even though the description says "Provide the details about the entities the event

    • Missing Payload Details

      Hi All, Does anyone know how to fix missing webhook payload data in the next step of the flow? Payload comes into the webhook -- All details here When i go to use the webhook data in the next step -- the majority of the payload data is missing

    • Zoho Projects API 100 requests/2 min. Limit

      Hi Requesting clarification on the API documentation. "You can invoke or call an API for 100 times in a span of two minutes. If you invoke more than 100 times, the particular API request will be locked for the next 30 minutes. " Does this limit apply

    • Customer address in Zoho Bookings

      Hello,  Is it possible to add customer address information to the Zoho bookings appointment screen? Or have it pull that information automatically from the CRM? We are wanting to use this as a field management software but it is difficult to pull the address from multiple sources when it would be ideal to have a clickable address on the appointment screen that opens up the user's maps.  It would also be advantageous for the "list view" to show appointment times instead of just duration and booking

    • AutoScan Not Working Since April -Support says it with engineering

      Hi there, Autoscan has not been working on my account since April. Without this feature, completing expenses reports is laborious and error-prone. I keep asking for updates seeing as this is a critical feature, but told that it's being looked into and

    • Calendar Connection Enhancement

      Hello everyone, Greetings from the Bookings team. We're here to announce an important Calendar enhancement that will roll out soon. Let's take a look at what's being changed. Improved and more straightforward UI The Calendars UI is undergoing a complete

    • Bookings to CRM - New Events and Contacts

      Hello, I have an issue with appointments taken by clients from a Zoho Bookings page. Previously when an appointment was reserved, if there were no client created in Zoho CRM, it would create it in the CRM through the integration between both platform.

    • Generating Discount Coupons for Zoho Bookings

      Hi, Is there provision to generate Discount Coupons for appointment bookings? I could not see that in the settings and this is very much needed. Please suggest us. Thanks

    • When will Sales Order and Invoice Synchronisation with Zoho CRM be Available?

      When will Sales Orders and Invoices, created in Zoho Books or Inventory be made available in Zoho CRM? John Legg Owner: The Debug Store

    • In the Blue Print Transition requirement received it will show 8 check field in pop up if they any one of this field then only move to next stage Ist quote

      In the Blue Print Transition requirement received it will show 8 check field in pop up if they any one of this field then only move to next stage Ist quote Pls help how i fix this

    • Multiple Products on Ticket

      Good morning. We will classify all tickets based on the product. Users sometimes send different requests on the same ticket, so we are facing some challenges. Is there a way to add more than one product to the ticket, or is there a way to tie the product

    • Desk - CRM Integration: SPAM Contacts (Auto Delete)

      SPAM contacts is a useful feature, but when the CRM sync is used, it is very frustrating. When a contact is marked as SPAM on Desk, I wish to do the same on CRM. When a SPAM contact is deleted, I would like it deleted from CRM. The feature looks half-baked.

    • Date Import Problems

      I'm trying to import products from csv/xls files, but I can't get the Sales Start Date field to import. I know the import is working because all the other information is imported, but the Sales Start Date field is left empty. I think it must be a format problem. The date format I am trying to import is DD/MM/YYYY. This is also how my date preferences are set up in Zoho CRM. Do I need to use a different format to import the date field?

    • Surely it's time Inline editing from views

      I think the first request I found for in-line editing from grids was approximately 12 years ago - that post was locked because it was suggested Zoho sheetview solved the problem. However, it's now 2024, and in-line editing from grids is just a basic expectation.

    • How to work with getFieldNames formdata functions ,Any Examples

      I don't find any example showing usage of getFieldNames. Where do i find .is there any Help documents available

    • Allowing subqueries in FROM clause

      When building a Query table in Zoho Reports, I encountered an error when attempting to put a subquery in the "FROM" clause of my statement.  Why isn't this currently supported?  Is there a plan to implement this functionality in the future?

    • New features and improvements in Desk's integration with Zia powered by GPT 

      Hi everyone, We’re pleased to announce several new enhancements in Zia Powered by GPT integration. These updates bring more customization options, improved response generation, and additional language support. Below is an overview of the enhancements

    • Is Zoho Shifts included in the Zoho One plan?

      In case the answer is no: there's any plan to make it available via One? Thank you

    • Next Page