Kaizen #130 - Zoho CRM Scala SDK (V6) - Configuration and Initialization

Hello and welcome to another Kaizen week!

In this week's post, we'll show you how to get started with Zoho CRM's Scala SDK, and walk you through the configuration and initialization process. Specifically, we will  discuss how to use the Scala SDK to make API calls authenticated via self-client. Please note that this article holds true for Scala SDK supporting version 6 of Zoho CRM APIs.

Software Development Kits (SDKs) are sets of tools and libraries designed to simplify the development process, and the integration between applications and specific platforms or services. They provide pre-built functionalities and abstract complex tasks, facilitating easier and faster development process. Zoho CRM's Scala SDKs act as a wrapper  for the REST APIs, thus making it easier to use the services of Zoho CRM.

Simplified Authentication using Scala SDK

Authentication with Zoho CRM APIs is facilitated by the OAuth 2.0 protocol, ensuring secure access to its resources. The process begins with the generation of a grant token for your organization in the Zoho Developer Console, where you specify the required scopes. Subsequently, using this grant token, you can generate both the access token, used for API call authentication, and the refresh token, employed for refreshing the access tokens after their one-hour expiry period. You must persist these tokens, along with their expiry times, in your server's data store for seamless API access. 

However, with the Scala SDK, this authentication process is significantly simplified. After generating the grant token and initialization, the SDK takes care of the rest. The SDK handles token generation, persistence, and refreshing the access token automatically, ensuring access to the resources without manual intervention.

Using the Zoho CRM Scala SDK

Before diving into the usage of Scala SDKs, ensure that the following prerequisites are met:

• Ensure that the client app has Java version 11 or above.
• Ensure that the client app has Scala version 2.13.5 or above.
• Have an IDE such as IntelliJ installed.
• An active Zoho CRM account.
  

1. Register your application with Zoho CRM

When you register a client with Zoho CRM, you establish a connection between your application and Zoho CRM, enabling your application to securely access and interact with Zoho CRM APIs and resources after authentication. The registration process involves providing essential details such as the client type, homepage URL, and authorized redirect URIs, depending on the type of client you choose.

To register your client:

1. Go to the Zoho Developer Console
2. Click on Get Started or +ADD CLIENT
3. Choose the Client Type as Self-Client or Server based Applications depending on your application. Read our Kaizen post on the different client types to understand better. For this article, we will proceed with Self-client as we aim to develop a Scala application for our own use.
4. Fill in the necessary details and click CREATE to register your client successfully. This will provide you with a Client ID and Client Secret.
   

2. Create a Scala project in your preferred IDE

If you already have your project set up, you may skip this step. However, if you are starting out, the next crucial step is to create a Scala Project in your preferred IDE. For the purpose of this guide, we will be using IntelliJ IDEA as the IDE of choice. 

3. Include the Zoho CRM Scala SDK in your project

To include the Zoho CRM Scala SDK in your project, you can follow different methods as outlined here.  However, for the purpose of this guide, we will demonstrate how to include the SDK using the build.sbt file.

Follow these steps to include the Zoho CRM Scala SDK in your project using the build.sbt file:

1. Open your project in IntelliJ IDEA or your preferred IDE.
2. Locate the build.sbt file in your project directory.
3. Add the Zoho CRM Scala SDK dependency to your build.sbt file. To add the latest version (supporting version 6 of Zoho CRM APIs), include this line in the file  and Save: libraryDependencies ++= Seq( "com.zoho.crm" % "zohocrmsdk-6-0" % "2.0.0")
4. Sync the changes and reload the files to ensure that the SDK has been added to the project.
   

Please note that when you install the Zoho CRM SDK, there are many dependencies which will also be installed. These dependencies are necessary for the proper functioning of the SDK and will be automatically managed by your build tool (such as sbt) during the installation process.

4. Obtain the grant token to authenticate your client

To make API calls, you need to authenticate your client by generating a grant token with the required scopes. For this guide, we will be using the self-client created in the first step. 

Log in to the Zoho Developer Console, and generate the grant token with the required scopes. Please note that this grant token has a short life span, and that it is used to generate the access and refresh tokens. Refer to our Kaizen on OAuth2.0 for more details.

5. Configuration and Initialization of the SDK

The configuration step in initializing the SDK involves setting up various objects to define how the SDK operates. This includes specifying the domain for API calls, token persistence, error logging, resource information storage, and more.

Before going into the specifics of various configurations, let us first discuss Token Persistence. Token Persistence refers to the mechanism through which access tokens and refresh tokens obtained during authentication are stored and managed by the SDK.  By storing tokens securely, the SDK can automatically manage token expiration and renewal, eliminating the need for manual token handling by the developer.For details on the different persistence methods supported by our SDKs, please refer to the last section of this post. In this guide, we will be using File Persistence as the method for Token Persistence. However, please note that users must choose the method that best suits their requirements and preferences.

Here is a sample code to initialize the SDK. Make sure to replace the client ID, client secret, grantToken, file paths, and other configurations with your specific values. 

1. import com.zoho.api.authenticator.OAuthToken
2. import com.zoho.crm.api.dc.USDataCenter
3. import com.zoho.crm.api.exception.SDKException
4. import com.zoho.crm.api.{HeaderMap, Initializer, SDKConfig}
5. import com.zoho.api.logger.Logger
6. import com.zoho.api.authenticator.store.FileStore
7. 
   
8. object BulkWrite {
9.   @throws[SDKException]
10.   def main(args: Array[String]): Unit = {
11.     val environment = USDataCenter.PRODUCTION
12.     val token = new OAuthToken.Builder().clientID("1000.xxx").clientSecret("xxx").grantToken( "1000.xxx").findUser(false).build()
13.     //Object containing the absolute file path to store tokens
14.     var tokenstore = new FileStore("/Documents/SDK-Projects/Scala-SDK/ScalaSample/sdk_tokens_new.txt")
15.     var logger = new Logger.Builder()
16.       .level(Logger.Levels.ALL)
17.       .filePath("/Documents/SDK-Projects/Scala-SDK/ScalaSample/scala_sdk_log.log")
18.       .build
19.     var sdkConfig = new SDKConfig.Builder().pickListValidation(false).autoRefreshFields(false).connectionTimeout(1000).requestTimeout(1000).socketTimeout(1000).build
20.     new Initializer.Builder().environment(environment).token(token).store(tokenstore).logger(logger).SDKConfig(sdkConfig).initialize()
21.   }
22. }
23. class BulkWrite {}

During the initialization step, the following configuration details have to be defined to configure the  behavior and functionality of the SDK. While two of them are mandatory, the others are optional.

1. environment (mandatory): It determines the API environment, which dictates the domain and URL for making API calls. The format follows the Domain.Environment pattern.
   eg : val env = USDataCenter.PRODUCTION
2. token (mandatory) : Contains the user token details. Create an instance of OAuthToken with the details that you get after registering your Zoho client. Depending on the available tokens, you can select one of the following flows:
   
1. Grant Token Flow: Involves storing and persisting the grant token. This flow is used when you have a grant token available. The SDK will generate and persist the access and refresh tokens, and also refresh the access token upon expiry.
   
2. Refresh Token Flow: Involves storing and persisting the refresh token. This flow is used when you have a refresh token available. The SDK will generate and persist the access and refresh tokens, and also refresh the access token upon expiry.
   
3. Access Token Flow: In this flow, the access token is directly utilized for API calls without token persistence. The SDK will persist the access token, but upon expiry it won't be refreshed, and an INVALID_TOKEN error will be thrown once the access token has expired.
   
4. Id FLow : You can use the id from the persisted token file/DB to make API calls. The id is a unique system generated value for each token details entry in the file/DB. Please note that you can use this method only after the SDK has already been initialized.
   
3. logger (optional) : You can customize the logging behavior by setting the desired log level, which can be one of the following: FATAL, ERROR, WARNING, INFO, DEBUG, TRACE, ALL, or OFF. Additionally, you can configure the file path and file name for the log file.
   
4. store (optional) : Allows you to configure token persistence for your application. If this is skipped, the SDK will create the "sdk_tokens.txt" file in the current working directory by default to persist the tokens. 
   
   
   

   Database Persistence	File Persistence	Custom Persistence
   var tokenstore = new DBStore.Builder()   .host("hostName")   .databaseName("databaseName")   .tableName("tableName")   .userName("userName")   .password("password")   .portNumber("portNumber")   .build	var tokenstore = new FileStore("/Users/user_name/Documents/scala_sdk_token.txt")	var tokenStore = new CustomStore()

   
   
5. SDKConfig (optional) : This method takes care of additional SDK configurations.
   
   
   

   Configuration Key	Description
   autoRefreshFields Default Value : False	A boolean configuration field to enable or disable automatic refreshing of module fields in the background. If set to true, fields are refreshed every hour, and if set to false, fields must be manually refreshed or deleted.
   pickListValidation Default Value : True	This field enables or disables pick list validation. If enabled, user input for pick list fields is validated, and if the value does not exist in the pick list, the SDK throws an error. If disabled, the input is not validated and the API call is made.
   enableSSLVerification Default Value : True	A boolean field to enable or disable curl certificate verification. If set to true, the SDK verifies the authenticity of certificate. If set to false, the SDK skips the verification.
   connectionTimeout Default Value : 0	The maximum time (in seconds) to wait while trying to connect. Use 0 to wait indefinitely.
   timeout Default Value : 0	The maximum time (in seconds) to allow cURL functions to execute. Use 0 to wait indefinitely.

   
   
6. requestProxy (optional) : Configure this only if you're using a proxy server to make the API calls. To configure, create an instance of RequestProxy containing the proxy properties of the user.
   
   
   

   var requestProxy = new RequestProxy.Builder()   .host("proxyHost")   .port(80)   .user("proxyUser")   .password("password")   .userDomain("userDomain")   .build()

   
   
7. resourcePath (optional) : To configure the absolute directory path to store user-specific files containing module fields information. If this object is skipped, the files will be stored in the project directory itself.
   

Once the initialization is successful, you can verify that the access and refresh tokens are generated and persisted. You can do this by checking the tokens file or the database, depending on the token persistence method you configured during initialization.

Token Persistence

There are three token persistence methods supported by our SDKs. 

1. Token Persistence using a Database : In Database persistence, tokens are stored and retrieved from a database (e.g., MySQL). In this case, you should create a table in your database with the required columns. The custom database name and table name can be set in DBStore instance, when you initialise the SDK.
   
   For instance, to persist your tokens in a table named token in database named zoho in your mySQL DB, use this:
   
   
   

   CREATE DATABASE zoho; // use this to create database named zoho // use this to create a table named token, with the following necessary columns CREATE TABLE token (    id varchar(10) NOT NULL,   user_name varchar(255) NOT NULL,   client_id varchar(255),   client_secret varchar(255),   refresh_token varchar(255),   access_token varchar(255),   grant_token varchar(255),   expiry_time varchar(20),   redirect_url varchar(255),   api_domain varchar(255),   primary key (id) );

   
   
2. File Persistence : This method allows storing and retrieving the authentication tokens from the file in the file path that you configure. The file will contain the id, user_name, client_id, client_secret, refresh_token, access_token, grant_token, expiry_time, redirect_url, and api_domain.
   
3. Custom Persistence : This is a method where users can create their own method of storing and retrieving authentication tokens. To use this method, users need to implement the TokenStore interface and override its methods according to their own logic. For more details, please refer here.
   

We hope that you found this useful. In next week's Kaizen post, we will discuss about Bulk Write operations using the Scala SDK for Zoho CRM, and on how to import both parent and child records in a single operation.

If you have any queries, let us know the comments below, or send an email to support@zohocrm.com. We would love to hear from you. 

Cheers!
Anu Abraham

Recommended Reads:

• Check out our Kaizen Collection here
• Zoho CRM SDKs
  
• Scala SDK - Github
  
• Client Types in Zoho API Console
  
• Previous Kaizen : Client Script Support for Blueprints                                                                                                                         
  

• Topic Participants

• Anu Abraham

  

• Sticky Posts

• Kaizen #152 - Client Script Support for the new Canvas Record Forms

  Hello everyone! Have you ever wanted to trigger actions on click of a canvas button, icon, or text mandatory forms in Create/Edit and Clone Pages? Have you ever wanted to control how elements behave on the new Canvas Record Forms? This can be achieved

• Kaizen #197: Frequently Asked Questions on GraphQL APIs

  🎊 Nearing 200th Kaizen Post – We want to hear from you! Do you have any questions, suggestions, or topics you would like us to cover in future posts? Your insights and suggestions help us shape future content and make this series better for everyone.

• Kaizen #198: Using Client Script for Custom Validation in Blueprint

  Nearing 200th Kaizen Post – 1 More to the Big Two-Oh-Oh! Do you have any questions, suggestions, or topics you would like us to cover in future posts? Your insights and suggestions help us shape future content and make this series better for everyone.

• Celebrating 200 posts of Kaizen! Share your ideas for the milestone post

  Hello Developers, We launched the Kaizen series in 2019 to share helpful content to support your Zoho CRM development journey. Staying true to its spirit—Kaizen Series: Continuous Improvement for Developer Experience—we've shared everything from FAQs

• Kaizen #193: Creating different fields in Zoho CRM through API

  🎊 Nearing 200th Kaizen Post – We want to hear from you! Do you have any questions, suggestions, or topics you would like us to cover in future posts? Your insights and suggestions help us shape future content and make this series better for everyone.

• Recent Topics

• How do we get a follow up to Experts 22: Scale up your customer support with integrations & extensibility

  Hi, How do we get a followup and answers to the questions we have asked during 'Experts 22: Scale up your customer support with integrations & extensibility'. I have repsonded to the answers but have no way of following up. Thanks Brett

• Frustrating Email Duplication and Timeline Issues Between Zoho Mail and CRM

  Hi Zoho team, Can someone please help clarify what’s going on here? Here’s what’s happening: I initiate an email to a lead using Zoho Mail. The lead is created in Zoho CRM via the integration, and the email is correctly associated with that lead. Sometimes,

• Best Strategy to import contacts and when to create leads

  Hi, I'm new to Bigin and looking for a "best" strategy. I had and have the following idea for an use case: 1. Search for websites which I want to contact 2. Create a contact in Bigin with all the required information based on this website (via API if

• Better implementation of Item Category on Invoices and Estimates

  1) I have added Item Category as a custom field. Honestly, this should be a native part of the item itself, and either required, optional, or not used.  2) When entering an item on an invoice, you have to enter the first character(s) of the item, otherwise

• Bulk Update (via the 'Accountant' menu)

  Why can't we bulk update Expenses to Owner's Drawings? It always ends in failure with the error "Involved account types are not applicable". If such conversion isn't possible, why make the option available? Better to allow it though.

• Set Reply_to parameter for "Email an Invoice" API Endpoint

  Is there a way to set "Reply To" email address when using the Email an invoice API endpoint? It doesn't seem to be in documentation, but sometimes there are undocumented parameters. If it doesn't exist, please consider adding it as parameter since all

• Zoho Books adaptado a la legislación española. ¿Sustitutos?

  Buenas a tod@s No tenemos información sobre la adaptación de Zoho Books a la nueva ley de facturación en España. Me preguntan usuarios de zoho que deberían hacer. Propongo una lista de alternativas, si al final se opta por no desarrollar la funcionalidad

• A Question about Email Handling (Sending and Receiving)

  Hello! I was looking into setting up Email Aliases for my domain that I purchased a while ago through Zoho Mail. I set up a singular alias already and have it linked with Gmail, and it seems to be working out well. However, I set up another alias today,

• Kaizen #201 - Answering Your Questions | Webhooks, Functions, and Schedules

  Hello everyone! Welcome back to another post in the Kaizen series! We are incredibly grateful for all the feedback we received, and as promised, we will answer all the queries in this Kaizen series. Last week, in our 200th post, we addressed one of the

• Zoho Projects Strict Dates for Tasks

  Hi Zoho Projects team, I would love to see a feature to allow Strict Dates for Tasks. Sometimes in projects you have dates which must not move, even if predecessor Task dates change. For example, perhaps you need to book access to a facility to perform

• No Mark as filed buton in GSTR -3b

  We are filing our GST in GST portal -and want to mark GST in Zoho books as filed. It is possible to mark GSTR 1 as filed through Mark as filed button. But there is no such button in GSTR-3B.  How to mark corrosponding GSTR-3B as filed?

• ranking by drag the choices instead of rank by number

  is the option of draging the choice is available instead of selecting the ranking number for each choice?

• TASKS - Dashboard to show ALL Tasks from ALL apps.

  The Unified Tasks View is useless without the other main zoho apps (Desk, Books & even FSM now) We need to see all our tasks under on pane of glass. The Zoho developers are out of touch with real business workflows. So how it was designed they want us

• Function #13: Transaction level profitability

  In Zoho Books, the Profit & Loss report provides valuable insights into the overall profitability of your business, indicating whether you have made a profit or incurred a loss. However, there may be occasions when you wish to assess whether a specific

• Zoho CRM with Sap Business One

  I need information about integration CRM with Sap BO, thank.

• Allow bill to nest multiple projects

  A bill (purchase) is more often than not used across multiple projects and this functionality is missing and very urgently needed for accurate reporting of purchases across projects

• Amazon invoice in Zoho Books

  I have just made my first few sales on Amazon India. Amazon Seller account generates invoices for the sales made on Amazon. These invoices are sent to customers also. Now when I was only making offline sales, I used to create Invoices in Zoho Book. Now

• How can I change iOS display setting at night?

  It seems like at night the two light daytime settings themes (white with blue on top or just white) are not available and I am forced to choose among a few other colours that I really don’t want, I.e., black, blue or orange. Is there a way for me to always

• Celebrate WWW day with Zoho Desk

  Let's recall the times when we learned 'WWW' stands for World Wide Web. Whether you like to call it wuh-wuh-wuh or double-u double-u double-u, or World Wide Web, we all owe a lot to this groundbreaking invention that reshaped how we connect, communicate,

• The power of camaraderie

  In the days before the internet boom, conversations happened face-to-face or over the phone. Phone calls were precious; every minute counted, and every word mattered. We looked forward to those moments of real connection. Even today, nothing quite matches

• Message Content is missing/invalid fault

  We cannot create a complete template over zoho. Some features - like button adding - is missing. The templates are created on Zoho and edited on Meta to solve the problem. But still then, some features cannot be used and the message returns this failure

• Können bereits gesendete Kampagnen im Nachhinein einer Mailing-Liste zugeordnet werden, ohne dass die Kampagne erneut versendet wird?

  Wir haben unsere älteren Kampagnen in Campaigns über Kontaktkategorien versendet. Dann haben wir umgestellt auf Mailing-Listen, damit alte Kampagnen auch in einem Archiv aufgerufen werden können. Jetzt ist die Frage, ob die Kampagnen, die über die Kategorieauswahl

• Newsletter Templates Are Not Mobile Responsive

  Hi, I've already submitted this request to ZOHO once this morning, but for some reason your system logged me out, wouldn't accept my username/password login, and isn't showing any evidence that I've submitted this issue. So here we go again... I am under the impression that your newsletter templates are supposed to be mobile optimised: https://www.zoho.com/campaigns/blog/responsive-email-marketing.html This is clearly not the case, as the last 2 newsletters I've created in Campaigns look perfect

• Digest Juillet - Un résumé de ce qui s'est passé le mois dernier sur Community

  Bonjour à toutes et à tous, Zoom sur les nouveautés de juillet dernier au sein de Zoho Community France. Zoho Commerce vous propose une expérience améliorée grâce à sa nouvelle interface ergonomique et à ses fonctionnalités avancées, conçues pour faciliter

• 100 Rows in a Subform is too limited

  We have a custom Module in CRM called Price Sheets, when we get a PO from a client we add the items from the PO to it and then check with our vendors for pricing and add our margin etc And after it is complete we have setup custom scripts to create a

• Uninstall unattended agent

  Hello, I'm testing many use case before we purchase assist for our remote support. While we are testing what is the proper way to uninstall agent?  I did uninstall from systray, from windows control panel but still ZohoURservice is running. How can I uninstall client side?

• Zoho Commerce Down?

  Is anyone else's storefront down at the moment? Ours has been down for at lease an hour.

• Zoho Projects iOS app update: Dashboard widget on the home screen

  Hello everyone! We are excited to introduce the 'Dashboard' widget in the latest version(v3.10.8) of the Zoho Projects iOS app. Dashboard widgets allow you to view the project progress visually without having to open the app. The widget enables you to

• Idea: Workflow Rule Trigger Only When Subform Row Is Updated (Thanks to New Inline Row Feature)

  Hi Zoho team and community, With the recent update to Zoho CRM, we can now add or delete rows inside subforms without entering edit mode, using the inline Add row button. This is a fantastic improvement for user experience — seamless, fast, and efficient.

• Auto add new section based on document choices

  Hi team, I'm wondering if the below is a possilibity within Zoho sign. We have an application process to become a customer of ours, we currently use Zoho Sign to manage this application and this works quite well. However, if the customer indicates 'YES'

• Change rate after xxxx kilometers

  Is there a way to change the miileage rate after a certain mileage. After 5000 kilometers, we want the rate to automaticly change. Thank !

• Subform Entry Limit from a Subform Field (A different Subform on the same Form)

  Hi, I would like to be able to use a Subform 1 Field as the Dynamic Entry Limit for Subform 2. Even better would be able to use some code with the values, so for example using the Subform 1 Qty Field as the Max Entry limit for Subform 2, BUT only the

• Slow Zobot response time

  Hi, We launched the Zobot on our site to sit along with the regular Live Chat but had to take the Zobot down as the response time was very slow. The bot was slow to begin then once the chat had been initiated the response was very slow. The bot typing

• how to show data of 3 table in pivot

  Based on engineer name i want to get the data from 3 different tables like Service , amc, installation , but Every table contain Engineer name As Common , based that from the service table i want to take service amount , and count of service based on

• Custom Status for Purchase Orders

  Currently Zoho books has functionality to create custom statuses for Sales Orders. Can this be extended to include custom status for purchase orders as well? It was a great decision to add this functionality to sales orders. Our use case is for tracking

• Ask the Experts 22: Scale up your customer support with integrations & extensibility

  Hello everyone! The foundation is set. Build the beams. Raise the pillars. Set the walls. The Zoho Desk architecture stands tall. Let's discuss integration within Zoho Desk, extensions from the Marketplace, creating connections between Zoho Desk and other

• Is there no way to duplicate an entire workflow or even custom function across multiple departments?

  Is there no way to duplicate an entire workflow or even a custom function from one department to other departments, like it is done for field duplication from one department layout to other department layouts?

• Automated reply on any new ticket raised by customer

  Hi ZohoDesk team, Can we set up an automation so that whenever a new ticket is created against our support email; ZohoDesk immediately sends our standard acknowledgement, including the expected TAT for resolution? If that’s possible, could you share the

• Zoho equipment rental - just like Booqable

  Hi Zoho Team, is it possible to create a module or a system like booqable? our business starts renting our IT equipment assets that have been recently used for Events and Projects, we are having ZOHO books so its easy to integrate if you create one. Booqable

• Profit Margin Scheme

  I'm a tourism company operating in the aviation and outbound tourism sectors. Typically, taxes are 0% as our operations are outside the country. However, the state has now imposed a tax on the profit margin. This means if the selling price of an airline

• Next Page