Kaizen 179: Choosing between ZDK CLI and Web UI : When to Use Each

Kaizen 179: Choosing between ZDK CLI and Web UI : When to Use Each


Hello everyone, 
Welcome back! ZDK CLI uses commands to manipulate with Zoho CRM metadata from a terminal.  While Zoho CRM Web UI remains the primary tool for manipulating Zoho CRM metadata like creating modules, configuring fields/layouts etc., using ZDK CLI has its own advantages.  In this post, we will explore scenarios where each option excels, empowering developers and administrators to make informed decisions as per their requirements. Let's dive in!

Smith, a consultant at TechSolutions Inc. (a Zoho CRM Partner), is enhancing the Deals module for Springfield University, to align it with their admissions workflow. Springfield University is using customized Zoho CRM  for  learning management system (LMS). The Deals module now tracks student enrollment stages ( "Application Received," "Scholarship Review," and "Admission Offer Sent") instead of the sales pipeline. To support this, Smith needs to add a custom field like “Financial Aid Status” to the Deals module. 

Should he use Zoho CRM UI or ZDK CLI?

 For simple changes like adding this field, Smith would use the Zoho CRM UI—it’s faster. But this raises the question-

When does a customization demand use of ZDK CLI?

The answer becomes clear with Smith’s next project: customizing Zoho CRM for Brookside University. He has to create customizations for Student Management, Course Management, Admissions, Finances, etc., which takes days or even weeks. If Smith were to use the Zoho CRM UI , he has to navigate through multiple tabs in the setup and creates them one by one. When his customization is done in the sandbox, he completes testing it and deploys it to the sandbox environment.  Smith designs a Student Dashboard Widget that displays a student’s academic progress, attendance, extracurricular activities, and advisor notes in one place. For creating the widget, he uses the ZET CLI tool in terminal and after development he packages it separately and upload it to Zoho CRM. 

If Smith opts for ZDK CLI to build the customizations, he can create modules, fields, layouts, roles, and profiles directly from the terminal. He can use ZET commands in ZDK CLI project directory for developing the widget and can add the widget to the Zoho CRM through ZDK CLI.

By leveraging ZDK CLI alongside Version Control Systems like Git or Mercurial, Smith along with his team mates ensures every customization is traceable. Git logs resolve disputes like “Who modified the Admissions pipeline?”. Using ZDK CLI with VCS facilitates team collaboration. One team member can build up on another team member's work.

Riding on the success wave of Brookside University’s LMS integration, Smith’s firm, TechSolutions Inc., now needs to replicate the same Zoho CRM customization for their next project. Without ZDK CLI, Smith would have to do it all over again: manually rebuilding every module, field, and widget through the UI.

With ZDK CLI, the effort required is minimal.
  • Using zdk org:export command, Smith can export the metadata of Brookside University. 
  • He can use the exported files and "tweak" them to suit the needs of his new project.
  • Using zdk org:push  command, he can deploy the refined configuration to the new environment.
ZDK CLI transforms CRM customization from a manual process into a repeatable strategy—ensuring TechSolutions Inc.’s  growth.

When to Use ZDK CLI 

  • Bulk Metadata Management: You can use ZDK CLI to pull the metadata from one organization which has metadata customizations for LMS, make minor changes, and deploy it for a different CRM organization which needs customizations for the same.
  • Version Control of metadata changes: With ZDK CLI you can use Version Control Systems like  Git/Mercurial to track and manage metadata changes made by different team members, clearly showing who made updates and when, enabling transparency. This also makes it easy to revert changes if issues arise.
  • Collaboration - Reuse Components: Using ZDK CLI you can easily export your local metadata changes with zdk org:export, which creates a zip file of the the crm directory in your local ZDK CLI project. You can share this zip file with your fellow developers to collaborate seamlessly by building on each other’s work. You can also achieve the same using VCS. Checkout our previous Kaizen post on using ZDK CLI with git: Leveraging ZDK CLI with VCS to reuse components across different Zoho CRM org. 
  • Widget Development: You can create and update widgets via CLI commands.You can use ZET commands in ZDK CLI project directory and widgets can be added to your organization from the terminal itself without the need of packaging the widget.
  • Automate commands: You can automate ZDK CLI commands using scripts, reducing manual intervention. Take a look at this Kaizen post where we discuss a shell script designed to automate the process of pushing locally modified metadata along with conflict management.
  • Conflict Resolution:  Conflict resolution in ZDK CLI guarantees that changes done does not get accidentally overwritten.  Resolve merge conflicts with zdk org:pull:resolve, which opens a browser-based diff editor to reconcile code differences.

Best Practices

  • Use ZDK CLI for development in sandbox environments and the Web UI for minor fixes and to deploy it to Production environment.
  • Pull configurations via CLI (zdk org:pull) before major edits to maintain a backup.
  • For developing widgets zet commands along with ZDK CLI commands in the terminal.
  • Refrain from making simultaneous changes via Web UI and ZDK CLI to prevent conflicts.
  • If you are unfamiliar with a command, use zdk help command for to check the description of the command.
  • Though ZDK CLI lacks the visual simplicity of the Web UI, pairing it with IDEs like VSCode improves its usability.

Notes
For the current beta release, ZDK CLI will exclusively be available for Sandbox environment and will not be operational in Production environments. 

We hope you found this post useful. We will meet you next week with another interesting topic!
If you have any questions, let us know in the comment section.

Happy Customizing!





    • Recent Topics

    • 【Zoho CRM】アナリティクス機能のアップデート：ウォーターフォールの導入

      ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。コミュニティチームの藤澤です。 今回は「Zoho CRM アップデート情報」の中からアナリティクス機能のアップデートをご紹介します。 本記事は、以前紹介された機能に新たに追加された機能です。 以前の記事：https://support.zoho.co.jp/portal/ja/kb/articles/zoho-crm-visualize-your-data-with-a-new-set-of-charts-treemap-butterfly-sankey-and-cluster-charts

    • [Free Webinar] Learning Table Series - Creator for the Finance Industry

      Hello Everyone! The Learning Table Series is a free monthly webinar that runs for around 45 minutes. It's offered to our Community users and aims to provide a dynamic learning experience by demonstrating how Creator can be used as a solution for various

    • Webhook - Configuration failed: 200 response not received for POST request

      Hello, I am trying to set up a webhook to connect with an automation software but I receive the following error from Zoho: Configuration failed: 200 response not received for POST request I have tried testing it on webhook.site as well and receive the

    • Automated Shopify adjustment problem. "An inventory adjustment has been created by the system to set the initial stock from Shopify"

      Has anyone noticed issues since the Shopify Sync has been updated recently? If you sync with Shopify, check to see if there are automated adjustments for old products that keep recurring. We have this problem for 6 SKU's that Zoho is doubling the stock

    • Best website platform to sync to Zoho Inventory

      Anyone like to suggest the best website platform for syncing to Zoho Inventory? We DO NOT want to sync stock, only orders. Shopify - not an option as we have more than one website and Shopify requires 2 accounts and Zoho will not sync with 2 different accounts. Magento and WooCommerce both sync via Kloudconnectors - does anyone have any experience with this? I have trialled it and there are flaws - eg purchase order numbers are not populated. Discussion welcome!

    • Include product images in data sync between Zoho CRM and Zoho Inventory

      Currently the item image does not sync between Zoho CRM and Zoho Inventory when using the internal Zoho sync functionality. This requires users to manually update the item image in Zoho Inventory for products created in CRM and vice versa. Including the

    • Show ordered quantity on packing slips and invoices

      Hello Is there any way possible to show the original ordered quantity of an item (as recorded in the sales order) on subsequent package slips and sales invoices, so that these documents can show the customer the ordered qty vs the qty being currently

    • Search Zoho Inventory Items module via API

      How can I search Zoho Inventory Items by custom fields, categories, etc using the API? This is not documented. Is there an advanced search function like CRM's COQL search available via the Zoho API? If there is an undocumented way to search Items via

    • How can I get my images to display correctly on mobile site?

      I have just created a site and uploaded images, which look perfect on the desktop version. However when I view the site on my mobile device some of the images are not displaying correctly. They are all blurry. Anyone else experience this?

    • Does Creator support HTMX?

      I love the Zoho ecosystem and Zoho Creator does a lot of things really well. However, I'm needing more real-time interactivity in my forms. Is the only option to create a JS widget? How about HTMX?

    • My fix for "This report is not accessible" in published pages

      Hi Community, after having the same issue as many others here and going through the community's posts, i found a solution on my own. Again, the quality of support from Zoho is pretty awful: if you cannot help yourself, you're lost. I really like Zoho,

    • Tip of the Week #59– Enhance team collaboration with multichannel shared inboxes!

      Struggling with scattered customer conversations and missed follow-ups across your team? When messages are everywhere, it's easy for them to fall through the cracks—leading to delays, duplicate replies, and miscommunication among team members. Zoho TeamInbox

    • Subforms in stateless forms

      I think the title says it all. We need to be able to add subforms to stateless forms. Currently the only workaround is to create a Form and delete each record upon submission of the form. I need to build an interface to update our inventory. Basically

    • Delete standard e-mailtemplate

      Hello, Is it possible to delete or hide a standard e-mailtemplate? I would only like to show my own created e-mailtemplates to my staff. I only find a 'delete' option at my custom made e-mailtemplates, but the standard e-mailtemplates do not show this

    • Add values to Countdown Mode

      Is it possible to add values to the countdown mode drop down? The longest is 2 days. I would like values for 5 days, 10 days, 15 days...

    • RSS feed from a Zoho site blog?

      Does the Zoho Site blog have an RSS feed associated with it? I would like to have this picked up on a business Facebook page. thanks

    • Refresh token not appearing

      Hello, I was wondering if there is another way of obtaining a refresh token, as following the usual 60-second-code procedure generates a new access token, but not the refresh token, and so i have to repeat everything to get a new token every hour or so,

    • How would I collect a signature in person on Zoho sign?

      Suppose I have a customer show up at my office and we close a deal. I have an iPad ready to go, and I need to have the customer sign the document right there. How would I do it?

    • What's New in Zoho Analytics - June 2025

      Hello Users, We're delighted to bring you new features and enhancements designed to make your analytics experience smarter and more powerful than ever. AutoML Enhancements We’re thrilled to introduce powerful new AutoML enhancements, making machine learning

    • CRM Client scripts via extension?

      I've made a lot of industry specific customization to zoho CRM, using custom modules, workflows/automations, deluge scripts, api calls, and client scripting. I have had organic interest explaining what i've done to other small business owners in my industry.

    • How to import data via Excel for a multi-select lookup field?

      In the Accounts module, I have a multi-select lookup field to the Contacts module. When I import Accounts data via Excel, I want to enter the contact email address (which is used as the identifier) under the column name for the multi-select lookup field.

    • Need better way to tie Undeposited Funds to Invoice Payments to make it easy to reconcile Undeposited Funds account

      Hello, Request to have Zoho create tighter integration between Undeposited Funds and Invoice Payments.  Currently reconciling the undeposited funds account is a fairly tedious process for us.  Since the deposits and payments are just thrown into a "bucket"

    • Customized folder permissions in web Zoho WorkDrive won't apply to Sync

      Hi, within the 'Deals' macro-folder I created a folder for each Sales person (att. 1). Within each Sales person's folder a subfolder is automatically generated via function every time a new deal record is created in Zoho CRM, i.e. 1 deal record = 1 deal

    • What happens after trial period

      Dear Support, We are planning to use ZOHO CRM for our organization. We are now registered for a 15 days trial version. I would like to know what happens with our account and our data after these 15 days. Will it automatically change into a 'free' account

    • Forte's Extra Costs

      Hello everyone in the Zoho community, I wanted to share some information about Forte in case anyone wanted to look into them as a processor.  I currently use Stripe, but wanted to use Forte's ACH to pay vendors and take ACH payments for our products.  This is one of the only ACH processors that Zoho accepts. They state their cost is $25/month plus their transaction fees for ACH.  However, after signing up and going through their approval process, I found this out they work with a PCI compliance service

    • SEPA stripe vs gocardless

      Hi, we want to use Zoho Books - but as we are a company that is based in Germany we are using SEPA mandates. I know that its possible to use GoCardless - but the fees are extremly high (15 EUR fee for a 5000 EUR transaction). Is there any other way to

    • Zoho Commerce - Zoho Shop (Multilanguage)

      hi there we have a shop in zoho commerce, can I change the language in the shop, i mean, can I create a German and a French version, as an instance or something? If yes, how it works? thanks for your answers greetings prisca

    • French Tutorials

      Is there any Zoho projects tutorials, ebook, video or else in french? If so, where can I fin it please? Thx

    • My zoho mail has been disabled and cannot send email

      I’m the super admin for my company’s email accounts, but my own email address has been unexpectedly locked. I’m seeing the following error message: Could you please assist in unlocking my account so I can resume sending emails?

    • SMTP error

      I am using SMTP from Zoho the account is accounts@khlaklaeeb.com it was working fine then started to have Error and unable to delivery messages SMTP host SMTP.zoho,com SMTP user: accounts@khlaklaeeb.com SMTP port 465 PAssword: App Password it was working

    • Zoho Books Roadshows are back in the UAE!

      Hello there, Business owners and accounting professionals of the UAE, we’re coming to your cities! FTA accredited Zoho Books is now officially one of the Digital Tax Integrators in the UAE. With the newly launched direct VAT filing capabilities, we're

    • Automatically creating a ticket in Zoho Desk when an invoice is created in Zoho Books

      I need to find a way to create a ticket automatically (i.e. using workflow) in Zoho Desk whenever an invoice is created in Zoho Books. Please advise if there is a way of doing that?

    • Been getting this error, every now and then "Get count limit exceeded, please try again after 3 mins"

      it is really annoying.

    • Co-existing with Google Workspace

      We currently use GWS and due to legacy practices, we cannot migrate away from it. Not easily anyway. The issue we have is that while we have Zoho Mail, we get duplicate copies of emails. Our setup is that GWS is our primary. We have Zoho MX records in

    • Stop Zoho Projects From Automatically Adding Client Users

      I have a custom function that creates a Zoho Project for every Quote attached to a Deal when it moves to Closed Won. Everything works fine, except for the fact that connecting a Zoho Project to the CRM automatically takes the Contact associated with the

    • dd Linked Note to Comments & History via Custom Function + Zoho Document View Feature

      Hi all, I have a couple of custom functions running in Zoho (specifically in Inventory/Books), and I'm trying to streamline it. Here’s the scenario: When a Purchase Receive is processed, my custom function automatically creates a Package. I'd like to

    • How to break line in zohoCRM

      Hello everyone, I'm currently working with Deluge scripting language and encountering an issue with newline characters (\n). My goal is to format a string with multiple lines, but the newline characters are not being interpreted correctly. Instead of

    • Marketer’s Space: Supercharged Workflow with Zoho CRM Integration

      Hello Marketers! Welcome back to another post in Marketer’s Space. Today, we’ll explore how integrating Zoho CRM with Zoho Campaigns can help you create smarter, more personalized Workflow. In this post, we’ll look at a specific use case to demonstrate

    • Zoho Live chat doesnt chat on CRM Contact page????

      We have used Salesforce Live Agent for the last 8 years and the chat comes in on the Contact record which is logical and intuitive as the chat agent can see the customers sales history and open opportunities...etc... We just migrated to Zoho CRM and I

    • Image Quality Issue on Zoho Assist

      Hello, For the past two days, I've been experiencing a significant image quality issue on Zoho Assist when connecting to one of my computers. I’ve tried reinstalling the application, but the issue persists across multiple devices. The internet connection

    • Next Page