Event Management System using ZDK CLI

Event Management System using ZDK CLI



Hello Everyone,

Welcome back to yet another post in the Kaizen Series!

As you already may know, for the Kaizen #200 milestone, we asked for your feedback and many of you suggested topics for us to discuss. We have been writing on these topics over the past few weeks. One of the feedbacks asked us to cover "more on ZDK CLI". In this post, we will discuss building an Event Management System in Zoho CRM Using ZDK CLI.

Consider the case of Zenith, a Zoho CRM partner who is also partner for Zoho's competing products. Zenith is hosting a conference in which their representatives are inviting speakers from Zoho and also other competing products. The attendees of the conference will be either external attendees or leads or contacts of Zenith. For this purpose existing meetings module of Zoho CRM (previously called Events) can not be used as it is not a good fit for this case. Custom modules and fields are required for this. In this post, we’ll discuss how to create a Event Management System that is complimentary to Zoho CRM using ZDK CLI. 

Why Use ZDK CLI?
ZDK CLI allows developers to:
  1. Create and edit CRM metadata (modules, fields, roles, profiles, and widgets)
  2. Define relationships between modules (lookups, multi-select lookups)
  3. Push and sync metadata changes to sandbox.
  4. Resolve conflicts when multiple users work on the same metadata.

This makes it ideal for building reusable CRM systems such as event management.

Initial Setup

As the initial setup, initialize the ZDK CLI project directory using zdk init command and create a new ZDK Project folder "Zenith". 

     zdk init




Then, login to the sandbox environment for Zenith using zdk auth:login command. 

     zdk auth:login


When you execute zdk auth:login, you can either select any org that is already signed in or select NEW LOGIN to visit the login page and select the sandbox org you will be working on.




After logging in to Zoho select the sandbox environment and give required permissions.
Notes
For the current beta release, ZDK CLI is exclusively available for Sandbox environment and is not operational in Production environments. 



You will be redirected to the terminal after successful login and you can start working on ZDK CLI.



Notes
Change the api_version to 8 in zdk-project.json file.

Step 1: Define the Modules

For an event management use case, we will need the following custom modules:
  1. Conference – Stores details of each event.
  2. Attendees – Tracks participants, whether leads, contacts, or external.
  3. ConferenceAttendees (Linking Module, not created) – Connects conferences and attendees with registration status.
  4. Venues – Captures details of event locations.
  5. Speakers – Stores details of invited speakers.

This has been visualized in the data model below.


To create a module, use the command

     zdk meta:create modules




This creates the json file for module metadata : Conference.modules-meta.json  in the path Zenith/crm/meta/modules/Conference 

Conference.modules-meta.json content

{
    "singular_label": "Conference",
    "plural_label": "Conferences",
    "api_name": "Conference",
    "profiles": [
        {
            "api_name": "Administrator"
        }
    ],
    "display_field": {
        "api_name": "Conferences"
    },
    "show_as_tab": true
}

Similarly create modules Attendees , Venues, and Speakers modules

Step 2: Customize Fields

To create a field, use the command

     zdk meta:create fields

Conference module:

Conference modules's fields are:

  1. Attendees (multiselectlookup to Attendee module) 
  2. Speakers (multiselectlookup to Speakers module) 
  3. Venue (lookup to Venue module) 
  4. Date (datetime) 
  5. Duration(double) 
  6. Description (textarea) 
  7. Status (picklist: Planned, Ongoing, Completed)


Attendees field
Let us check how to create the field attendees of type multi-select lookup (to Attendee module)




The json file Attendees.fields-meta.json created in the path Zenith/crm/meta/modules/Conference/fields will look like this


To provide dependent details for the multi select lookup, add the multiselectlookup json object to the Attendees.fields-meta.json file as below:

{
    "field_label": "Attendees",
    "display_name": "Attendees",
    "api_name": "Attendees",
    "type": "used",
    "data_type": "multiselectlookup",
    "multiselectlookup": {
        "connected_details": {
            "module": {
                "api_name": "Attendee"
            },
            "field": {
                "field_label": "AttendingConference"
            }
        },
        "linking_details": {
            "module": {
                "plural_label": "Conferences_X_attendees"
            }
        }
 }
}

Speakers (multi-select lookup to Speakers module)
Similar to Attendees field, create Speakers field and modify the json file Speaker.fields-meta.json created in the path Zenith/crm/meta/modules/Conference/fields:

{
    "field_label": "Speaker",
    "display_name": "Speakers",
    "api_name": "Speakers",
    "type": "used",
    "data_type": "multiselectlookup",
    "multiselectlookup": {
        "connected_details": {
            "module": {
                "api_name": "Speaker"
            },
            "field": {
                "field_label": "AttendingConference"
            }
        },
        "linking_details": {
            "module": {
                "plural_label": "Speakers_X_attendees"
            }
        }
 }
}

Venue (lookup field to Venue module)
Similarly, create the Venue field with type as "lookup" The json file Venue.fields-meta.json created in the path Zenith/crm/meta/modules/Conference/fields will look like this


To provide dependent details for the lookup, add the lookup json object to the json as below.
{
    "field_label": "Venue",
    "display_name": "Venue",
    "api_name": "Venue",
    "type": "used",
    "data_type": "lookup"
    "lookup": {
        "display_label": "Venue",
        "api_name": "Venue",
        "module": {
          "api_name": "Venue"
        }
      }
}

Description (textarea)
After create a textarea field Description using zdk meta:create fields command, add textarea json object to the field meta json file as below :

{
        "field_label": "Description",
                "display_name": "Description",
                "api_name": "Description",
                "type": "used",
                "data_type": "textarea",
                "textarea": {
                        "type": "rich_text"
                }
}

The possible values for text area are small, large and rich_text.

Status (picklist)
After create a picklist field Status using zdk meta:create fields command, add pick_list_values json array to the field meta json file as below:

{
    "field_label": "Status",
    "display_name": "Status",
    "api_name": "Status",
    "type": "used",
    "data_type": "picklist",
  "pick_list_values": [
    {
      "display_value": "Planned",
      "actual_value": "Planned"
    },
    {
      "display_value": "Ongoing",
      "actual_value": "Ongoing"
    },
    {
      "display_value": "Completed",
      "actual_value": "Completed"
    }
  ]
}

Date and duration fields of type datetime and double does not require any edits to the created meta.json file.




Attendees Module

Similarly, add fields for attendees modules
  1. Phone (phone)
  2. Company (text)
  3. EventsAttended (multi-select lookup to Conference module)
  4. Attendee Type (picklist with options Lead, Contact, External)
  5. Leads (lookup to Lead module)
  6. Contacts (lookup to Contact module

Venue Module

  1. Location (text)
  2. Capacity (integer)
  3. Contact erson (text)
  4. ContactNumber(phone)
  5. Description(textarea)

Speakers Module
  1. Phone (phone)
  2. Company (text)
  3. SpeakerStatus (picklist with options Confirmed, Pending, Canceled)

Step 3: Create a Custom Role


To create a field, use the command

     zdk meta:create roles


This ensures event managers have the right access without interfering with other CRM operations.

Pushing changes to the sandbox environment

Once all changes are done execute zdk org:push and zdk org:push result --{jobId} command to deploy the changes to the sandbox environment. Once the changes are verified in your sandbox environment you can deploy it to the production environment.




You can extract this metadata zip file, that is created using zdk org:export command to your own ZDK project directory and try pushing the changes to your sandbox environment.

Building the Event Management System for "Zenith" illustrates the core strength of ZDK CLI. It brings software engineering best practices to Zoho CRM customization. By defining modules/fields/roles as json files directly or creating them using the command, the source truth of the metadata is available in local system. The same can be tracked via version control systems like GIT for better collaboration among the team.

    • Sticky Posts

    • Kaizen #217 - Actions APIs : Tasks

      Welcome to another week of Kaizen! In last week's post we discussed Email Notifications APIs which act as the link between your Workflow automations and you. We have discussed how Zylker Cloud Services uses Email Notifications API in their custom dashboard.

    • Kaizen #216 - Actions APIs : Email Notifications

      Welcome to another week of Kaizen! For the last three weeks, we have been discussing Zylker's workflows. We successfully updated a dormant workflow, built a new one from the ground up and more. But our work is not finished—these automated processes are

    • 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 #142: How to Navigate to Another Page in Zoho CRM using Client Script

      Hello everyone! Welcome back to another exciting Kaizen post. In this post, let us see how you can you navigate to different Pages using Client Script. In this Kaizen post, Need to Navigate to different Pages Client Script ZDKs related to navigation A.

    • Kaizen #210 - Answering your Questions | Event Management System using ZDK CLI

      Hello Everyone, Welcome back to yet another post in the Kaizen Series! As you already may know, for the Kaizen #200 milestone, we asked for your feedback and many of you suggested topics for us to discuss. We have been writing on these topics over the

    • Recent Topics

    • Domain restriction for User Management actions in Zoho One

      Greetings, Zoho One Admins! To strengthen account security further and safeguard user management settings, we are imposing domain-based restrictions for user account-focused admin actions in Zoho One. In addition to password reset of user, organization

    • Zoho Mail iOS app update: Signature

      Hello everyone! In the latest version(3.1.7) of the Zoho Mail app update, we have brought in support to create, edit and remove signature within the app. You can create signature from the compose screen as well as from within the Settings module(inside

    • Copy paste from word document deletes random spaces

      Hello Dear Zoho Team, When copying from a word document into Notebook, often I face a problem of the program deleting random spaces between words, the document become terribly faulty, eventhough it is perfect in its original source document (and without

    • Desktop app doesn't support notecards created on Android

      Hi, Does anybody have same problem? Some of last notecards created on Android app (v. 6.6) doesn't show in desktop app (v. 3.5.5). I see these note cards but whith they appear with exclamation mark in yellow triangle (see screenshot) and when I try to

    • Approval Button in Subform

      Hi Team, I’m working on a subform-based requirement where users will submit requests, and these requests must go through approval by multiple team managers. Each line item in the subform needs to be individually approved or declined based on the user's

    • Setting checkbox value on template in Sign from Creator

      Good day, Please help me understand how do I set a tick from a checkbox in Creator into a checkbox on a Sign template. Below is the only values on the Sign template and the code from Creator, "field_boolean_data": {}, "field_date_data": {}, "field_radio_data":

    • Zoho Projects - Unread Comment Icon

      Hi Projects Team, It would be great if there was a notification I con on the comments icon so it's easy to see which tasks have new comments. Something like a red circle with a number of unread comments would be great. Thanks for considering my feed

    • Zoho Projects - Update Feed via API

      Hi Projects Team, Please consider adding an API to allow update and retrieval of messages to the Feed. Thank you

    • Automated log-out/session end

      I'm concerned about security of our data. Is it possible to set an automatic time-out for user sessions on Zoho CRM, after a certain period of inactivity or when the session reaches a certain duration (12 hours perhaps)? 

    • Subform auto populate values

      Hi Team, I’m trying to retrieve values from Zoho People using API functions and dynamically populate them into a subform. For example, I’ve created a form with several fields that users will fill out. Based on their input, I need to fetch records from

    • What is New in CRM Functions?

      What is New in CRM Functions? Hello everyone! We're delighted to share that Functions in Zoho CRM have had a few upgrades that would happen in phases. Phase 1 An all new built-in editor for better user experience and ease of use. ETA: In a couple of days.

    • Gantt Chart - Zoho Analytics

      Are there any plans to add Gantt Charts capabilities to Zoho Analytics?

    • WhatsApp Calling Integration via Zoho Desk

      Dear Zoho Desk Team, I would like to request a feature that allows users to call WhatsApp numbers directly via Zoho Desk. This integration would enable sending and receiving calls to and from WhatsApp numbers over the internet, without the need for traditional

    • Identify long running sync jobs/tables

      My sync process causes strain on my production database and I'd love some tools/alerts to help me identify which tables are taking the longest. The current screen only shows 3 tables at a time and truncates the last fetch time so that it is very cumbersome

    • Temporarily rate limited due to IP reputation.

      We have suddenly started receiving the following Mail Delivery Status Notification: Diagnostic-Code: 4.7.650 The mail server [136.143.184.12] has been temporarily rate limited due to IP reputation. For e-mail delivery information, see https://aka.ms/postmaster

    • Automatically CC an address using Zoho CRM Email Templates

      Hi all - have searched but can't see a definitive answer. We have built multiple email templates in CRM. Every time we send this we want it to CC a particular address (the same address for every email sent) so that it populates the reply back into our

    • Solution to Import PST File into Office 365.

      MailsDaddy OST to Office 365 Migration Tool is an outstanding solution to recover OST files and migrate them into Office 365 without any hassle. Using this software users can multiple OST files into Office 365 with complete data security. It offers users

    • Best-practice setup in Zoho One for managing combined candidate pools and exporting anonymised CVs

      We are new users of the Zoho One bundle and operate a consulting and engineering company. Our workforce model includes a mix of permanent employees, active job applicants, and freelance/independent consultants. All three groups need to be searchable,

    • Associate emails from both primary and secondary contacts to deal

      We need to associate emails from multiple contacts to a deal. Please advise how this can be achieved. At present, only emails from primary contacts can be associated. Thanks

    • New integration: Zoho Sign for Zoho Projects

      Hey there! We’re excited to announce the brand-new Zoho Sign integration for Zoho Projects! With this integration, users can now send documents for signatures, track their progress, and manage approvals—all without leaving Zoho Projects. This bridges

    • Update to attachment display in ticket threads

      This enhancement will provide faster access for support teams and end-users, significantly boosting productivity for everyone. Get ready for a more efficient and satisfying experience! Immediate benefits Faster ticket rendering reduces wait times and

    • Narrative 15: Blueprint - Automate, guide, and transform your support processes

      Behind the scenes of a successful ticketing system: BTS Series Narrative 15: Blueprint - Automate, guide, and transform your support processes Even organizations that deliver quality products and services can face low customer satisfaction when their

    • Different MRP / Pricing for same product but different batches

      We often face the following situations where MRP of a particular product changes on every purchase and hence we have to charge the customer accordingly. This can't be solved by Batch tracking as of now so far as I understand Zoho. How do you manage it as of now? 

    • Batch/lot # and Storage bin location

      Hi I want to ask for a feature on Zoho inventory I own a warehouse and I've gone through different management software solutions with no luck until I found Zoho, it has been a game changer for my business with up to the minute information, I'm extremely happy with it. It's almost perfect. And I say Almost because the only thing missing for me (and I'm sure I'm not alone) is the need of being able to identify the lot number of my inventory and where it is located in the warehouse. Due to the nature

    • ZOHO BOOKS - RECEIVING MORE ITEMS THAN ORDERED

      Hello, When trying to enter a vendor's bill that contains items with bigger quantity than ordered in the PO (it happens quite often) - The system would not let us save the bill and show this error: "Quantity recorded cannot be more than quantity ordered." 

    • Good news! Calendar in Zoho CRM gets a face lift

      Dear Customers, We are delighted to unveil the revamped calendar UI in Zoho CRM. With a complete visual overhaul aligned with CRM for Everyone, the calendar now offers a more intuitive and flexible scheduling experience. What’s new? Distinguish activities

    • 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:

    • Writer update results in BitDefender blocking it as malware

      After updating Writer to latest update, Bitdefender blocked the app and writer no longer runs.

    • Refresh frequency

      Dear Zoho Team, I really, truly appreciate that Zoho Books gets frequent updates. As a matter of fact this is how a good SaaS company should stay on top. However, I feel that I have to hit refresh almost every day. This was exciting at the beginning but

    • Refund

      My plan expired today, and I updated my payment details with a new credit card. At the same time, I wanted to downgrade, but the system wouldn’t allow the downgrade until the payment details were updated. As a result, I was charged for the same plan before

    • Calling Function via REST API with API Key gives 401 using Zoho Developer

      Hi, I created a couple of functions using the one month trial of Enterprise edition, which I was able to call using the API Key method from Postman and from an external site. Now that my trial has expired, I have created the same functions in the Developer

    • Error due to - 'Internal Exception' when uploading Sign-generated PDF file to workdrive via Deluge in Zoho CRM

      Hi I wasnt getting this error a few days ago and my code had not changed, so I'm wondering if there's a Zoho bug somewhere? I am downloading a PDF file from a Zoho Sign url using invokeurl and then uploading it to a Workdrive folder using zoho.workdrive.uploadFile.

    • Embed CRM record images in email templates

      I have email templates that I want to embed dynamic images in their body - not as an attachment. For the context, the image is a QR code individual to each contact. So there are couple of challenges for which I think there is no solution in CRM: 1/ I

    • Assign multiple departments to multiple helpcenters

      Hi there! I have a reseller company for a software and I'm using Zoho Desk as my helpcenter and ticket management system. The software is great and I would like to make a suggestion! With multi-branding activated, your departments that visible in help

    • Zoho Desk Training

      Hello, We've had Zoho desk for a while now, but we run into issues occasionally, and I was wondering if there was a customer who currently uses it and really enjoys the functionality, that would be wiling to chat with us?

    • Edit default "We are here to help you" text in chat SalesIQ widget

      Does anyone know how this text can be edited? I can't find it anywhere in settings. Thanks!

    • PO Based Advance payment to Vendor

      We recommend to introduce a provision at PO to make advance payment to vendors and auto apply that advance paid later at the time of Vendor Bill submission for that PO. This will help us track PO-wise Total Payments.

    • Converting Customer Invoice to Purchase Bill

      Hi, In my service-based business, I sometimes create the customer invoice first, and later I receive the purchase bill from the vendor for the same job. Is there any option in Zoho Books to: Convert a customer invoice into a purchase bill, or Link/associate

    • Getting Project Template List using the REST API

      I am trying to confirm that I can use the REST API to create a project using a project template. The API documentation indicates this is possible by providing the Template ID, but it is not clear at all how to get a list of available Project Templates

    • How to get Quickbooks Desktop Info into Zoho?

      Our team has used Quickbooks desktop for years and is looking at switching to Zoho books in 2026. I want to bring all old sales history over since we use Zoho CRM. I can export Item sales history and generic sales orders from Quickbooks desktop. How do

    • Next Page