Kaizen 228 - Process Large-Scale Migrated Data Using Catalyst Solutions

Howdy, tech wizards!

This week’s Kaizen explores how Catalyst Solutions in the Zoho CRM Developer Hub help import large volumes of data into Zoho CRM while improving data quality and simplifying the migration process.

Why Catalyst Solutions?

Catalyst Solutions provide a library of independent, ready-to-use backend solutions called CodeLibs. The CRM Bulk Data Processor CodeLib helps handle complex data operations on large datasets. Following are the key benefits:

1. Highly Scalable: Processes large datasets efficiently, supporting up to 200,000 records per API call.
2. Automation Made Simple: Automate complex tasks like segmentation, data cleansing and lead scoring with minimal effort.  
3. Effortless Integration: Comes with pre-configured Catalyst resources such as serverless functions and data stores that integrate directly with Zoho CRM.
   

Business Scenario

Zylker, a manufacturing company, migrated over 3 lakh Lead records into Zoho CRM from spreadsheets. 

Post-migration, the Lead data showed the following inconsistencies and challenges:

1. Phone number field did not include country codes, or contained incorrect country codes. This inconsistency made it difficult for sales teams to contact Leads reliably.
2. Identifying potential Leads for follow-up required manual effort and marketing team has to run generic campaigns without lead segmentation. 

Using workflows before record creation to fix phone numbers for this volume would result in 3 lakh individual workflow executions, which can slow imports and cause partial failures.

Solution Overview

Zylker can use the CRM Bulk Data Processor available in Catalyst Solutions to address these challenges at scale.

The solution works as follows:

1. Lead records are fetched in bulk from Zoho CRM using the Bulk Read API.
2. The fetched data is temporarily stored to evaluate the priority and quality of each record. Based on this evaluation, the records are also segmented accordingly.
3. The Country field value is used to identify and append the correct country code to the phone number.
4. The processed records are updated back into Zoho CRM using Bulk Write API.

All operations are executed using pre-configured Catalyst resources provided by the CodeLib. You can explore the Bulk Data Flow in Catalyst help page to understand how each resource participates in the processing pipeline.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure the following:

1. Log into your Zoho CRM and navigate to Setup > Customization > Modules and Fields > Leads.

Create the following custom Single Line fields to map existing record data in Zoho CRM. 

1. Last Activity Days
2. Web Engagement Score

Refer to the Working with Custom Fields help page for detailed guide. 

2. Create the following custom Single Line fields to store the calculated values during bulk processing:

1. Lead Score Value
2. Lead Segment
3. Sales Priority
4. Data Quality Status
   

3. Go to Setup > Developer Hub > Catalyst Solutions > Zoho CRM Bulk Data Processor. 

4. Click Go to Catalyst and create a Catalyst account if required.

5. Refer to the Catalyst CLI Installation Guide and install it on your local system.

6. Create a new folder on your local system, which will act as a local project directory. Use the following command:

mkdir -p <folder_name>

7. Navigate to the project folder in your terminal and execute the following command: 

catalyst init

8. Follow the prompts to select and initialize your desired project from the Catalyst console. 

When prompted to choose a feature, press Enter and proceed without choosing any feature.

9. Run the following command to install the CRM Bulk Data Processor CodeLib.

catalyst codelib:install https://github.com/catalystbyzoho/codelib-zoho-crm-bulk-processor

Step 1: Create a Cron Job

1. Open the Catalyst Console and navigate to the same project in which you have installed the CRM Bulk Data Processor CodeLib.

2. Go to Cloud Scale > Triggers > Cron and click Create Cron.

3. Fill in the following details:

1. Provide a Name and Description for the cron job. 
2. Select Function and choose BulkJobScheduler from the dropdown in the Target Function field.
3. Enter the following parameters and values:
   
   MODULES -> Leads
   FIELDS_TO_BE_PROCESSED -> Last_Name, Company, Mobile, Country, Designation, No_of_Employees, Web_Engagement_Score, Lead_Score_Value, Lead_Segment, Sales_Priority, Data_Quality_Status
   
   Use GET Modules Metadata API and GET Fields Metadata API to get the API names of the required module and fields.
    
4. Choose the Schedule Type as One Time for our use case.
   

Refer to the Implementing Cron Jobs Help Guide for more details.

Step 2: Configure Zoho CRM API Credentials 

1. Create a self-client application in Zoho's API Console.

2. Generate a Grant Token with the following scopes:

1. ZohoFiles.files.ALL
2. ZohoCRM.bulk.ALL
3. ZohoCRM.modules.ALL
4. ZohoCRM.settings.ALL
5. ZohoCRM.org.ALL
   

3. Follow the OAuth Help Section for a step-by-step guide to generate Access and Refresh tokens for your Zoho CRM organization.

Store all the API credentials securely for later use.

4. To allow Catalyst to access Zoho CRM data, configure the stored API credentials as environment variables in the catalyst-config.json file within the BulkDataProcessor function.

For detailed guidance, refer to the Configure Function Components help guide in CRM Bulk Data Processor. 

These environment variables are used by Catalyst Connectors to create access tokens for establishing secure connection between Zoho CRM and Catalyst.

Step 3: Add Business Logic

1. Go to com.processor.record.ZCRMRecordsProcessorImpl.java file of the BulkDataProcessor in the functions directory.

2. Override the ZCRMRecordsProcessor method with the business logic.

The complete code sample for this use case is available on GitHub for reference.

Following is the major custom logic used here:

Use the GET Fields Metadata API to fetch the API names of the fields required throughout the custom logic.

Phone Number Normalization:

This can be implemented in two stages, Country standardization and Phone Number formatting. 

For country standardization, CountryStandardizerUtil maps different variations of the Country field in records to a single standardized country identifier. These variations may include, 

1. Country Names (India, Unites States, United Kingdom)
2. Abbreviations (Ind, IN, USA, US, UK)
3. Calling Codes (+91, +1, +44)
   

With this, we can ensure different interpretations of the same country are interpreted consistently during the process. 

Once the country is standardized, Phone Numbers are formatted to E.164 format in the PhoneNormalizerUtil. 

It removes all non-numeric characters and converts the Phone input to E.164 format with the respective country codes. 

public class PhoneNormalizerUtil {     private static final Pattern NON_DIGIT = Pattern.compile("[^0-9]");     public static Optional<String> normalizeToE164(String rawPhone, String countryCode) {         if (rawPhone == null || rawPhone.trim().isEmpty()) {             return Optional.empty();         }         String digits = NON_DIGIT.matcher(rawPhone).replaceAll("");         if (rawPhone.startsWith("+") && digits.length() >= 10) {             return Optional.of("+" + digits);         }         switch (countryCode) {             case "IN":                 return normalizeIndia(digits);             case "US":                 return normalizeUS(digits);             case "UK":                 return normalizeUK(digits);             default:                 return Optional.empty();         }     }     private static Optional<String> normalizeIndia(String digits) {         if (digits.length() == 10) {             return Optional.of("+91" + digits);         }         if (digits.startsWith("91") && digits.length() == 12) {             return Optional.of("+" + digits);         }         return Optional.empty();     }     private static Optional<String> normalizeUS(String digits) {         if (digits.length() == 10) {             return Optional.of("+1" + digits);         }         if (digits.startsWith("1") && digits.length() == 11) {             return Optional.of("+" + digits);         }         return Optional.empty();     }     private static Optional<String> normalizeUK(String digits) {         if (digits.startsWith("44") && digits.length() == 12) {             return Optional.of("+" + digits);         }         if (digits.length() == 10) {             return Optional.of("+44" + digits);         }         return Optional.empty();     } }

Lead Priority and Segmentation

The lead priority is calculated using the Title, No of employees, Last Activity Days and Web Engagement Score fields in the record.  

Each field value contributes a predefined number of points:

1. If the job title indicates a senior role such as CEO, CTO, Director, or VP, 25 points are added.
2. If the company size is 200 employees or more, 20 points are added.
3. If the Lead has been active within the last 7 days, 15 points are added.
4. If the web engagement score is 70 or higher, 10 points are added.

The sum of all applicable factors is returned as an integer and based on this score the lead's priority and segmentation is assigned as follows:

1. High (Hot): score ≥ 70
2. Medium (Warm): score ≥ 40
3. Low (Cold): score < 40
   

public static int calculateLeadScore(             String jobTitle,             Integer companySize,             Integer lastActivityDays,             Integer webEngagementScore) {         int score = 0;         // Decision Maker         if (jobTitle != null) {             String title = jobTitle.toLowerCase();             if (title.contains("ceo") || title.contains("cto")                     || title.contains("director") || title.contains("vp")) {                 score += 25;             }         }         // Company Size         if (companySize != null && companySize >= 200) {             score += 20;         }         // Recency         if (lastActivityDays != null && lastActivityDays <= 7) {             score += 15;         }         // Engagement         if (webEngagementScore != null && webEngagementScore >= 70) {             score += 10;         }         return score;     }     public static String deriveSegment(int score) {         if (score >= 70) return "Hot";         if (score >= 40) return "Warm";         return "Cold";     }     public static String derivePriority(String segment) {         switch (segment) {             case "Hot":                 return "High";             case "Warm":                 return "Medium";             default:                 return "Low";         }     }

Lead Quality:

Lead quality is evaluated based on the validity of the Mobile and Country fields in the records.

1. Clean: Both field values are valid.
2. Critical: Both field values are invalid.
3. Needs Review: Only one of the field values is invalid.
   

Write Back to Records:

The processed data is written back to Zoho CRM as follows:

1. Mobile: Formatted phone numbers.
2. Lead Score: Total score calculated from all applicable fields.
3. Lead Segment: Segment derived from the lead score.
4. Sales Priority: Priority assigned based on the lead segment.
5. Data Quality Status: Overall quality of the Lead record.
   

if (normalizedMobile.isPresent()) { data.put("Mobile", normalizedMobile.get()); } data.put("Lead_Score", leadScore); data.put("Lead_Segment", leadSegment); data.put("Sales_Priority", salesPriority); data.put("Data_Quality_Status", dataQualityStatus); }

Step 4: Deploy to Development

Run the following command to deploy your local customizations to the Development Environment of Catalyst.

catalyst deploy

You can find the complete code sample on GitHub for reference.

Try it Out!

With the changes deployed to the Development environment, let us now test the solution.

We hope this Kaizen helps you import large volumes of data into Zoho CRM while improving data quality and lead intelligence using the CRM Bulk Data Processor.

Have questions or suggestions? Drop them in the comments or write to us at  support@zohocrm.com. 

We will circle back to you next Friday with another interesting topic. 

On to Better Building!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Previous Kaizen: Client Script Support for List Page (Canvas) | Kaizen Collection: Directory

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

• Topic Participants

• Kiruthiga G

  

• Sticky Posts

• 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.

• Kaizen #226: Using ZRC in Client Script

  Hello everyone! Welcome to another week of Kaizen. In today's post, lets see what is ZRC (Zoho Request Client) and how we can use ZRC methods in Client Script to get inputs from a Salesperson and update the Lead status with a single button click. In this

• Kaizen #222 - Client Script Support for Notes Related List

  Hello everyone! Welcome to another week of Kaizen. The final Kaizen post of the year 2025 is here! With the new Client Script support for the Notes Related List, you can validate, enrich, and manage notes across modules. In this post, we’ll explore how

• 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

• Recent Topics

• Zoho CRM Reports Module on Mobil App

  I have the mobile app and the reports module doesn't appear in the sidebar for some reason. I saw a Youtube video where the user had the Reports module on mobile. Is there a setting to show it on mobile? Thanks.

• Inquiry on Help Centre Tab Customisation

  Hi Zoho team, I’m wondering if it’s possible to further customise the Help Center tabs, specifically the descriptions under Knowledge Base, Community, and Tickets. While the current setup allows customising tab names, being able to tailor the descriptions

• Passing a form object to a function

  Suppose I have a sort_order field in multiple tables and I want to increment it by +1 onCreate of a new record. Is there a way to pass the form object as an argument into the function to keep things DRY? The following function from Zia works, but I'd

• Can you copy and paste a page within a form?

  I have been looking at trying to copy/duplicate a whole page within a form. I can't see how I can do this without having to add all the data in again. This is very time consuming. Any help would be great.

• Unable to sort as Descending order

  Trying to change the sort order for a lookup field (checkboxes) from Ascending to Descending and keep getting an error in Deluge that the order must be Ascending Did anyone ran into this? Thanks Eyal

• How do I copy an email message to one or more other folders?

  I can move a message to another folder using the "move to" option but I can't figure out how to copy a message. 

• New feature request: Allow copy of email message to another folder

  Hello Zoho team, This is a suggested new feature to allow copy an email message to either another folder or the same folder. Within the same Zoho account. This is not a support request about "label". This is a suggested new feature to allow copies of

• Hotmail is blocking the zoho mail IP

  Greetings, Since last Tuesday (5 days ago today) I wrote to Zoho support and I still haven't received a single response (Ticket ID: 2056917). Is this how you treat people who pay for your email service? I am making this public so that those who want to

• Creator Simplified #11: Create a custom button to download files

  Hey there! This time, let's see how to create custom buttons to download the files uploaded in the file upload field. Sample use-case A training app has a module that provides the materials for all the available courses. Students can click on the corresponding

• Hide horizontal lines at bottom of form

  Hi I have a page with 3 forms embedded in html snippets. On each of the forms I can hide the submit button easily but I am left with the horizontal lines that bound that section and I cannot figure out to remove them (see below for the two sets of horizontal

• Autosaving of Form Field

  HI can anyone suggest a way of autosaving or simulating an autosave function for a specific field in a form. The story is as follows. I have a bunch of technicians who write notes on how they do a repair. Sometimes they write for a couple of hours the troubleshooting process. If they click incorrectly, press ESC, Cancel or the browser crashes the information is lost which can be heartbreaking so my guys use notepad and then copy the information in. The only way around this is to click submit on the

• Ask the Experts 26: Brighten every customer interaction with Zoho Desk all year long

  Hello everyone, Greetings and welcome to Ask the Experts 26. As we wrap up 2025, we are excited to invite you to the 26th episode of our Ask the Expert series. 🎄The Merry Metrics Edition = Best of Zoho Desk [Best Practices + Holiday Automation + Year-End

• Pricing calculator

  Alright, so I'm trying to create a pricing calculator/pricing report generator to use in a cabinet shop. I did all the logic and such, and the calculator works. I have a few other things that I would need it to be able to do though, I'll do my best to

• Bug Details

  In the Bug detail the milestoneid is missing

• Is there a way to make a button scroll down?

  Looking to have a button on a landing page scroll down to another section on the page. Any recomendations outside of coding?

• Stop completed task lists from disappearing?

  Is there any way to stop projects from making tasks lists disappear when all the tasks in the list are completed? That's one of those little things where we're constantly fighting the product. For instance we have some projects which are ongoing - no start and end date. We use Kanban view to show the various task lists. We don't want the kanban list to disappear every time the items on it happen to be closed out. Thanks

• Allow customers to choose meeting venue and meeting duration on booking page

  My business primarily involves one-to-one meetings with my clients. Given the hybrid-work world we now find ourselves in, these meetings can take several forms (which I think of as the meeting "venue"): In-person Zoom Phone call I currently handle these

• Booking outside of scheduled availability

  Is there a way for staff (such as the secretary) to book appointments outside of the scheduled availability? Right now to do this special hours must be set each time. There should be a quicker way. Am I missing something?

• Operation Questions.

  Hello, I hope you are well. To explain a little, we are a company that sells services and products with a technical team responsible for installation and maintenance. Zoho FSM can be useful for the technical team, namely for the technical coordinator

• Update date & time when a cell is edited

  Hi All, I am desiring to have a cell update with the current date and time when another cell is edited. Any ideas?  Thank you

• Add "Groups" to "Share With" on Reports & All Entries

  Hi, On Forms we can share Publicly, with Specific Users And/Or Specific Groups or All Users. With Reports and All Entries we lack the "Groups" option, please add this as with many users this saves a lot of work. Thanks Dan

• Add Pause / Resume Option to Zoho Quartz Recordings

  Hi Zoho Team, We would like to request an enhancement to Zoho Quartz recordings: the ability to pause and resume an ongoing recording. Current Limitation: At the moment, when recording an issue with Zoho Quartz, the recording continues even when we are

• Custom Fields Not Showing Up in Invoice PDF Template Document Information

  I have added 2 custom fields under Sales > Invoices > Manage Custom Fields. They are set to show in all PDFs. However when I am editing my Invoice PDF template, i do not see the custom fields under Document Information.

• ZOHO Books

  Hi there, Why after I upgrade my Zoho invoice > Books then i wanted to add plugin which i cannot do. Please advise.

• How is Your eCommerce Experience w/Zoho Inventory?

  First off, I'm SUPER grateful for the advent of Zoho Inventory and now the Zoho Commerce Suite. Overall, Inventory is a great product, especially for customers without an eCommerce presence. For eCommerce companies (especially those shipping more than ~10 packages/day), however, there are certain drawbacks that keep my clients from moving over to Zoho Inventory: Cons: 1. Invoice + Package Creation from Shopify/Other eCommerce Integrations: Zoho Inventory makes the somewhat perplexing decision to

• Simplify Mass Replies with Predefined Templates and Snippets

  Hello everyone, We are happy to introduce a new enhancement to Mass Reply that helps agents respond to customers quickly and consistently. With the addition of Email Templates and Snippets in the reply window, agents can use predefined messages while

• Mapping custom fields from one module to another

  I have a custom field, "Subscription Period" that appears as a required field in every Opportunity (Potential). I want that field to appear on any Quotes derived from that Opportunity (and have created a custom field of the same name in Quotes for that

• The Social Wall: November 2025

  We’re nearing the end of the year, and the holiday season is officially kicking in! It’s that time when sales peak and your social media game needs to be stronger than ever. We’re back with exciting new updates across AI, analytics, and the mobile app

• Item name special charaters <>

  Im trying to input speical characters such as < and > into item name and item description but comes up with following error: Invalid value passed for Item Name and Invalid value passed for Item Description How do i allow speical characters?

• How to update Multi File upload field

  Assume that i have a multi file upload field,how can i update the same field again?

• Customer Address Not on Standard Invoice when Address is on Contact Record

  Hi,  I entered the customer billing and shipping address in Zoho CRM. I created an invoice in Zoho Books with the same customer contact. The contact is correctly in Zoho Books with the billing and shipping address. The invoice for the customer does not

• Apply partial payments to invoices from the Banking Module

  We need this! Why is this not possible?

• Welcome to the Zoho Show Community Forums page!

  Hello everyone, The Zoho Show community is a place for you to discuss and share anything and everything related to Zoho Show Presentations, our online presentation software. It includes users from all over the globe and all walks of life. Our community helps answer your Zoho Show questions with responses from other knowledgeable community members to give you the best experience creating and designing exciting presentations. Along the way, you'll meet recognized experts from our software team and

• How can I convert an existing contact into a lead?

  I imported many contacts into ZOHO CRM. In order to select a few of them as leads, I want to mark or convert a few hundred as Leads. Who can I do that?

• Price book functionality enhancement

  A common use of price books is to create a price book for a given customer level or contract with a specific company. Given that this is done at a company/customer level it would be great to see a way to associate a price book to a given customer and

• Can we have 24x7 live support for Zohobooks ?

  Can we have 24x7 live support for Zohobooks ?

• Important update about notification security in Business Messaging SDK

  As part of our ongoing effort to strengthen the security of notification data, we have enhanced how notifications are processed and protected in our applications. These improvements ensure that all notification related data follows the most up-to-date

• Sync Zoho Marketing Automation with Zoho Forms

  I can't find a section where the integration between Zoho Marketing Automation and Zoho form is explained. And how form subscription works with opt-in and consents.

• What is the difference between Zoho Campaigns and marketing hub?

  Zoho Campaigns is a permission-based email marketing tool for sending marketing emails and mass emails. Marketing Automation is a multichannel marketing automation tool that caters to organizations looking for tools to engage their users across multiple

• Webhook not firing.

  I created a webhook using the Web UI, it looks very nice and the testing worked without an issue, but when i save/ update a ticket, the webhook is not firing. Here are the details of the web-hook i get from using the API "modifiedTime": "2019-10-22T09:23:37.380Z",

• Next Page