Kaizen #8 - Handling Recurrence and Participants in the Events Module via API

Kaizen #8 - Handling Recurrence and Participants in the Events Module via API

Hello everyone!

We are back this week with an exciting post—Handling recurrence and participants in the Events module through API.

First things first—What is the Events module?
"Events" is a part of the Activities module in Zoho CRM. 
An event is an activity that happens at a given place and time. You can find Events on the user's Zoho CRM's home page, Activities home page, Calendar, and in other related records.

What are the types of Events?
Events are of two types—Recurring and non-recurring events.
Recurring events: These events repeat/recur at a set frequency. You can set them to repeat by day, week, month, or by year. You can also set them to repeat a fixed number of times. 
Non-recurring events: These are one-time events.
Both these events can also be all-day events.

Now, let us see how to handle a recurring event and add/update participants via API.

1. Creating a Recurring Event through API
You must use the Insert Records API to insert a record in the Events module.

Request URL: {{api-domain}}/crm/v2/Events
Request method: POST

Sample input to create a recurring event that repeats every two weeks

{
    "data": [
        {
            "All_Day": false,
            "Event_Title": "Kaizen_9_Weekly",
            "Start_DateTime": "2020-02-02T10:00:00+05:30",
            "End_DateTime": "2020-02-02T11:00:00+05:30",
            "Participants": [
                {
                    "type": "contact",
                    "participant": "3652397000001281003"
                },
                {
                    "type": "lead",
                    "participant": "3652397000000415063"
                },
                {
                    "type": "user",
                    "participant": "3652397000000186017"
                }
            ],
            "Recurring_Activity": {
                "RRULE": "FREQ=WEEKLY;BYDAY=SU;INTERVAL=2;UNTIL=2020-03-15"
            },
            "Remind_At": "2020-02-01T09:45:00+05:30",
            "Who_Id": {
                "id": "3652397000000649013",
                "name": "Patricia Boyle"
            },
            "Venue": "Chennai",
            "$se_module": "Accounts",
            "What_Id": "3652397000000624046",
            "$send_notification": true
        }
    ]
}


Mandatory keys
The following table lists the mandatory fields you must specify while creating a recurring event. Not including any one of these fields results in the MANDATORY_NOT_FOUND error.

Key
Data Type
Description
Event_Title
String
Title of the event. Accepts a maximum of 255 characters, alphanumeric, and special characters. 
Start_DateTime
DateTime
The date and time (in ISO8601 format) at which the event begins. 
End_DateTime
DateTime
The date and time (in ISO8601 format) at which the event ends. 
Recurring_Activity
JSON Object
JSON Object that contains information about the recurrence pattern of the event in the key "RRULE".

Other Keys

Key
Data Type
Description
All_day
Boolean
Represents if the event takes place all day.
Participants
JSON Array
Contains the ID and type of each participant in individual JSON objects. Possible participant types are "lead", "contact", "user", and "email".
Remind_At
DateTime
The date and time in the current user's time zone (in ISO8601 format) at which a reminder is sent to the participants. 
Who_Id
JSON Object
The name and ID of the contact that the event is related to; that contact may or may not be a participant of the event.
What_Id
JSON Object
The name and ID of the Account, Deal, Product, Quote, Invoice, Campaign, Vendor, Case, Purchase Order, or Sales Order that the event is created for.
$se_module
String
The API name of the parent module given in the key "What_Id". This key is mandatory when you include the "What_Id".
Venue
String
The place where the event takes place. Accepts a maximum of 255 characters, alphanumeric, and special characters.
$send_notification
Boolean
Represents if you want to send invitations to the participants of the event. The value true sends out invitations, and false does not. 

We will now discuss the Participants and RRULE keys in detail.

1.1 Participants
The Participants key is a JSON array of participant JSON objects. You can add four types of participants to an event—lead, contact, user, and email. 
You must include each of these participant types as individual JSON objects inside this array as shown below.

"Participants": [
        {
            "type": "contact",
            "participant": "3652397000001281003"
        },
        {
            "type": "lead",
            "participant": "3652397000000415063"
        },
        {
            "type": "user",
            "participant": "3652397000000186017"
        },
        {
            "type": "email",
            "participant": "carissa-kidman@yahoo.com"
        }
]

Where, 
type - The type of participant. The possible values are lead, contact, user, email
participant -  The record ID of the lead, contact, or user.

1.2 RRULE
RRULE is the key in the Recurring_Activity JSON object that determines the recurrence pattern of the event. 
RRULE holds multiple key-value pairs for different types of recurring events (i.e Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly). You must separate each key-value pair by a semicolon.

Mandatory key-value pairs for RRULE
Key
Possible Values
Description
FREQ
DAILY, WEEKLY, MONTHLY, YEARLY
Frequency; represents how often the event repeats. 
INTERVAL
1–99
The gap between each event. For example, for a weekly recurring event, if the INTERVAL value is 2, the gap between the first and the next event will be two weeks. 
COUNT
1–99
The number of events you want to create. For example, if the COUNT value is 3, three events will be created. 

Note
You must specify FREQ and (INTERVAL or COUNT) in RRULE.

Other key-value pairs in RRULE
Key
Possible Values
Description
BYMONTHDAY
1–31
The day of the month the event repeats on. Applicable only for  monthly and yearly events.
BYDAY
SU, MO, TU, WE, TH, FR, SA
The day of the week the event repeats on. Applicable for daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly events.
BYSETPOS
1, 2, 3, 4, -1 
The week of the month the event repeats in.
Applicable only for monthly and yearly events.
1 - Event repeats every first week of the month
2 - Event repeats every second week of the month
3 - Event repeats every third week of the month
4 - Event repeats every fourth week of the month
-1 - Event repeats every last week of the month.
UNTIL
Date in yyyy-MM-dd format
The date until which the event must repeat.

Therefore, according to the sample input given at the beginning of the post, the event starts on Feb 2, 2020 at 10:00 AM and ends the same day at 11:00 AM.

According to  "RRULE":"FREQ=WEEKLY;BYDAY=SU;INTERVAL=2;UNTIL=2020-03-15", the event occurs every Sunday, with an interval of 14 days (2 weeks), and recurs until Mar 15, 2020.
Therefore, the sequence is as shown below.
  1. The event begins on Feb 2, 2020.
  2. The first recurring event happens on Feb 16, 2020.
  3. The second recurring event happens on Mar 1, 2020.
  4. The last recurring event happens on Mar 15, 2020.
Therefore, the response will have four JSON objects—one for the first event as specified in the Start_DateTime key, and one for each recurring event.

Note
You can only create one set of recurring events using the RRULE in a single API call.

A few other examples of RRULE:
  • "RRULE": "FREQ=MONTHLY;COUNT=3;BYDAY=WE;BYSETPOS=2".
    This RRULE creates three events that recur every Wednesday in the second week of the month.
  • "RRULE": "FREQ=MONTHLY;INTERVAL=2;COUNT=3;BYMONTHDAY=14".
    This RRULE creates three events that recur on the 14th day of the month, and repeat once in two months.

2. Updating an Event
You must use the Update Specific Record API to update an event.
In this section, we will discuss
  1. Adding a participant to an event
  2. Updating all future events
2.1 . Adding a participant to an event
Details you need to add a participant to an event
  1. The event's record ID. You can obtain this from the response you received while creating the event.
  2. The ID of the participants that are added already. The GET Specific Event response will have a unique ID for each participant in the "Participants" JSON array.
The sample input is as follows.

{
    "data": [
        {
            "All_Day": false,
            "Event_Title": "Kaizen_10_Weekly",
            "Start_DateTime": "2020-02-02T11:00:00+05:30",
            "End_DateTime": "2020-02-02T12:00:00+05:30",
            "Participants": [
                {
                    "type": "contact",
                    "participant": "3652397000001281003",
                    "id": "3652397000001326102"
                },
                {
                    "type": "lead",
                    "participant": "3652397000000415063",
                    "id": "3652397000001326100"
                },
                {
                    "type": "user",
                    "participant": "3652397000000186017",
                    "id": "3652397000001326098"
                },
                {
                    "type": "email",
                    "participant": "john-butt@gmail.com"
                }
            ],
            "Remind_At": "2020-02-01T10:45:00+05:30",
            "$send_notification": true
        }
    ]
}
As you can see, a new participant of type email and email ID john-butt@gmail.com is added. Since the ID of the existing participant with the email ID carissa-batman@yahoo.com is not specified, it gets deleted.

Note
  • participant is the record ID of the participant (lead, contact, or user).
  • ID is the unique ID of the participant for that event.
  • While adding a participant, you must specify the IDs of other participants for the event. Otherwise, only the new participant is added, while the rest are deleted.

2.1 . Updating all future events
While updating an event, you can choose to update all future events with the new change.
Use the boolean key update_all_future_events. The value true updates all future events, and the value false updates only that particular event.
Here is a sample input.

{
    "data": [
        {
            "All_Day": false,
            "Event_Title": "Kaizen_10_Weekly",
            "Start_DateTime": "2020-02-02T11:00:00+05:30",
            "End_DateTime": "2020-02-02T12:00:00+05:30",
            "Participants": [
                {
                    "type": "contact",
                    "participant": "3652397000001281003",
                    "id": "3652397000001326102"
                },
                {
                    "type": "lead",
                    "participant": "3652397000000415063",
                    "id": "3652397000001326100"
                },
                {
                    "type": "user",
                    "participant": "3652397000000186017",
                    "id": "3652397000001326098"
                },
                {
                    "type": "email",
                    "participant": "carissa-kidman@yahoo.com"
                }
            ],
            "Remind_At": "2020-02-01T10:45:00+05:30",
            "update_all_future_events": true,
            "$send_notification": true
        }
    ]
}

Points to Note
While creating recurring events,
  • You must specify either COUNT or INTERVAL in the RRULE. Otherwise, the system creates 365-day events.
  • For WEEKLY recurring events, you must include BYDAY in RRULE. Otherwise, the system creates 365-day events that recurs weekly.

While updating a recurring event,
  • You must specify the record ID of the event you want to update. 
  • You must set the value of the key update_all_future_events to true to update all future events. Otherwise, the system updates only that event and the other recurring events that you created previously will remain unaltered.
  • While adding a participant, you must specify the IDs of other participants. Otherwise, only the new participant is added, while the rest are deleted.
  • You cannot update RRULE through the API.
  • You cannot update check-in related information through the API.

We hope you found this post useful. Please reach out to us if you have questions, or let us know in the comment section.
Cheers!
















    • 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

    • Zoho Books Extension: What Happens If Custom Fields Already Exist?

      When developing Zoho Books extensions, what happens if the target Zoho Books organization already has a custom field with the same API name as one defined in the extension? I’m asking because we originally created an on-Books version of this functionality,

    • Pricing Strategies: #3 Services never Stop with just Plans

      "Hey, while you're here, could you also take a look at the vegetable patch?" Aaron hears that line almost every week. He runs a small gardening service, the kind where customers subscribe to a simple monthly plan that includes basic maintenance, mowing,

    • Cropping Photos for Zoho Sites

      Hi, I'm wondering if there is a built in crop tool for zoho sites for my photos so I can crop them and see what the crop looks like on the site?

    • Deluge scripts

      Why is there not a search function to make it easier to find the script of interest when modifications are required.

    • bulk edit records and run internal logic

      hi there is few logics in manner "it this than that" logics work well when i edit entry openning it one by one (via workflow "on add/edit - on success" , for custom field "on update/on user input") but when i try bulk edit records - logic does not work.  how can i turn on logic to work as programmed - for mass editing records via bulk edit?

    • WebDAV / FTP / SFTP protocols for syncing

      I believe the Zoho for Desktop app is built using a proprietary protocol. For the growing number of people using services such as odrive to sync multiple accounts from various providers (Google, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, etc.) it would be really helpful

    • Possible for first Signer of Sign Form to specify the next signer in the sequence

      We have many use cases where multiple signers need sign the same document. We'd love to be able to use sign forms, where the a signer who uses the Sign Form link can specify the name and email address for the next person in the sequence.

    • BUG: Can't copy-paste data outside Sheet

      Currently I can't paste data copied from inside any of my Zoho Sheet files to any other app. Copy-paste works inside the sheet It does NOT work between two different sheets These sheets are built from automation templates Everything works fine if I create

    • Zoho CRM Community Digest - November 2025 | Part 1

      Hello Everyone! Here’s what came through in the first half of November: new updates and a few helpful community discussions with real, notable solutions. Product Updates: Android App Update: Inctroducing Swipe Actions You can now swipe left or right on

    • Upload own Background Image and set Camera to 16:9

      Hi, in all known online meeting tools, I can set up a background image reflecting our corporate design. This doesn't work in Cliq. Additionally, Cliq detects our cameras as 4:3, showing black bars on the right and left sides during the meeting. Where

    • Truesync for Linux

      Is Truesync available on linux ?

    • Question about upgrade and storage space Zoho Notebook

      After upgarding my Zoho Notebook plan, I am running into the following issue. I just upgraded from a free Zoho Notebook subscription to Pro Lite after I got a notification in my Window Zoho Notebook desktop app saying that I had run out of space. However,

    • Hidding/excluding specific picklist options from filter

      Hi. Is it possible to hide/exclude specific picklist options from this filter? I don't want them to be shown when someone tries to filter in the leads module

    • Subforms to Capture Multi-Row Data in Job Sheets

      Subforms transform your job sheets from simple checklists to powerful, data-rich forms. In field service work — whether maintenance, inspection, installation, or repair — a single job can involve multiple repeatable entries: readings, parts used, activities

    • Add "Fetch Composite Item" Action for Inventory

      I want to make a Flow that uses information returned in the GET call for Composite Items, and it's not currently available in Zoho Flow. Please consider adding this functionality.

    • Adress Labels for sending of the oder und barcode

      We want to print with my address labels to stick on the order of the ware can. there are these options?

    • printing individual labels - Dymo LabelWriter

      I am trying to print individual labels to my Dymo LabelWriter - has anyone done this? Latest Update (December 2025): The Canvas Print View is now available! We encourage you all to try it out and share your feedback with us. Learn more here: Zoho CRM

    • Zoho Creator for Agriculture

      Greetings, I am starting to work on  Zoho Creator specifically for the agricultural field, any recommendations, tips or ideas that might be helpful ? Also, if you are interested by any means in working on such project, kindly contact me. The project is

    • Custom Print Layout

      I would like to create a custom print layout of a Lead or Contact. Is there a way to do that? What I mean is that if I'm viewing a specific lead or contact I'd like to be able to print or export that lead/contact and only print and/or export certain information.

    • Print View

      Nothing happens when I'm in a module , ie; Contacts, and I hit the Print View Button. Even when it does come up and say "loading", nothing loads

    • Get Holiday ready with Zoho Mail's Offline mode

      With the holiday season right around the corner, this is the perfect time to get ready to unplug, relax, and enjoy a well-deserved break. In addition to preparing yourself, you can also make sure your organization members are set for their time away from

    • Zoho CRM Kiosk issues

      Firstly this is for a system on the AU servers if that makes a difference. Issues are as follows (For Kiosk): 1. Re-ordering fields in the screen builder is broken. The fields seem to be re-ordering themselves, unless you order everything by moving the

    • Zoho Books emails suddenly going to Spam since 11 Nov 2025 (Gmail + now Outlook) — anyone else?

      Hi everyone, We migrated to Zoho Books in July 2025 and everything worked fine until 11 Nov 2025. Since then, Zoho Books system emails are landing in customers’ Spam (first Gmail, and now we’re seeing Outlook/Office 365 also starting to spam them). Impacted

    • Email Template Edits Not Saving

      I can make an edit, click save, and see the blue bar annimation at the top, but the edits don't actually save. Important, because my email templates are now broken and clients are receiving bad emails. Tried on Chrome, Firefox and IE.

    • Default Ticket View - Table?

      Guys, We mostly use the table view to queue tickets. Maybe I am missing it - but how can I set that view as 'default" for all our agents? Thanks JV

    • Can I have different users see different pick list values for Potential Stage?

      We have some users focusing on new business and others focusing on existing business, and they follow different sales processes/cycles, so we would like them to see different pick list values for Stage (eventually leading up to Closed Won/Lost in both cases).   And just to keep it interesting - some of these users will of course do a combination, so would need to see one pick list for their New business potentials and a different pick list for their Existing business ones.   Salesforce does this

    • Tracking Snippet not working in Zoho Marketing Automation!

      First off, the fact that you have to wait about 12-24 hours for every response is terrible. How are we supposed to conduct business? Second, we have been trying for several days to get the Tracking Code Snippet in marketing automation to work, to no avail.

    • Is there any way to send an Excel received by email to Dataprep?

      Every day I receive an email alert with an Excel file that I want to process through a Dataprep pipeline. To do this, I need to: -Save the file to disk -Open the pipeline -Run the pipeline -Update the source -Several clicks to select and open the saved

    • Read webpage - MSXML2.ServerXMLHTTP

      I have the following VBA script, put together from various sources (mainly zoho forum/help/support, so it once worked, I guess): private Sub GetListOfSheets() Dim url As String Dim xmlhttp As Object Dim parameters As String Dim html As String range("B1").value

    • Zoho Creator Form Search

      I'm new to Zoho Creator and so far i do like it but im shocked there seems to be no easy way to add a search function and/or navigation to there forms as this readily available in every platform i have used in the past. Anyway i have a form which i have

    • How to setup DKIM / SPF in Zoho Mail

      Hello there! I'm having a hard time understanding how to setup the TXT records for SPF and DKIM with Zoho Mail. I'm following the instructions here: https://www.zoho.com/campaigns/help/setup-spf-dkim.html Specifically, when it comes to the value for the

    • Mass update cant trigger a workflow?

      Hello there, Is this a normal Creator behaviour? In a report, if I manually edit each data row, it will pass those changes to all other reports. However, if I perform a Mass Update on a few data rows at once, the new data is not pushed to other reports.

    • search and Smart Bar both missing in Mail

      One of the users on my account does not have the search bar at the top right or the Smart Bar at the bottom left of the desktop Mail app. Any ideas how to get those back?

    • "Wrong password or login" Problem to configure Zoho on MAIL App on my Macbook

      Hi, I'm having problems to configure my e-mail on my MAIL App(Macbook pro). My e-mail is hari@trespontoum.net Actually was working perfectly, and still working on my Iphone. My MAIL App prompt me that my login or password is wrong. I tried to change 3

    • Remote Control Functionality During Screen Sharing in Zoho Cliq

      Hello Zoho Cliq Team, We would like to request the addition of remote control functionality during screen sharing sessions in Zoho Cliq. Currently, while screen sharing in Cliq is very useful, it lacks the ability for another participant to take control

    • Let us add Lookup fields in the Blueprint Transitions

      We are unable to add Lookup Fields in the blueprint transitions in Zoho Desk, we wanted to make it a requirement for our workflow but since it's not available in the transition we cannot. The lookup field exists in the Layout: But it cannot be added/selected

    • Zoho Projects API Scope for Issue Attachments

      I try to download issue attachments via the API, unfortunately I always get the following error code when trying to download the file from the supplied URL: {"ERROR_MESSAGE":"INVALID_OAUTHSCOPE","ERROR_CODE":401} indicating an auth scope error. I've tried

    • How to fetch custom fields for time entries in Zoho Project API v3

      In the previous Zoho Projects REST API, we were able to retrieve custom field details for time entries, including picklist options, using the endpoint: GET /restapi/portal/[PORTAL_ID]/timesheetcustomfields In the new Zoho Projects API v3, we tried using

    • Zoho Survey Enhancements

      We love Survey. We use it a ton. It needs some enhancements. Maybe some of these are already on the roadmap? API - this is crucial. We have some complex surveys that take place and need to update records, trigger other functions/automations, etc. I would

    • Images Don't Display on Blog

      Hi, I've just posted a new blog entry, but regardless of format (png or jpeg) Images that display in Preview mode do not display on any browser in the published post.  I've not done anything different with this post than others regarding images, please advice. Thanks! Edit:  I've discovered that moving the image files from a my sub directory folder "Pics for Blog" to the top level of the "Files" folder on my site allows the images to display live.  This, even though my other blog posts are correctly

    • Next Page