Kaizen #84 - PHP SDK [Part I]

Kaizen #84 - PHP SDK [Part I]

Hello and welcome to another Kaizen week!

In this week's post, we'll show you how to get started with Zoho CRM's PHP SDK, and walk you through the configuration and initialization process.

PHP Software Development Kit

PHP SDK allows you to create client PHP applications that can be integrated with Zoho CRM effortlessly. It serves as a wrapper for the REST APIs, thus making it easier to use the services of Zoho CRM.

Why PHP SDK?

Easy authentication: You don't have to worry about manually managing authentication because the PHP SDK takes care of generating access/refresh tokens for you.
Easy and Efficient data exchange: With the PHP SDK, you can easily exchange data between Zoho CRM and your client PHP application, where the CRM entities are modelled as classes. You can declare and define CRM API equivalents as simple functions in your PHP application.

Prerequisites 

  • The client app must have PHP 7 or above with a cURL extension. cURL extension is used to connect and communicate with the Zoho CRM APIs.
  • The client app must have the PHP SDK installed through Composer. 

How to start using the PHP SDK?

  1. Prerequisite : Register your application with Zoho CRM.
  2. Install the PHP SDK.
  3. Knowledge Base : Token Persistence
  4. Configuration 
  5. initialization.

1. Register your application with Zoho CRM

Registering your application with Zoho CRM is a mandatory step in order to authenticate and authorize API calls using the OAuth2.0 standards.
  1. Go to https://api-console.zoho.com
  2. Click on Get Started or +ADD CLIENT.
  3. Choose the Client Type.
  4. Fill in the necessary details and click CREATE. Once you successfully register your self-client, you will receive a Client ID and Client Secret.

2. Install PHP SDK 

1. Install Composer, if not already installed. Please check the corresponding link for installation instructions.

2. Install PHP-SDK using Composer
  • Navigate to the workspace of your client app.
  • Run the following command in the workspace. Upon successful installation, the system will create a package named vendor in the workspace of your client app.   Note : This command installs SDK for API v2.1.

    composer require zohocrm/php-sdk-2.1

3. To use the SDK in your project, add the following line in your project PHP files. This loads and includes our PHP-SDK library in your project. If you skip this step, you will get a fatal error in response due to the missing libraries.

require 'vendor/autoload.php';

3. Token Persistence

Token persistence refers to storing and utilizing authentication tokens provided by Zoho, enabling the SDK to refresh the access tokens without the need for user intervention. The SDK offers three types of persistence - File, DB, and Custom - with file persistence being the default method. 
The persistence is achieved by writing an implementation of the inbuilt TokenStore interface, which has the following callback methods. 

Method
Description
getToken($user, $token)
Invoked before firing a request to fetch the saved tokens. This method returns an implementation of Token interface object for the library to process it.
saveToken($user, $token)
Invoked after fetching access and refresh tokens from Zoho. This method saves the token details.
deleteToken($token)
This method is used to delete the given token details.
getTokens()
This method is used to retrieve all the stored tokens.
deleteTokens() 
The method to delete all the stored tokens.
getTokenById($id, $token) 
This method is used to retrieve the user token details based on the unique ID.

a. Token Persistence using a Database

Database persistence is a technique that involves storing and retrieving data from a database. If you prefer using database persistence, you can use MySQL. 
Create a table in your database with the required columns. For example, if you want to persist your tokens in a table named token in database named zoho, use the following:
CREATE DATABASE zoho; // use this to create database named zoho
// use this to create a table named token, with the necessary columns
CREATE TABLE token ( 
  id varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  user_mail varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  client_id varchar(255),
  client_secret varchar(255),
  refresh_token varchar(255),
  access_token varchar(255),
  grant_token varchar(255),
  expiry_time varchar(20),
  redirect_url varchar(255),
  primary key (id)
);

In this example, your tokens will be persisted in the token table in your zoho database.

b. File Persistence

File Persistence allows storing and retrieving the authentication tokens from the given file path. The file contains id, user_mail, client_id, client_secret, refresh_token, access_token, grant_token, expiry_time and redirect_url. 

c. Custom Persistence

Custom Persistence refers to a technique where users can create their own method of storing and retrieving authentication tokens. To use this method, users need to implement the TokenStore interface and override its methods according to their own logic.

4. Configuration

Configuration is a critical step in which you set up SDK's configuration details like user authentication, token persistence, logging and API call timeout settings, and more. Listed below are the keys that you define in this step.

Key
Description
user
mandatory
Represents the mail id, which is used to identify and fetch tokens from the File or DB.
environment
mandatory
Represents the data centre details in Domain::Environment pattern.
Domains : USDataCenter, EUDataCenter, INDataCenter, CNDataCenter, AUDataCenter
Environments : PRODUCTION(), DEVELOPER(), SANDBOX()
token
mandatory
Contains user token details. Depending on the tokens, you can choose grantToken flow, refreshToken flow or accessToken flow.
logger
optional
Contains the configuration for logging exceptions and API call information. By default, the logs will be available in the workspace as sdk_logs.log.
store
optional
Contains details for the Token Persistence object. You can choose between DB Store, File Store or Custom Store, and configure accordingly.
SDKConfig
optional
Contains additional configuration details like timeout, autorefresh fields, picklistvalidation, etc
requestProxy
optional
Contains the details of the proxy, if you are using a proxy server to authenticate and make the API calls.
resourcePath
optional
The path containing the absolute directory path to store user specific files containing the module fields information.


Let us discuss how to configure each of them, in detail.
a. user : The user key will be used to store and identify the tokenstore details in the DB or File Storage for token persistence. Create an instance of UserSignature that identifies the current user with the following :
  1. $user = new UserSignature("patricia@zoho.com");
b. environment : The API environment which decides the domain and the URL to make API calls. 
  1. $environment = USDataCenter::PRODUCTION();
c. token : Create an instance of OAuthToken with the information that you get after registering your Zoho client. Depending on the tokens available with you, you can choose one of the following flows. 
Note : You need to generate the tokens (grant/access/refresh) beforehand. 
  • grantToken flow - You should use the grant Token for configuration.
    $token = (new OAuthBuilder())
      ->clientId("clientId")
      ->clientSecret("clientSecret")
      ->grantToken("grantToken")
      ->redirectURL("redirectURL")
      ->build();

  • refreshToken flow -In this flow, use the refresh token.
    $token = (new OAuthBuilder())
      ->clientId("clientId")
      ->clientSecret("clientSecret")
      ->refreshToken("refreshToken")
      ->redirectURL("redirectURL")
      ->build();

  • accessToken flow - You can use the access token to configure in this flow. Please note that the token will not be persisted in this case, and the access token will be directly used to make the API calls.

    $token = (new OAuthBuilder()
      ->accessToken("accessToken")
      ->build(); 

d. logger : Create an instance of Logger Class to log exception and API information. You can set the level you want to log (FATAL, ERROR, WARNING, INFO, DEBUG, TRACE, ALL, OFF), and also configure the file path and file name for the log file.

$logger = (new LogBuilder())
->level(Levels::INFO)
->filePath("/Documents/php_sdk_log.log")
->build();

e. store : Configure your token persistence using this method. If this is skipped, the SDK creates the sdk_tokens.txt in the current working directory to persist the tokens by default.
  • DB Store - Configure the Database details, where you want to store your tokens.
    $tokenstore = (new DBBuilder())
    ->host("hostName")
    ->databaseName("dataBaseName")
    ->userName("userName")
    ->password("password")
    ->portNumber("portNumber")
    ->tableName("tableName")
    ->build();

  • File store - Give the absolute file path, where you want to store the tokens. 
    $tokenstore = new FileStore("absolute_file_path");

  • Custom Store - In this method, you can implement your own method for storing and retrieving the tokens. Please note that to do so, you must implement the TokenStore interface, and override its callback methods (getToken, saveToken, deleteToken, getTokens, deleteTokens, getTokenById). 
    $tokenstore = new CustomStore();

Note :  The corresponding storage will  have id, user_mail, client_id, client_secret, refresh_token, access_token, grant_token, expiry_time and redirect_url. The id is a unique system generated key.

f. SDKConfig : The additional SDK configurations are taken care of with this method. 

Configuration Key
Description
autoRefreshFields
Default Value : False
A boolean configuration key to enable or disable automatic refreshing of module fields in the background. If set to true, fields are refreshed every hour, and if set to false, fields must be manually refreshed or deleted.
pickListValidation
Default Value : True
This field enables or disables pick list validation. If enabled, user input for pick list fields is validated, and if the value does not exist in the pick list, the SDK throws an error. If disabled, the input is not validated and the API call is made.
enableSSLVerification
Default Value : True
A boolean field to enable or disable curl certificate verification. If set to true, the SDK verifies the authenticity of certificate. If set to false, the SDK skips the verification.
connectionTimeout
Default Value : 0
The maximum time (in seconds) to wait while trying to connect. Use 0 to wait indefinitely.
timeout
Default Value : 0
The maximum time (in seconds) to allow cURL functions to execute. Use 0 to wait indefinitely.
  1. $autoRefreshFields = false;
  2. $pickListValidation = false;
  3. $enableSSLVerification = true;
  4. $connectionTimeout = 2;
  5. $timeout = 2;
  6. $sdkConfig = (new SDKConfigBuilder())
  7. ->autoRefreshFields($autoRefreshFields)
  8. ->pickListValidation($pickListValidation)
  9. ->sslVerification($enableSSLVerification)
  10. ->connectionTimeout($connectionTimeout)
  11. ->timeout($timeout)
  12. ->build();
g. requestProxy : Create an instance of RequestProxy containing the proxy properties of the user. Configure this only if you're using a proxy server to make the API calls.

$requestProxy = (new ProxyBuilder())
 ->host("proxyHost")
 ->port("proxyPort")
 ->user("proxyUser")
 ->password("password")
 ->build();

h. resourcePath : Configure path containing the absolute directory path to store user specific files containing module fields information.

$resourcePath = "/Documents/phpsdk-application";

5. Initilization

Once you have completed the configuration process, you can move on to initializing the SDK and begin making API requests.

Here is a sample code to initialize the SDK, using refresh token flow and DB Persistence.

<?php
use com\zoho\api\authenticator\OAuthBuilder;
use com\zoho\api\authenticator\store\DBBuilder;
use com\zoho\api\authenticator\store\FileStore;
use com\zoho\crm\api\InitializeBuilder;
use com\zoho\crm\api\UserSignature;
use com\zoho\crm\api\dc\USDataCenter;
use com\zoho\api\logger\LogBuilder;
use com\zoho\api\logger\Levels;
use com\zoho\crm\api\SDKConfigBuilder;
use com\zoho\crm\api\ProxyBuilder;
use com\zoho\api\authenticator\store\DBBuilder;

require_once "vendor/autoload.php";

class Initialize
{
  public static function initialize()
  {
    $user = new UserSignature("patricia@zoho.com");
    $environment = USDataCenter::PRODUCTION();
    $token = (new OAuthBuilder())
    ->clientId("1000.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx")
    ->clientSecret("554a9776d10ff016a92c1eb01xxxxxxxxxx")
    ->refreshToken("1000.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx")
    ->redirectURL("www.zoho.com")
    ->build();
    $logger = (new LogBuilder())
    ->level(Levels::INFO)
    ->filePath("/Documents/php_sdk_log.log")
    ->build();
   $tokenstore = (new DBBuilder())
    ->host("insert_your_hostname_here")
    ->databaseName("insert_your_database_name_here")
    ->userName("insert_your_db_username_here")
    ->password("insert_your_db_password_here")
    ->portNumber("insert_your_portnumber_here")
    ->tableName("insert_your_table_name_here")
    ->build();
    $autoRefreshFields = false;
    $pickListValidation = false;
    $connectionTimeout = 2;
    $timeout = 2;
    $sdkConfig = (new SDKConfigBuilder())
    ->autoRefreshFields($autoRefreshFields)
    ->pickListValidation($pickListValidation)
    ->sslVerification($enableSSLVerification)
    ->connectionTimeout($connectionTimeout)
    ->timeout($timeout)
    ->build();
    $resourcePath = "/Documents/phpsdk-application";
    $requestProxy = (new ProxyBuilder())
    ->host("proxyHost")
    ->port("proxyPort")
    ->user("proxyUser")
    ->password("password")
    ->build();
    (new InitializeBuilder())
    ->user($user)
    ->environment($environment)
    ->token($token)
    ->store($tokenstore)
    ->SDKConfig($configInstance)
    ->resourcePath($resourcePath)
    ->logger($logger)
    ->requestProxy($requestProxy)
    ->initialize();
  }
}
?>


You are now all set to explore the functionalities of SDK. Here is a sample code to get the records from Leads module, with the ifmodifiedsince header.

<?php
use com\zoho\api\authenticator\OAuthBuilder;
use com\zoho\crm\api\dc\USDataCenter;
use com\zoho\crm\api\InitializeBuilder;
use com\zoho\crm\api\UserSignature;
use com\zoho\crm\api\record\RecordOperations;
use com\zoho\crm\api\record\GetRecordsHeader;
use com\zoho\crm\api\HeaderMap;
use com\zoho\crm\api\ParameterMap;
require_once "vendor/autoload.php";

class Record
{
    public static function initialize()
    {
        $user = new UserSignature('myname@mydomain.com');
        $environment = USDataCenter::PRODUCTION();
        $token = (new OAuthBuilder())
        ->clientId("1000.xxxxxxx")
        ->clientSecret("4b5baxxxxxxxxxxxxf")
        ->grantToken("1000.xxxxx")
        ->build();
        (new InitializeBuilder())
            ->user($user)
            ->environment($environment)
            ->token($token)
            ->initialize();
    }

    public static function getRecords()
    {
        $recordOperations = new RecordOperations();
        $paramInstance = new ParameterMap();
        $headerInstance = new HeaderMap();
     $ifmodifiedsince = date_create("2022-06-01T12:00:00+05:30")->setTimezone(new \DateTimeZone(date_default_timezone_get()));
        $headerInstance->add(GetRecordsHeader::IfModifiedSince(), $ifmodifiedsince);
        $response = $recordOperations->getRecords("Leads", $paramInstance, $headerInstance);
        echo($response->getStatusCode() . "\n");
        print_r($response);
    }
}
Record::initialize();
Record::getRecords();


Next week, we will dive deeper and provide more sample codes to help you further. Stay tuned!

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



    • Recent Topics

    • ACH Returns Don’t Trigger Dunning or Reverse Payment in Zoho Subscriptions

      Zoho Billing marked an ACH payment as successful and kept the subscription active — even though the payment was later returned by the bank (NSF). There was no update to the invoice or subscription status, and I had to manually clean it all up. For credit

    • Zoho Sheet - Split cell diagonally fill half color

      is it possible to split a cell diagonally, fill different text in each half and ideally color them differently as well?

    • Calling Token API in Postman returning "error: invalid_client"

      Hello, I've been working on setting up an API to get data from zoho crm into a third-party application. I'm currently testing the setup in Postman, but I'm getting an error from the API to retrieve the access token. It keeps returning "error: invalid_client".

    • How to handle this process need using a Blueprint?

      See one minute screen recording: https://workdrive.zohoexternal.com/external/eb743d2f4cde414c715224fc557aaefeb84f12268f7f3859a7de821bcc4fbe15

    • bulk scheduling youtube shorts and facebook reels

      how do i flag the video as facebook reel rather than normal video, it's vertical, 20 seconds, yet still being posted as video on facebook for youtube, it's being rejected out right both videos are to standard, can be posted normally with normal scheduler

    • Invitation-Based User Access in Zoho Analytics

      Hello everyone, We’re rolling out an important update on how users are added to your Zoho Analytics Organization and Workspaces. Previously, when admins added users, they were automatically added to the organization. Moving forward, to improve security

    • Filtert products by multi select custom field

      Hello, this is seems like a must addition, why it can not be done now?

    • Multiple images

      Hi Is there a way to insert multiple images in one image record or any way that instead of one image, I could upload 5 to 10 images together. Looking forward for a solution. Regards

    • Zoho Projects - Custom Objects

      Hello, is there the ability now, or in the near future, to add custom objects to Zoho Projects? The requirement here would be to have the ability to track change requests to a project's budget. The idea here is to have the ability to create a custom Object

    • Access CRM Variables from Formula field

      Is it possible to use a CRM variable (defined in Developer Space -> CRM Variables) in a formula field for calculations ?

    • Announcing Bigin India Meetups Across 8 Cities: July 29 - Aug 07

      Hello Biginners, We've got some exciting news to share! We're hosting our first round of Customer Meetups for 2025 in India, from 29th July - 9th August. Whether you're a Bigin newbie or a seasoned pro, this is your chance to meet customers from your

    • Why isn't there an Expense description field / column?

      Hello! I'm new to Zoho Books and accounting. I'm surprised there isn't a proper expense description field (and column in the overview "all expenses" page)? I thought this was a given in accounting, as visualizing expenses facilitates tracking them down?

    • New in Zoho PDF Editor: Watermarks, password protection, signature collection, and more.

      Hi Zoho Sign users! We are delighted to introduce the latest enhancements to Zoho PDF Editor, designed based on user feedback and feature requests. This update enables you to reorder, extract, and rotate PDF pages, add watermarks, and collect signatures.

    • Cant't update custom field when custom field is external lookup in Zoho Books

      Hello I use that : po = zoho.books.updateRecord("purchaseorders",XXXX,purchaseorder_id,updateCustomFieldseMap,"el_books_connection"); c_f_Map2 = Map(); c_f_Map2.put("label","EL ORDER ID"); c_f_Map2.put("value",el_order_id); c_f_List.add(c_f_Map2); updateCustomFieldseMap

    • Printed Reports, Increase Font SIZE

      I need to send some printed copies of financial reports to my attorney. The reports print out with microscopic fonts. How do I increase the font size so that a normal human can read the text? Every other accounting app can do this so I imagine I have

    • Avoid email sending!

      Hello, Thanks you Zoho for the wonderful apps you provide. Question: Is there a way to disable sending emails when: - creating an estimate or billing. Thanks Tommy

    • Need to show discount before total after subtotal

      Need to show discount before total after subtotal on my estimate template (see attachment)

    • Email a "thank you" note for this payment is NOW checked by default

      Hello Team, Just noticed that Email a "thank you" note for this payment is now checked by default. I tried searching in Preferences and there is no way to turn this off. I do not want this to be the default. Is there a way to turn this off?

    • End-to-end services hours

      We are trying to determine the best method of quoting service hours on quotes but only present the sum amount to a customer, without losing the tracking of quantity of hours for invoicing purposes. Does anyone have a good method they have determined?

    • Specific Approval Question

      Hi everyone, Just a quick question here. I have located the "Approval Type" in the preferences, which is great, and I am sure we could make use of it. However, I am trying to understand how I can implement an approval "workflow". The business call it

    • Zoho Books - Show Discount Totals When Greater Than Zero

      Hi Books Team, I understand that to show or hide discount amount on a Quote or Invoice, I need to use different templates. It would be a great quality of life improvement for users if we had an option to show or hide the discount amount at line item and

    • Specifying a filename for Schedule Reports

      Is it possible to specify a filename to use with scheduled reports? For example: With a general ledger report, instead of general_ledger.pdf I would like to include the date the report was generated in the filename so it is called general_ledger_202

    • Need to upsert "Created Time" field in Leads Module

      I am in the process of implementing Zoho CRM for my business. I need to modify the "Created By' field to reflect the actual date/time the lead was captured in my original Excel file. Otherwise, my conversion velocity data will always be inaccurate, which

    • HTML for confirmation email

      Hi, After a prospect submitted the Zoho form, we want to send a confirmation mail. In this mail we want to add our email signature. However, while this is possible in Zoho CRM this doesn't seem to be an option in Zoho Forms. Also an html editor is not

    • Fire a webhook when the user gets access to portal

      Hello, We would like to know if there is any way in which we can automate a webhook call if the user accepts the portal invitation that Zoho sends by email. The customer module does have the option to trigger webhooks when a customer is created, updated,

    • Enable History Tracking for Picklist Values Not Available

      When I create a custom picklist field in Deals, the "Enable History Tracking for Picklist Values" option is not available in the Edit Properties area of the picklist. When I create a picklist in any other Module, that option is available. Is there a specific reason why this isn't available for fields in the Deals Module?

    • Creating Payrun summary by fetching values from the employee payruns and adding them

      I am trying to make a processing payrun module. I want on Form load to autofill payrun summary eg Total Deductions, Total employer contributions etc by fetching one value after the other in the employee payrun information. So it should loop through the

    • Feature Request - Zoho Books - Add Retainer Invoices to CRM/Books integration

      Hi Books Team, My feature request is to include Retainer Invoices in the finance suite integration with Zoho CRM. This way we will be able to see if retainer invoices have been issued and paid. I have also noticed that when the generate retainer invoice

    • Books <-> CRM synchronisation with custom Fields

      Hello, We are synchronising Books Customers with CRM Accounts. In CRM Accounts I set up last year a "segments" multiselect field shown below In Books, I set up a custom multi-select field with the same value as in the CRM And set up the synchronisation inside Books. Want to synchronise the Books Segments with the CRM Segments, but the later doesn't exist, and another non-existing is there ?! First, I don't understand where the field Segmentation is coming from. Second, I set CRM Segmentation to sync

    • Edit Reconciled Transactions

      I realize transaction amounts and certain accounts cannot be edited easily once reconciled, but when I audit my operational transactions quarterly and at the end of the year sometimes I need to change the expense account for a few transactions. To do

    • Request to Customize Module Bar Placement in New Zoho CRM UI

      Hello Support and Zoho Community, I've been exploring the new UI of Zoho CRM "For Everyone" and have noticed a potential concern for my users. We are accustomed to having the module names displayed across the top, which made navigation more intuitive

    • Sending campaigns from other server

      Hi, Is it possible to send campaigns from another server so customers can see mail direct from our company (Corrata) and not from ZCSend.net? Thanks, Tim

    • Edit a previous reconciliation

      I realized that during my March bank reconciliation, I chose the wrong check to reconcile (they were for the same amount on the same date, I just chose the wrong check to reconcile). So now, the incorrect check is showing as un-reconciled. Is there any way I can edit a previous reconciliation (this is 7 months ago) so I can adjust the check that was reconciled? The amounts are exactly the same and it won't change my ending balance.

    • Admin and Dispatcher Users show as Field Technicians in Dispatch Module?

      Hi Zoho, Our Admin and Dispatch user both show up as Fied Technicians / Field Agents in the Dispatch module, but they most certainly should not be assigned to any of the work orders and service appointments. These users are NOT service resources. How

    • Zoho Payroll: Product Updates - June 2025

      This June, we’re taking a giant step forward. One that reflects what we’ve heard from you, the businesses that power economies. For our customers using the latest version of Zoho Payroll (organizations created after Dec 12, 2024) in the United States,

    • View Products (items) in Contact and Company

      Hi, I would like to know if there is an option to view all the products /(items) that were inserted in the pipeline deal stage for exemple "Win Pipeline" within the company and contacts module section? For instance, view with the option filter for the

    • Update subform dropdown field choices - on load workflow

      Hi, I have a "Check In" form that has "Contacts" subform and a "Tickets" subform. When the form is loaded, I want to populate one contact and the number of tickets. I want the "Contact" field in the "Tickets" subform to have the choice of "Contacts."

    • Upload Zoho Inventory Item Image by API

      itemID = item.get("item_id"); organizationID = organization.get("organization_id"); resvp = zoho.inventory.getRecordsByID("items",organizationID,itemID,"zoho_inventory_conn"); info resvp; image_file = invokeurl [ url: "https://t4.ftcdn.net/jpg/03/13/59/81/360_F_313598127_M2n9aSAYVsfYuSSVytPuYpLAwSEp5lxH.jpg"

    • Salesforce to Zoho One Migration

      HI, I am about to start a migration from Salesforce to Zoho One I would like to know the best practise for this, my current thoughts to the approach is 1) Create fields, modules as required for migrating data 2) migrate Data 3) go live Will this approach

    • Zoho Expense Integration with Zoho Books

      I want to know what flexibility do i have in selecting the chart of accounts which get a hit whenever we are posting any expense or advance in zoho expense?

    • Next Page