Kaizen #94 - PHP SDK V4 - Configuration and Initialization

Kaizen #94 - PHP SDK V4 - Configuration and Initialization

Hello and welcome to another Kaizen week!

In previous Kaizen posts, we have covered in detail how to configure and initialize PHP SDKs for Zoho CRM v2.1 APIs. We have since released SDKs for v4 and v5 APIs. However, starting from v4, there are some changes in the configuration and initialization process.  In this post, we will discuss you how to configure and initialize PHP SDK v4 and v5.

The PHP Software Development Kit (SDK) simplifies the integration of client PHP applications with Zoho CRM. Acting as a wrapper for the REST APIs, it streamlines the usage of Zoho CRM services. 

Before proceeding with the configuration, make that your client application meets the prerequisites. This includes having PHP 7 or above installed, along with the cURL extension, which is necessary for connecting and communicating with Zoho CRM APIs.

I. 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 as Self-Client or Server based Applications depending on your application.
  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.

II. Installing the PHP SDK 

  1. If not already installed, follow the instructions provided at the corresponding link to install Composer.

     Mac/Linux
     curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php (terminal command)
     Windows https://getcomposer.org/doc/00-intro.md#installation-windows

  2. Install PHP-SDK using Composer
    1. Navigate to the workspace of your client app.
    2. 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. 
       
      composer require zohocrm/php-sdk-4.0 (for v4 APIs)
       composer require zohocrm/php-sdk-5.0 (for v5 APIs)
  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';

III. Token Persistence

Token persistence refers to storing and utilizing authentication tokens provided by Zoho, enabling the SDK to refresh the access tokens without 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. 

 Methods Description
 findToken(Token $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(Token $token) Invoked after fetching access and refresh tokens from Zoho. This method saves the token details.
 deleteToken($id) This method is used to delete the given token details.
 getTokens() The method is used to retrieve all the stored tokens.
 deleteTokens()  The method to delete all the stored tokens.
 findTokenById($id)  This method is used to retrieve the user token details based on the unique ID.

Here, $token is an instance of the Token interface.

Token Persistence using a Database

In Database persistence, tokens are stored and retrieved from a database (e.g., MySQL).
Create a table in your database with the following required columns. For example, if you want to persist your tokens in a table named token in database named zoho, use this:
 
 CREATE DATABASE zoho; // use this to create database named zoho
// use this to create a table named token, with the following necessary columns
CREATE TABLE token ( 
  id varchar(10) NOT NULL,
  user_name 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)
);

Note that the columns are different for API v2.1. Please refer to this post for more details. . 

File Persistence

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

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.

IV. Configuration

The configuration step involves setting up various details in the SDK, such as user authentication, token persistence, logging, API call timeout settings, and more. The following keys are defined during this process:
  1. environment (mandatory): The API environment which decides the domain and the URL to make API calls, in Domain::Environment pattern.
    Domains : USDataCenter, EUDataCenter, INDataCenter, CNDataCenter, AUDataCenter
    Environments : PRODUCTION(), DEVELOPER(), SANDBOX()
  2. Token (mandatory): This key contains the user token details. Create an instance of OAuthToken with the information that you get after registering your Zoho client.  Depending on the available tokens, you can select one of the following flows:
    Note : You need to generate the tokens (grant/access/refresh) beforehand to use them in the respective flows.
    a) grantToken flow - You should use the grant Token for configuration.
     $token = (new OAuthBuilder())
      ->clientId("clientId")
      ->clientSecret("clientSecret")
      ->userSignature($user) //optional
      ->grantToken("grantToken")
      ->redirectURL("redirectURL") //optional
      ->build();

    b) refreshToken flow - Utilize the refresh token in this flow.
    $token = (new OAuthBuilder())
      ->clientId("clientId")
      ->clientSecret("clientSecret")
    ->userSignature($user) //optional
      ->refreshToken("refreshToken")
      ->build();

    c) 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.
    $token = (new OAuthBuilder())
       ->userSignature($user) //optional
       ->accessToken("accessToken")
       ->build(); 

    d) id flow - You can use the id from the persisted token file/DB to make API calls. The id is a unique system generated value for each token details entry in the file/DB.
    $token = (new OAuthBuilder())
       ->id("id")
       ->build();

  3. logger (optional) : 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. The default level is OFF.

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

  4. store (optional) : 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. For more details, refer here.
  5. SDKConfig (optional) : 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.

  6. requestProxy (optional) : Contains 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();

  7. resourcePath (optional) : Configure the absolute directory path to store user specific files containing module fields information. If skipped, the files will be stored in the project directory itself.

V. Initilization

After completing the configuration, you can proceed with 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\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;

  require_once "vendor/autoload.php";

  class Initialize
  {
    public static function initializeSDK()
    {
      $user = new UserSignature("patricia@zoho.com");
      $environment = USDataCenter::PRODUCTION();
      $token = (new OAuthBuilder())
        ->clientId("1000.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx")
        ->clientSecret("554a9xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx")
->userSignature($user) //optional
        ->refreshToken("1000.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx") 
        ->redirectURL("www.zoho.com") //optional
        ->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;
     $enableSSLVerification = false;
     $configInstance = (new SDKConfigBuilder())
       ->autoRefreshFields($autoRefreshFields)
       ->pickListValidation($pickListValidation)
       ->sslVerification($enableSSLVerification)
       ->connectionTimeout($connectionTimeout)
       ->timeout($timeout)
       ->build();
     $resourcePath = "/Documents/phpsdk-application";
     $requestProxy = (new ProxyBuilder())
       ->host("proxyHost")
       ->port("proxyPort")
       ->user("proxyUser")
       ->password("password")
       ->build();
    (new InitializeBuilder())
      ->environment($environment)
      ->token($token)
      ->store($tokenstore) //optional
      ->SDKConfig($configInstance) //optional
      ->resourcePath($resourcePath) //optional
      ->logger($logger) //optional
      ->requestProxy($requestProxy) //optional
      ->initialize();
   }
 }

Initialize::initializeSDK();
?>

You are now set to use the PHP SDK and make API calls. 

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

Cheers!




    • Recent Topics

    • email

      Hi My crm email is not working, can you check, I have zoho one account.

    • Need option to see Mass Emails & Cadences in Gmail Outbox OR a dedicated Zoho Outbox

      Hi everyone, Right now, when we send 1:1 emails from gmail (with gmail API connected to Zoho CRM), those emails appear both in gmail's sent folder and in Zoho CRM. That works well. But when we send Mass Emails or Cadence emails form Zoho CRM, they are

    • I can't found API for Sales Receipts

      Hello May you please help me to find an API document for Sales Receipts to get data and retrive a custom fields like Invoice and credit notes Regards

    • Kaizen #205 - Answering Your Questions | Managing Picklists and Enabling History Tracking via Zoho CRM APIs

      Hello everyone! Welcome back to another post in our Kaizen series. In this post, we will look at how you can manage picklist fields in Zoho CRM using APIs. This topic was raised as feedback to Kaizen #200, so we are taking it up here with more details.

    • Multiple Vendor SKUs

      One of the big concerns we have with ZOHO Inventory is lack of Vendor Skus like many other inventory software packages offer. Being able to have multiple vendor skus for the same product would be HUGE! It would populate the appropriate vendor Sku for

    • Internally created tickets

      Hi there When tickets are created internally on-behalf of customers - there is nothing to show that the ticket was created by an internal agent. This means, that it's easy for our agents to confuse tickets which were created by internal team members and

    • Automatically change website passwords

      Hi everyone, We just switched to a Professional package to also use the "Automatically change website passwords" function. But I cannot find anything about it, how to use it, anywhere. Does anyone know how I can use this function? Best, Caspar

    • Change Invoice Prices for an Effective Date

      Hi, It would be a really good feature to be able to change the prices on invoices/recurring invoices from an effective date in the event of price increases. For instance, I am in the process of increasing prices that will be effective from a specific

    • "Other Current Asset" accounts as "Paid Through" accounts in Expense

      It would be incredibly useful to be able to assign accounts of type Other Current Asset as Paid Through accounts in Expense. Currently, Other Current Liability are permitted as Paid Through Accounts. This makes sense, as Credit Cards are current liabilities.

    • Multi column open text questions that allows respondents to add rows for additional information

      I need to create a question that has 2 columns with open text, but I also need to allow respondents to click a "+" button, or something similar, so that they can add additional information if they choose to. I've tried using the Multiple Textboxes type

    • Bot Filtering & Apple Mail Privacy Protection Compliance in Zoho Campaigns

      Dear Campaigns Users, The wait is over! We’re excited to announce that the enhanced bot filtering feature is now live in Zoho Campaigns. This update brings greater accuracy to your email campaign reports by distinguishing real user engagement from automated

    • Découvrons les détails qui simplifient vos journées de travail avec Trident

      Nous nous installons dans des routines efficaces et rodées avec le temps. Chaque matin, nous ouvrons nos e-mails, passons aux messages, consultons notre agenda, puis attaquons nos tâches. Ce processus nous semble maîtrisé, mais est-il réellement optimisé

    • Issue with Purchase Rate Showing as “0” After Importing Items List

      Dear Zoho Books Support Team, Good day. I’m reaching out regarding an issue I’m facing while importing my items list into Zoho Books. Despite mapping all fields correctly and including the purchase price for each product in my Excel file, the Purchase

    • API for Task Entity in Zoho Books

      I’m working on automating task creation in Zoho Books via a custom button in the Bills Module. The goal is to create a task in the Tasks Module and assign it to the Finance Team, so they can track progress efficiently. While reviewing Zoho Books documentation,

    • create invoice in zoho books from the zoho forms

      Is there a native way to have create invoice in zoho books, when zoho form is completed?

    • Email undelivered

      GOod Day I am always receiving an uncategorized-bounce to my email. I am not sure why this is happening.

    • Add inventory_valuation_method to items endpooints

      To ensure consistent item creation it would be helpful to have the inventory_valuation_method (FIFO vs WAC) be able to be set at item creation or as an update (consistent with current behavior where it is not allowed for items with existing transactions)

    • Use Zoho to send sales receipts for Gocardless transactions

      I've been using gocardless for years and have d/d mandates set up on there. Each week we get bulk payments from customer d/d's. However, we need to send sales receipts to these customers. So I know I can sync mandates into Zoho, and then I can set up

    • Zoho - Gocardless sales receipts

      I've been using gocardless for years and have d/d mandates set up on there. Each week we get bulk payments from customer d/d's. However, we need to send sales receipts to these customers. So I know I can sync mandates into Zoho, and then I can set up

    • Introducing Rollup summary in Zoho CRM

      ------------------------------------------Moderated on 5th July'23---------------------------------------------- Rollup summary is now available for all organizations in all the DCs. Hello All, We hope you're well! We're here with an exciting update that

    • Introducing Connected Workflows in Zoho CRM for Everyone : Free Your Teams to Focus on What Matters

      Hello Everyone, We’re thrilled to introduce the next big evolution in Zoho CRM for Everyone -- Connected Workflows. This new feature builds on our commitment to deliver a CRM that’s truly inclusive, adaptable, and designed for consistent collaboration

    • Cooling-off Period Just Got Better: More Coverage, More Control

      We’ve enhanced the Cooling-off Period feature in Zoho Recruit to give you more control over repeat applications and referrals. This helps you maintain a cleaner, more efficient recruitment pipeline. With this enhancement, you can: Prevent duplicate candidate

    • Revenue Management: #7 Revenue Recognition in Construction & Real Estate Industry

      If you are in the construction or real estate business, you are used to long project timelines and progressive invoicing to keep up with your billing. But when does revenue get recognized? Will it happen when the contract gets signed? At different milestones

    • TikTok (and other social platform) Messages and comments of the past

      When I link a social channel, Zoho will show in "Inbox", "Messages" and "Contact" sections the interaction done in the past? (comment, messages...)

    • Restrict Employee mail deletion

      Dear Zoho, Is there a way where i can restrict my employees to delete any mails from their account

    • 554 5.1.8 Email Outgoing Blocked.

      Hi guys, I just singed up for mateusz.nowicki@zoho.com mail and I can't send any mails.. Why? Everytime I try to send something I got error like the one in the screenshot. Please, help me.

    • Zoho IP blocked by SpamHaus

      ERROR CODE :550 - 5.7.0 Your server IP address is in the SpamHaus SBL-XBL database, bye

    • File Upload in Creator's Subfrom

      Hello Sir/Madam, Here is a Problem......... Scenario: In CRM One Custom Module (Payments) have one File Upload Field now we have to Upload that File into Creator's Custom Form (Documents) have one Subform (Documents) in Document Upload Field using Deluge

    • Trigger workflow base on email clic

      Searching the help and forum, I see that there were workflow trigger rules based on email. But now, I can't find this type of trigger when I create a custom workflow. What I'm looking for would be to automate the sending of an email for a new prospect,

    • Bigin Form Acknowledgement

      How to troubleshoot and find out why form acknowledgement is not sending emails after form submission?

    • Option to Customize Career Site URL Without “/jobs/Careers”

      Dear Zoho Recruit Team, I hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the Career Site URL structure in Zoho Recruit. In the old version of the career site, our URL was simply: 👉 https://jobs.domain.com However, after moving to

    • Zoho Mail POP & IMAP Server Details

      Hello all! We have been receiving a number of requests regarding the errors while configuring or using Zoho Mail account in POP/ IMAP clients. The server details vary based on your account type and the Datacenter in which your account is setup. Ensure

    • Ever since the new Android App udpates notifications are not working

      notifications are not working for the app is its closed I followed the tutuorial to the notificaction fixed and everythig seems to be right but notifications are not workig

    • Zoho Analytics & Zoho Desk - but not all desks

      I have several desks in our company and one of those is used by our HR department. I want to bring through the data to the shared Zoho Analytics workspace - except for the HR desk. Can this be excluded at data import stage ?

    • Incoming Emails Not Showing Up in Zoho Inbox

      Hi - I have my Zoho email account set up to forward a copy of all incoming emails to a secondary Gmail address, whilst retaining the original email in the Zoho inbox. However, all my incoming emails are currently not showing up in my Zoho inbox, so I'm

    • Unable to Create Zoho Booking via the Book Appointment API

      Its giving the below error {     "response": {         "errormessage": "Error setting value for the variable:customer_details\n null",         "status": "Error"     } } Request: POST Url: https://www.zohoapis.in/bookings/v1/json/appointment attached Zoho-oauthtoken

    • SHEET - Send email when a cell changes

      I would like to create a custom function for Zoho Sheet that triggers when a paticular cell changes to a specific value. This would result in sending an email to a recipient (this would be an address that remains the same and included in the script). Example: = IF(N4= "Drafted", <>EmailFunction) 1)     Cell N4 changes to "Drafted" 2)    Email is sent to recipient            or alternatively 3)    Post to chat channel I have found the Custom function editor in Sheet. I am not bad at scripting, but

    • 【開催報告】 福岡 ユーザー交流会 2025/8/8（金）

      皆さま、こんにちは。コミュニティチームの中野です。 8/8（金）に、福岡 ユーザー交流会を開催しました。 本投稿では、その様子をお届けします。当日の登壇資料などもこちらに共有しますので、参加できなかった皆さまもご参照ください。 今年初の開催となる福岡 ユーザー交流会では、CreativeStudio樂合同会社 前田さんによるZoho CRM / Sign / Survey の事例セッションのほか、 Zoho社員セッションでは、Zoho Forms の活用法を解説。 さらに、「見込み客・顧客データの管理/活用方法」をテーマに参加者同士でZoho

    • no me llegan los correos a Zoho mail

      No puedo recibir correos pero sí enviarlos, ya hice la modificación de MX y la verificación de teléfonos, qué es lo que ocurre? gracias

    • Error: Invalid login: 535 Authentication Failed

      I have used zoho with nodemailer. const transporter = nodemailer.createTransport({ host: 'smtp.zoho.com', port: 465, secure: true, auth: { user: 'example@example.com', pass: 'password' } }); While sending the mail, it shows the following error: Error:

    • Next Page