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)  https://getcomposer.org/doc/00-intro.md#installation-linux-unix-osx
   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!

• Topic Participants

• Anu Abraham

  

• Sticky Posts

• Kaizen #197: Frequently Asked Questions on GraphQL APIs

  🎊 Nearing 200th Kaizen Post – We want to hear from you! 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 #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.

• Celebrating 200 posts of Kaizen! Share your ideas for the milestone post

  Hello Developers, We launched the Kaizen series in 2019 to share helpful content to support your Zoho CRM development journey. Staying true to its spirit—Kaizen Series: Continuous Improvement for Developer Experience—we've shared everything from FAQs

• Kaizen #193: Creating different fields in Zoho CRM through API

  🎊 Nearing 200th Kaizen Post – We want to hear from you! 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.

• Client Script | Update - Introducing Commands in Client Script!

  Have you ever wished you could trigger Client Script from contexts other than just the supported pages and events? Have you ever wanted to leverage the advantage of Client Script at your finger tip? Discover the power of Client Script - Commands! Commands

• Recent Topics

• Edit Permission during and after approval?

  When a record is sent for approval Can a user request for edit permission from the approver? We don't want to give edit permissions for all the records under approval Only on a case-by-case basis How can we achieve this?

• Zoho web and mobile application not workingn

  Both zoho forms web and mobile application aren't working. I have checked my network connections and they are fine.

• Introducing the revamped What's New page

  Hello everyone! We're happy to announce that Zoho Campaigns' What's New page has undergone a complete revamp. We've bid the old page adieu after a long time and have introduced a new, sleeker-looking page. Without further ado, let's dive into the main

• Prevent stripping of custom CSS when creating an email template?

  Anyone have a workaround for this? Zoho really needs to hire new designers - templates are terrible. A custom template has been created, but every time we try to use it, it strips out all the CSS from the head.  IE, we'll define the styles right in the <head> (simple example below) and everything gets stripped (initially, it saves fine, but when you browse away and come back to the template, all the custom css is removed). <style type="text/css"> .footerContent a{display:block !important;} </style>

• Bulk Moving Images into Folders in the Library

  I can't seem to select multiple images to move into a folder in order to clean up my image library and organize it. Instead, I have to move each individual image into the folder and sometimes it takes MULTIPLE tries to get it to go in there. Am I missing

• Latest updates in Zoho Meeting | Breakout rooms and End to end encryption

  Hello everyone, We’re excited to share a few updates for Zoho Meeting. Here's what we've been working on lately: Introducing Breakout Rooms for enhanced collaboration in your online meetings and End-to-end encryption to ensure that the data is encrypted

• Systematic SPF alignment issues with Zoho subdomains

  Analysis Period: August 19 - September 1, 2025 PROBLEM SUMMARY Multiple Zoho services are causing systematic SPF authentication failures in DMARC reports from major email providers (Google, Microsoft, Zoho). While emails are successfully delivered due

• Accidentally deleted a meeting recording -- can it be recovered?

  Hi, I accidentally deleted the recording for a meeting I had today. Is there a way I can recover it?

• To Zoho customers and partners: how do you use Linked Workspaces?

  Hello, I'm exploring how we can set up and use Linked Workspaces and would like to hear from customers and partners about your use cases and experience with them. I have a Zoho ticket open, because my workspace creation fails. In the meantime, how is

• How to access email templates using Desk API?

  Trying to send an email to the customer associated to the ticket for an after hours notification and can't find the API endpoint to grab the email template. Found an example stating it should be: "https://desk.zoho.com/api/v1/emailtemplates/" + templateID;

• Update Portal User Name using Deluge?

  Hey everyone. I have a basic intake form that gathers some general information. Our team then has a consultation with the person. If the person wants to move forward, the team pushes a CRM button that adds the user to a creator portal. That process is

• Unable to retrieve Contact_Name field contents using Web API in javascript function

  Hello, I've added a field in the Purchase Order form to select and associate a Sales Order (Orden_de_venta, lookup field). I've also created a client script to complete some fields from the Sales Order (and the Quote), when the user specifies the related

• Updating Woocommerce Variation Products Prices Via Zoho CRM

  I can update product prices with this flow: But I can't update variant products. I got a code from Zoho for this, but I couldn't get it to work. It needs to find the product in the CRM from the SKU field and update the variation with the price there.

• Emails Disappearing From Inbox

  I am experiencing the unnerving problem of having some of the messages in my inbox just disappear.  It seems to happen to messages that have been in there for longer than a certain amount of time (not sure how long exactly). They are usually messages that I have flagged and know I need to act on, but have not gotten around to doing so yet.  I leave them in my inbox so I will see them and be reminded that I still need to do something about them, but at least twice now I have opened my inbox and found

• Power of Automation :: Automatic removal of project users once the project status is changed.

  A custom function is a software code that can be used to automate a process and this allows you to automate a notification, call a webhook, or perform logic immediately after a workflow rule is triggered. This feature helps to automate complex tasks and

• Customizing Form Questions per Recipient Group in Zoho Campaigns/Forms

  Hello everyone, I would like to ask if it’s possible in Zoho Campaigns or Zoho Forms to send out a campaign where the form questions can be customized based on the group of recipients. Use case example: I have prepared 20 questionnaire questions. For

• Automatic category assignment

  Hi, I’d like to ask if there is a way to automatically assign an expense category based on the recognized Merchant. What would be the simplest way to set up automatic category assignment? Alternatively, is there an option to first choose the category

• Zoho Books - France

  L’équipe de Zoho France reçoit régulièrement des questions sur la conformité de ses applications de finances (Zoho Books/ Zoho Invoice) pour le marché français. Voici quelques points pour clarifier la question : Zoho Books est un logiciel de comptabilité

• Every time an event is updated, all participants receive an update email. How can I deactivate this?

  Every time an event is updated in Zoho CRM (e.g. change description, link to Lead) every participant of this meeting gets an update email. Another customer noticed this problem years ago in the Japanese community: https://help.zoho.com/portal/ja/community/topic/any-time-an-event-is-updated-on-zohocrm-calendar-it-sends-multiple-invites-to-the-participants-how-do-i-stop-that-from-happening

• Having Trouble Opening The Candidate Portal

  Recently am having trouble opening the Candidate Portal. It keeps loading but cannot display any widgets. Tried Safari, Chrome and Edge. Non of them work. Please solve the problem ASAP.

• Forms - Notification When Response Submitted

  How do I set it up to generate an email notification when a response (class request) is submitted?

• How to disable user entry on Answer Bot in Zobot

  Hi, I have an Answer Bot in my Zobot, here is the configuration: I only want the user to choose 1 of the 4 the options I have provided: When no answer found, user chooses 'I'll rephrase the question' or 'Ask a different question When answer is found,

• More admin control over user profiles

  It's important for our company, and I'm sure many others, to keep our users inline with our branding and professional appearance. It would be useful for administrators to have more control over profile aspects such as: Profile image User names Email signatures

• Please Make Zoho CRM Cadences Flexible: Allow Inserting and Reordering Follow-Up Steps

  Sales processes are not static. We test, learn, and adapt as customers respond differently than expected. Right now, Zoho Cadences do not support inserting a new step between existing follow-ups or changing the type of an existing primary step. If I realize

• Changing the Default Search Criteria for Finding Duplicates

  Hey everyone, is it possible to adjust the default search criteria for finding and merging duplicate records? Right now, CRM uses some (in my opinion nonsensical) fields as search criteria for duplicate records which do nothing except dilute the results.

• Clear Tag & Linking Between Quotes and Sales Orders

  Hi Zoho Team, In Zoho Books, when a quote is converted into a sales order, it would be extremely useful to have: A clear tag/indicator on the quote showing that it has been converted into a sales order. A direct link in the sales order back to the originating

• Zoho Books Sandbox environment

  Hello. Is there a free sandbox environment for the developers using Zoho Books API? I am working on the Zoho Books add-on and currently not ready to buy a premium service - maybe later when my add-on will start to bring money. Right now I just need a

• Add Direct Ticket Link to Zoho Help Center Portal in Email Replies

  Hi Zoho Support Team, We hope you're doing well. We’d like to request a small but valuable improvement to enhance the usability of the Zoho Help Center portal (https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/myarea). Currently, when someone from Zoho replies to a support

• [Webinar] Deluge Learning Series - AI-Powered Automation using Zoho Deluge and Gemini

  We’re excited to invite you to an exclusive 1-hour webinar where we’ll demonstrate how to bring the power of Google’s Gemini AI into your Zoho ecosystem using Deluge scripting. Whether you're looking to automate data extraction from PDFs or dynamically

• Connecting Zoho Inventory to ShipStation

  we are looking for someone to help connect via API shipStation with Zoho inventory. Any ideas? Thanks. Uri

• Subform edits don't appear in parent record timeline?

  Is it possible to have subform edits (like add row/delete row) appear in the Timeline for parent records? A user can edit a record, only edit the subform, and it doesn't appear in the timeline. Is there a workaround or way that we can show when a user

• New in Cadences: Option to Resume or Restart follow-ups when re-enrolling records into a Cadence, and specify custom un-enrollment criteria

  Managing follow-ups effectively involves understanding the appropriate timing for reaching out, as well as knowing when to take a break and resume later, or deciding if it's necessary to start the follow-up process anew. With two significant enhancements

• Im Stuck in an EDIT ONLY WITH WIZARD issue

  So I found Wizards to be a really helpful tool in minimizing the exposure of redundant, superfluous fields to staff that would never otherwise have to edit those fields. My issue is, that when the record (in this case a lead) is created with a wizard,

• Account upgrade

  Good evening, I upgraded my account and paid for it. From standard to professional. Unfortunately after the paiment my account was not upgraded. Please your advise. Best Regards Erik van Staverden

• How to set ALL default dates of my organization to DD-MM-YYYY format?

  All replies to this question comes from a time where the UI was different. It's extremely frustrating not being able to find how to do this simple setting change. I want everything and everyone in my organizations to have DD-MM-YYYY date format by default.

• How can I sync from Zoho Projects into an existing Zoho Sprints project?

  Hi I have managed to integrate Zoho Projects with Zoho Sprints and I can see that the integration works as a project was created in Zoho Sprints. But, what I would like to do is to sync into an existing Zoho Sprints project. Is there a way to make that

• Can we generate APK and IOS app?

  Dears, I want to know the availability to develop the app on zoho and after that .. generate the APK or IOS app  and after that I added them to play store or IOS store.. Is it possible to do this .. I want not to use zoho app or let my customers use it. thanks 

• Zoho Subform Workflows onAdd of Row

  Suppose I have a form with attached workflows onLoad. If I use the form as a subform, will it inherit the workflows or do I need to create new ones onAdd of row?

• Session Expired

  I constantly get "Session Expired" and need to relogin or close and open the application again. This gets really frustrating during the day. Is this something that can be solved? This really makes me want to leave the app as it is no go to need to reopen

• Super Admin removal

  I brought a sub, and I gave the Super admin rights to a person who is no longer with us, so I need to change, and I need to make myself the Super admin

• Next Page