Kaizen #117 - Mass Delete Records Across Modules (Part I)

Kaizen #117 - Mass Delete Records Across Modules (Part I)

Season's greetings to our coding enthusiasts! 

Let us code our way into the festive spirit with another insightful post in our Kaizen series!

In this post, we will explore the process of creating a custom button using functions on the records' detail page. This enables the deletion of all associated child records when the current record is deleted. To fulfill this requirement, we will leverage APIs like COQL API, Records API, and Mass Delete API.

Currently, Zoho CRM provides the delete action exclusively for a specific related list modules when the parent record is deleted. Here are the specifics of ZOHO CRM's default support for deleting related list modules:

Record Module
Related List Module
Leads
Activities, Visits and Email Drafts
ContactsActivities, Visits, Appointments and Email Drafts
Accounts
Activities, Contacts, Deals, Quotes, Sales Orders, Invoices, Cases, Appointments and Email Drafts
Deals
Activities, Cases, Competitors and Email Drafts
Campaigns
Activities, Email Drafts and Child Campaigns 
Cases
Activities and Email Drafts
Products
Activities, Solutions, Cases and Email Drafts
Vendors
Activities and Email Drafts
Quotes
Activities and Email Drafts
Sales Orders
Activities and Email Drafts
Purchase Orders
Activities and Email Drafts
Invoices
Activities and Email Drafts
Services
Appointments and Email Drafts
Custom
Activities and Email Drafts

Perform Mass Delete Across Modules

Assume that you are the Manager of Zylker, an educational institution utilizing ZOHO CRM for customer relationship management. You have implemented custom modules, namely Training Program and Participants in your organization. 

Now, you aim to streamline record management by creating a custom button on the Training Program module's records detail page. On triggering, this button should delete all associated participants of a specific program along with the program itself. 

Let us guide you through the step-by-step process of fulfilling this requirement using ZOHO CRM functions.

Prerequisites

Achieving this requirement is versatile, applicable to both records with a single child module as well as records with multiple child modules. 

A lookup field serves to establish a connection between two modules, designating the module where the lookup field is employed as the child module. The module that the lookup field points to is referred to as the parent module.

To keep it simple, let us consider Participants as the child module with a lookup relationship to the Training Program parent module. 

The knowledge of COQL, Records and Mass Delete Records APIs, Deluge Script and ZOHO CRM Functions ensure effective execution of our outlined process.

Creating a Custom Button

Step 1: Begin by navigating to Setup > Customization > Modules and Fields > Training Program > Links and Buttons > New Button within your ZOHO CRM interface.

Step 2: Provide a name and description for the button. Next, select the Details Page as the designated location for the button from the drop-down menu.



Refer to this document to learn more on creating and using custom buttons.

Step 3: Configure the button's action by selecting Writing Function from the menu.



Step 4: Fill in the basic details for creating a new function. 

Step 5: After clicking the create button, you will be directed to an editor interface, as depicted in this image.



You have to code your function logic in this editor and click the Save button on the top right corner. 

For the scenario discussed, we have attached the function code in a zip file with this post. Download and explore the code to gain hands-on experience in this use case. 

Step 6: Next, you will be redirected to the Links and Buttons page, where you need to configure the visibility of the button based on profiles. Afterward, click on the Save button to confirm your settings.


Flow of the function

The function should initially make a COQL API call to retrieve the participant records that correspond to the record ID of the training program from which the button is triggered. This API can fetch up to 2000 related child records in a single API call.

queryMap = Map();
queryMap.put("select_query","select id from Participants where Training_Program =" + id + "Limit 2000");
response = invokeurl
[
type :POST
parameters:queryMap.toString()
connection:"crm_oauth_connection"
];

Here, connections are used to make ZOHO CRM API calls. To get the current record ID, you have to configure it in function arguments. 

Click Edit Arguments from the top of the page and associate the Training Program ID as shown in this image. 



Before proceeding to the next step, it's crucial to be aware of the following constraints associated with the APIs:
  • COQL API: It can retrieve a maximum of 2000 records per API call.
  • Delete Records API: It has the capability to delete up to 100 records in a single API call.
  • Mass Delete Records API: By utilizing record IDs, it can delete a maximum of 500 records per API call.
Given these constraints, the following logic has been devised to address our specified requirement:

--->  If the participant count is 0, the system should proceed to delete the current record exclusively. 
--->  Incases where the record count is below 100, the Delete Record API must be employed to eliminate records from the Participants module.
--->  If the participant count exceeds 100, the Mass Delete Records API should be used for deleting records within the child module. For scenarios where more than 500 records need deletion, it is necessary to execute this in a loop for four iterations with each deleting 500 records.

Let us execute this logic in Deluge script,

if(!isNull(response))
{
response = response.toMap();
count = response.getJSON("info").get("count").toNumber();
has_more = response.getJSON("info").get("more_records");
id_list = List();
itr_list = {0,1,2,3};
response = response.getJSON("data");
result = List();
if(count > 0)
{
for each  item in response
{
id_list.add(item.getJSON("id"));
}
if(count > 100)
{
end = 0;
start = 0;
for each  itr in itr_list
{
if(count / 500 - itr > 0)
{
idMap = Map();
if(count - end > 500)
{
end = end + 500;
}
else
{
end = count;
}
idMap.put("ids",id_list.subList(start,end));
response = invokeurl
[
type :POST
parameters:idMap.toString()
connection:"crm_oauth_connection"
];
start = end;
}
}
}
else
{
response = invokeurl
[
type :DELETE
connection:"crm_oauth_connection"
];
}
}
}

Now, let us address the scenario of a training program with over 2000 participants. Following the logic outlined above, our custom button will handle the deletion of only 2000 records. 

To manage this, after successfully deleting the initial 2000 records, the record from the Training Program module should not be deleted. Here, we have to configure a pop-up message signaling that additional records require deletion. To proceed, users must click the same button to eliminate the remaining records along with the current one.

After deleting all records from the child modules, the custom button will proceed to remove the current Training Program record, as shown in the following Deluge code.

if(isNull(response) || !has_more)
{
response = invokeurl
[
type :DELETE
connection:"crm_oauth_connection"
];
return "Deleted Successfully";
}
return "Over 2000 related records were detected. Click 'Cascade Delete' again to delete the remaining and this training program. ";

Let us now check our custom button from the details page of the Training Programs module. 



To prevent additional clicks for deleting the remaining records, we will circle back to you on next Friday with a solution that incorporates the looping mechanism. 
 
We have also brought you a wave of innovation and enhanced features in our V6 APIs. Take a look at them and empower your coding journey with us. 

If you have any queries, feel free to drop them in the comments section below or reach out to us directly at support@zohocrm.com. We eagerly await your thoughts and feedback on this!

Cheers to a productive and joyful season!

Additional Reading
ZOHO CRM Functions: An Overview and setting up functions
Deluge Script: Introduction to Deluge
Records API: Delete Records 



    • Sticky Posts

    • Kaizen #226: Using ZRC in Client Script

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

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

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

    • Kaizen #217 - Actions APIs : Tasks

      Welcome to another week of Kaizen! In last week's post we discussed Email Notifications APIs which act as the link between your Workflow automations and you. We have discussed how Zylker Cloud Services uses Email Notifications API in their custom dashboard.

    • Kaizen #216 - Actions APIs : Email Notifications

      Welcome to another week of Kaizen! For the last three weeks, we have been discussing Zylker's workflows. We successfully updated a dormant workflow, built a new one from the ground up and more. But our work is not finished—these automated processes are

    • 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

    • Recent Topics

    • Newline Character "\n" parsing problem in webhooks

      Hi there, I am facing an issue in Zoho Flow (maybe a general issue or maybe only in Zoho Flow): I have this function: void sendListWebhook(string url, list array) { for each arrayElement in array { result = invokeurl [ url :url type :POST parameters:arrayElement.toString()

    • One Company, multi branches, multi warehouses and I need to manage this in one organization

      Dears,  I'm a new user to zoho solutions,  however I found a lot of persons giving a nice feedback about it also a lot of good reviews. I though why we try to move to it in our company. I'm not sure if Zoho could give me all what I need or not that's why I'm going to post in this topic most of the things I know about managing our business to let you ,as zoho experts, tell me if Zoho will meet my business requirements or not. First of all we are a flowers and landscaping company we have like 6 to

    • Migration Evernote

      Bonjour Apres plus d'une dizaine d'année passer avec evernote j'ai décidé de franchir le pas . J'ai débuté par migrer mes notes vers zoho et depuis la migration est bloquée. Impossible d'avoir un retour du support malgré plusieurs mails et tentative d'appel

    • Pushing GCLID info from Gravity Forms to ZohoCRM

      We are switching to Gravity Forms from Zoho Forms and I cannot find any good info on how to make sure my GCLID tracking info is pushed through to the CRM through my new forms. There was an article in the documentation about placing something within the

    • On Zoho Flow, Record deleted trigger from Zoho Creator

      On creating flow in Zoho Flow, when we select app Zoho created, it provides 3 trigger options - Record created, Record updated and Record created or updated We need trigger on "Record Delete" as well, We have a use case to fire our system api if record

    • Zoho Flow Switch On Not Working

      I have created a flow which is when the mailbox address received the email that meet the condition will auto fetch the contact, account and finally create the ticket by using Zoho Desk. When I do a test and debug on my flow it work well as what I expect

    • MS Teams Flow Integration Question

      Where can I find the chat ID for the "Post message to chat" target?

    • Zoho Flow - Access denied to recover recording from call module - OpenAI

      Hi, I am trying to build a Flow to recover recoding when a new call is saved in my CRM. I have integrated my CRM with ringcentral and the recordings are saved in the event. Trigger: When new module entry Step 2: Fetch module entry (Zoho CRM says "permission

    • Unable to send price in big commerce from zoho flow.

      I am creating a flow from zoho flow to create a product in zoho inventory and sending this to big commerce. But the problem is like when ever i send the price its getting error. it require decimal format value if i am sending ${trigger.sales_rate} the

    • Not sending mail to new lead in zoho flow

      I have created a flow in zoho flow and triggered an action to send email notification when the new lead is created but even after user entering the mail id the email is not going to them

    • Access query string from incoming webhook URL in Zoho Flow

      I have a fairly straightforward use case, but cannot find anything conclusive on this subject. How can I simply access the query string of the incoming webhook request in Zoho Flow? I am attaching the Deal ID to the end of the request like: https://flow.zoho.com/762439902/flow/webhook/incoming?zapikey=1001.0dec2d7dd15080c464a13925275f0129.448c23ee219c545c89f5a178456cfc8b&isdebug=false&dealID=${Deals.Deal

    • Unable to access my Zoho forms account

      For some days now, I haven't had access to my Zoho Forms account. I keep getting an error that says, "You are an inactive user in your organization" via the mobile app and "You don't have permission to access this organization" via the web. I was removed

    • Identify Unused Deluge Functions in Zoho CRM

      Hello Zoho Support Team, I would like to request a feature that helps administrators identify unused or rarely used Deluge functions in Zoho CRM. Currently, Deluge functions are distributed across different areas, and there is no centralized overview

    • User Automation: User based workflow rules & webhooks

      User management is an undeniable part of project management and requires adequate monitoring. As teams grow and projects multiply, manual coordination for updating users & permissions becomes difficult and can give way to errors. User automation in Zoho

    • Update on V2 API End-of-Life Timeline

      Dear Users, Earlier this year, we shared the launch of the V3 APIs and requested users to migrate from the older V2 APIs by December 2025. We have received valuable feedback from our users and partners regarding their migration timelines. We are happy

    • Run a workflow after record merge

      Hello, We are wondering if there is a way to trigger a workflow after two records are merged? We have a sms service that use to text back and forth with Prospects and Contacts. To make it easy for our users, we automatically create them in this other

    • Live webinar | The Evolution of Zoho Show: 2025 Feature Recap

      2025 has been a year of exciting updates and features for Zoho Show. From advanced design and formatting tools to smarter presentation delivery, enhanced collaboration, and AI-powered features—along with the launch of our desktop apps, Show has continued

    • Batch Tracking custom function

      Hi fellow zoho users, We have our ecommerce site setup to shopify. I have some products I want to add batch tracking too, my only issue is that it breaks our shopify workflow (create sales order, invoice, payment, package) because it requires us to manually

    • Include Suggested Articles in New Ticket Email

      When someone creates a new ticket, is there any way to include recommended knowledge base articles (like the ones Zia Suggests) in the email notification to the user? When they're waiting for a reply, it would be nice to have sent them some recommended

    • Item Bulk Edit - Allow for Reorder Level

      We're implementing a process for using the Reorder Level field for Items, and I have to go through and add this value to a huge chunk of our Items. It's driving me bonkers that I have to do this individually through the UI rather than bulk updating. It

    • Sharing my portal URL with clients outside the project

      Hi I need help making my project public for anyone to check on my task. I'm a freelance artist and I use trello to keep track on my client's projects however I wanted to do an upgrade. Went on here and so far I'm loving it. However, I'm having an issue sharing my url to those to see progress. They said they needed an account to access my project. How do I fix this? Without them needing an account.

    • Zoho Flow + QuickBooks Estimates – Line items not created from CRM subform

      Hi everyone, I’m trying to create QuickBooks Estimates from Zoho CRM Quotes using Zoho Flow. I’m aware that Zoho Flow’s native “Create Estimate” action does not support multiple line items, so I followed the community guidance for Invoices using a custom

    • SAP S/4 HANA Integration via ZOHO Flow

      Hi How do I change the SAP Client ID while creating a new connection ? MY client ID is 421. I believe the client id should be an input field for length 3 numbers rather then a drop down to select from a fixed set of values. Thanks

    • VLOOKUP FUNCTION PROBLEM

         Hello, i have a problem with the VLOOKUP  function in my sheet http://public.sheet.zoho.com/public/tonimoreno/indicemasacorporal2 in cell D2. This function doesn't work correctly and always returns the last content of the range. Can you help me?

    • Zoho Flow Completely Broken?

      Since December 13th, 100% of our flows have stopped working completely. Nothing is working or triggering??? I called support & sat on the line with them for 2 HOURS until they finally concluded it was a back-end problem on their end?? Now i'm calling

    • Print / Export full Dashboard page

      Hello Zoho team, It is currently only possible to print/export one component of a dashboard at a time. Requesting the option to print/export a full dashboard page with all components to a pdf or picture. Doing through the browser doesn't give good results.

    • emails duplicated in my outlook client

      Hello I am just new here and I have a litle problem that I do not find how to solve. I sumarise here after. Your help would be very appreciated. I have just recently contracted this zoho mail servicesservices as an initial evaluation yesterday night. I then:   - opened a free account  - created 1 initial email address ..........@domain.com  - created a second email address ..........@domain.com - proceeded with the config instructions (checking the ownership of my domain, changing MX etc... ) as

    • How to check task starting time in zoho mobile app?

      I am using the Zoho mobile app on my iPhone, and I am not able to see the task's starting and finishing times. When opening the Task information / Details, I can only see the Task start date and due date, but not the time. Is there any way to check a

    • Creating an extension in Sigma: Zoho CRM isn't selectable as a service

      I have 2 Zoho accounts which are part of 2 different workplaces. One workplace is able to select 'Zoho CRM' as a service option when creating a new extension, the other one is not. I'm not sure what the exact differences are between them. What do I need

    • List of packaged components and if they are upgradable

      Hello, In reference to the article Components and Packaging in Zoho Vertical Studio, can you provide an overview of what these are. Can you also please provide a list of of components that are considered Packaged and also whether they are Upgradable?

    • How to track a list of ALL the items that ONE customer bought?

      Hello, I am interested in getting a list of all the items that only ONE of my customers bought, and the invoices are what show up instead. It's very tedious to go through every single invoice when we sell a lot of items to this customer. Surely there

    • RouteIQ for Zoho FSM

      Beste, Zou wel top zijn dat we een RouteIQ hebben voor FSM aangezien we constant moeten zien wat de beste route is voor onze monteurs. Nu moeten we een speciale aparte programma hebben om de beste route te berrekenen voor onze monteurs aangezien de planning

    • Export Tickets from the Help Center

      Hello everyone! We are now allowing end users to export tickets directly from the help center. The ticket export allows users to: Filter tickets by Department, Priority, and Account before exporting. Download files from Export History (Setup > Data administration

    • Is it possible to remove filtering options?

      My CRM has a lot of custom fields that should not be used in filters or views. Fields that are automated and exist only to store temporary values that get used in functions. These create a lot of noise in the list of fields to filter. Isn't there any

    • Function #18: Associate invoice templates automatically based on customer language

      For businesses dealing with a diverse linguistic clientele, it becomes crucial to send out invoices in the customer's preferred language to ensure effective communication. This requirement can be handled in Zoho Books by creating invoice templates in

    • Changing field types

      Question im a Zoho CRM user and curious, if I change a flied type from single or multi line text to a URL field type will i lose the data in the field or will it be converted to website link automatically. Thanks

    • Quote PDF – Header image stopped rendering suddenly

      Hello Zoho Support Team, We are facing an issue with Quote PDF templates in Zoho Books. Previously, images added inside the Quote header HTML were rendering correctly. However, recently the header image is no longer appearing, while header text still

    • Changing Default PDF Name

      Is it possible to change the default name of a PDF? As of right now, all of my quotes are named 'QT_$QuoteNumber' (i,e: 'QT_19803471298374) - would it be possible to change this to: '$CompanyName - $AccountName - $QuoteNumber' for instance?

    • Tip 2: Recursive functions in Deluge: How to dynamically run a function for a specified number of times.

      Hi folks, As part of the Zoho Creator - Tips and Tricks series every fortnight, we are back today with a new tip on Recursive functions.  Let us first quickly understand what Recursive functions are: A function that calls itself one or more times is known as a Recursive function. That is, you can execute a function to perform a particular action a specific number of times. And, at the end of each iteration, a new output is generated. Recursive functions are commonly used by programmers as it enables

    • Function #48: Manage fixed installment payments using Zoho Books

      Hello everyone, and welcome back to our series! Businesses offer installment payment options to their customers, particularly for expensive purchases, to ease the financial burden on them. By breaking down the total cost into smaller, more manageable

    • Next Page