As we step into the new year, let’s reflect on the strides we’ve made together and gear up for the exciting opportunities 2025 holds. This month’s digest highlights key updates, engaging discussions, and upcoming events designed to keep you informed and empowered in your development journey. Let's dive right in!
Upcoming Events
ZDK CLI (Zoho Development Kit Command Line Interface)
Date: Jan 16 | Feb 6 | Feb 27 | Mar 20 | Apr 10
Time: 10:00 AM IST & 8:00 PM IST (GMT+5:30)
Managing metadata in Zoho CRM shouldn’t feel like navigating a maze. Yet, the endless clicks to modify profiles, roles, modules, or layouts—and the challenges of version control—can quickly become overwhelming. What if you could skip the hassle and manage your metadata effortlessly? Introducing ZDK CLI—your one-stop solution for streamlining metadata modifications, pushing changes directly from the command line, and tracking updates seamlessly with your preferred Version Control System (VCS). Register now and join this five-session virtual learning series to discover how to take control of your CRM workflow with ZDK CLI. Creator Tech Connect
Title: Building Intuitive UI/UX with HTML & ZML in Zoho Creator
Date: January 16, 2025
Creator's tech connect series comprises of technical sessions that provide immersive training on the key essentials and technical nuances of building a solution in Zoho Creator. This is a great opportunity for our developer community to stay informed about Creator's new feature releases, product roadmap, best practices to follow while scripting in deluge, new deluge concepts, and cloud functions. In our previous session, we discussed the most recent improvements and updates in the Zoho Creator product release. In the upcoming session, we will explore how to leverage HTML and ZML to build custom and dynamic UI/UX in Zoho Creator.
Get to know Zoho Deluge:
Title: Get to know Zoho Deluge series
Dates: January 28–30, 2025
To help users unlock the potential of Deluge, we’ve launched the Get to Know Deluge series. This program serves as an introduction to Deluge's foundational concepts while offering a glimpse into its advanced capabilities. This three-day series is designed to help participants understand the capabilities of Deluge and learn how to apply them effectively in their operations. By the end of the series, we believe participants will gain a strong understanding of Deluge’s purpose, its role across Zoho products, and its basic concepts, setting the stage for mastering its advanced features.
Resource Spotlight

We've consolidated all the resources from the developer community learning series into a centralized hub for your convenient access. Consider bookmarking our Zoho Developer Community website to stay informed about the latest updates in the developer community. - Zoho CRM Developer Updates:
- Zoho CRM: Here are big updates and enhancements in Zoho CRM in Q4 to give you a head start on putting them into action for your business and improving your operations. This way, you can close out a great year and start the next one on the right foot!
- Zoho Forms: For businesses, every minute saved during data collection can mean more time for innovation and growth. Let’s explore how Zoho Forms’ new Dynamic Prefilling with Webhooks works, its benefits, and real-world applications that can transform your data collection process in this blog.
- Zoho RPA: We're thrilled to announce the official launch of Zoho RPA—robotic process automation software designed to revolutionize automation in businesses of all sizes. In today's fast-paced digital landscape, day-to-day manual tasks can be a bottleneck to progress. This is where Zoho RPA steps in, offering comprehensive suite automation solutions to meet diverse needs.
- Zoho Sign & Bigin Integration: Introducing Zoho Sign integration for Bigin where businesses can sign, send, and manage their contracts within the CRM itself, unifying all the customer-facing operations in a single tab.
- Zoho SalesIQ: With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence, chatbots are not just tools for customer service; they are transforming the entire customer experience landscape and improving business efficiency. Explore the top benefits of chatbots for businesses and customers in detail on this blog.
- Zoho Cliq Developer Platform: While we're on the subject, let's discover how Zoho Cliq's developer platform can help you build a customer support automation tool that fosters customer satisfaction and streamlines workflows for effective customer management.
- Zoho Directory – Always Verify #06: We're wrapping up 2024 with the best identity and access management stories from across the interwebz with the December edition of Always Verify. This is your security briefing for the year & you can expect to learn why hackers love holidays and how to get ahead of them, new Microsoft 365 account deactivation errors, why it's finally time to move away using SMS based MFA. While this newsletter has a lot of cyber security advice on how to prepare for the end of the year, we are sure it will be helpful all-year round.
Community Discussions
Zoho Developer Forum
Developers ZUG Cliq Channel

These conversations are confined to the Developers ZUG Cliq channel members. If you're keen on becoming a part of this space, visit our website, click BE PART OF COMMUNITY and complete the form to get an invite to the channel. - Maintaining redundant code snippets can be a huge pain. Thankfully, Zoho CRM has a feature to reduce unnecessary code redundancy. Check out this conversation where Mike suggests the same to Morgan, which will now save @Morgan from a ton of headaches in the future!
- Sometimes, the tiniest bugs take the most time to squash. And what can make all the difference is an extra set of eyes, which is the essence of the Developers ZUG Cliq channel. Check out this conversation where @Ryan faced a deal-breaking but microscopic issue, and all it took was for him to post it in the Cliq channel for another community member to fix!
- So far, we've seen a number of examples how the Developers ZUG Cliq channel enables Zoho developers to squash bugs faced by someone else on the other side of the globe. At times, that's not enough, and we'll have to bring out the big guns. Check out this conversation where @Pablo uses AI to solve @Jason's data-type conversion issue.
- While the Cliq channel is for Zoho developers, not all issues faced by the community are coding-related. Since Zoho's services can be better than those of its competitors, many like @Shantanu prefer switching ecosystems. But not all such big jobs need to be complicated! Check out this conversation where @Subhash suggests he try one of Zoho's migration tools! You too might need it in the future ;)
Community Spotlight
ZDH Speakers
Cliq Contributors
We want to express our sincere appreciation to all our community contributors. Your commitment, expertise, and the time you invest are invaluable to the community.
For those who are new to the Zoho Developer Community, check out this post to get started.
Make sure to follow the digest every month for the most recent updates and conversations. Stay connected and participate in the forums and the Cliq channel to be featured in the upcoming month's digest. Wishing you all a very happy new year and an amazing month ahead!
SEE ALSO
Recent Topics
Login for test case
Had a few questions regarding authentication test cases and couldn't find an answer in the the docs. 1. If an app like Zoho Creator requires authentication before providing access, do I need to create a login function and add it to each test case? 2.
Zoho / Outlook Calendar sync
The current Marketplace -> Microsoft -> Meetings integration needs 2 changes. 1. The current language for the Two-Way sync option should be changed. It currently states, "Sync both your Zoho CRM Calendar and Office 365 Calendar meetings with each other."
Please make it easier to Pause syncing
right now it takes 3 clicks to get there. sounds silly, but can you make it just 2 clicks to get it done instead? thats how dropbox does it, 2 clicks to pause instead of 3.
Customer members area
Does FSM support a customer members area? If not what do you propose we use if we want the data used in FSM for customers to give them an area / login to see past orders, create new orders and general announcements.
Zoho Books-Accounting on the Go Series!
Dear users, Continuing in the spirit of our 'Function Fridays' series, where we've been sharing custom function scripts to automate your back office operations, we're thrilled to introduce our latest initiative – the 'Zoho Books-Accounting on the Go Series'.
Desktop app doesn't support notecards created on Android
Hi, Does anybody have same problem? Some of last notecards created on Android app (v. 6.6) doesn't show in desktop app (v. 3.5.5). I see these note cards but whith they appear with exclamation mark in yellow triangle (see screenshot) and when I try to
Notes created in mobile can no longer be accessed in desktop
Working with a 2013 Mac running OS 10.14.6; Desktop Notebook version 4.5.3. Using Motorola Moto G Power 5G - 2024; Android app version 6.7 I have been using Notebook for some years. Starting several weeks ago, the notes newly created ion the phone can
Function #49: Manage varying installment payments using Zoho Books
. Hello everyone, and welcome back to our series! Last week, we discussed automating the collection of fixed installment payments in Zoho Books. But what if your payment structure involves charging varying percentages of the invoice total as installments?
Open Sans Font in Zoho Books is not Open Sans.
Font choice in customising PDF Templates is very limited, we cannot upload custom fonts, and to make things worse, the font names are not accurate. I selected Open Sans, and thought the system was bugging, but no, Open Sans is not Open Sans. The real
Zoho Writer - Option to Export as .zdoc format
I've noticed that it's not possible to export a Zoho Writer Document in the .zdoc format. Isn't zdoc, Zoho Writer's own format? My use case is that I sometimes need to create quite complex documents with floating elements, which sometimes need to become
Is it possible for contacts to "Re-enter" a workflow in Zoho Campaign?
We are currently working on a way to automatically add users to from one list to other lists based on specific criteria, but can't seem to find a native way of doing this so we are trying to use Workflows to do this. So, for example, if a user's status is set to "Active," then they should be added to the list "Active Users." If the same user's status is then set to "Paused," they should be added to the list "Paused Users" and removed from the list "Active Users." This works fine for the first go
Bulk upload images and specifications to products
Hi, Many users have asked this over the years and I am also asking the same. Is there any way in which we can bulk upload product (variant) images and product specifications. The current way to upload/select image for every variant is too cumbersome.
Out of Office for Just One of My Alias Email
Can I set up the Out of Office Reply for Just One of my Alias Email Addresses?
Can I map multiple Surveys into the CRM using the same fields?
Hello, We are a healthcare practice that offers two distinct services (Nutrition and Primary Care). We use Zoho Survey for our lead generation form (Get Started Survey), which allows people to express interest in one of the two services and even allows
Dealing with API responses where integers have more than 16 digits
Hi there How do I deal with an api response contaning an int or float with more than 16 digits (before any decimal places for a float). I constantly receive the response "Unable to cast the 'BigInteger' value into a 'BIGINT' value because the input is
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
Can't change form's original name in URL
Hi all, I have been duplicating + editing forms for jobs regarding the same department to maintain formatting + styling. The issue I've not run into is because I've duplicated it from an existing form, the URL doesn't seem to want to update with the new
Need Inactive accounts to be visible in Reports in Zoho Books
I N=need Inactive accounts to be visible in Reports in Zoho Books to do recons of the accounts but when i see the same they are not visible in the Accountant - Account Transactions report
unblock e-mail
please unblock my e-mails info@meatnews.gr and myrtokaterini@meatnews.gr
Add Zoho Mail for users who do not need Zoho One
We have licenses for ZOho One for teams that need to use the suite of products that Zoho One offers. We have 8 more people who only need email access and we would like to add just a Zoho Mail. They do not need the Zoho One license. We are currently
Zoho Projects - Q2 Updates | 2025
Hello Users, With this year's second quarter behind us, Zoho Projects is marching towards expanding its usability with a user-centered, more collaborative, customizable, and automated attribute. But before we chart out plans for what’s next, it’s worth
ZML vs HTML Snippet - which is better?
Are there certain use cases where one is better than the other?
Auto CheckOut Based On Shift.
This Deluge script runs on a scheduled basis to automatically set the 'Actual_Check_Out' time for employees who haven't manually checked out. If the current time is past their scheduled 'Shift_End_Time', the script updates the check-out time to match
How to remove some users in zoho accounts
How to remove some users in Zoho accounts.
Infinite loop of account verification
Hi I can't do anything on my zoho account. I always get this message Hi Sheriffo Ceesay As a security measure, you need to link your phone number with this account and verify it to proceed further. When ever I supply the details, it displays that the number is associated with another account. I don't have any other account on zoho so this is really annoying.
Load PO_Date field (Purchase Order) with current date in Deluge
Hi, I'm not a full time developer, just helping to customize our CRM, in the small company I work for. There must be something wrong with me, because I can't do something so simple as complete a field with the current date in a function using Deluge.
Zoho CRM in Microsoft Power Automate Custom Connector
Hi everyone, I’m building a Power Automate flow that integrates Microsoft Bookings with Zoho CRM. The goal is to automatically create a meeting (event) in Zoho CRM whenever a new appointment is booked via Microsoft Bookings. To achieve this, I created
Spell check sucks
Come on guys, it's 2024 and your spell check is completely retarded. You gotta fix it.
How to include total km for multiple trips in expense report.
Whenever I create a mileage report it only shows the total dollar amount to be reimbursed. The mileage for each individual trip is included but I also need to see the total distance for all trips in a report? How do I do this?
Outgoing blocked: Unusual activity detected.
I just made payment for my Zohomail Today and have been debited so i will like to be Unblocked because this is what it says (Outgoing blocked: Unusual activity detected) Thank you i await your swift responses
Zoho One Login Issue - Unable to receive OTP
Hi Support Team, I am experiencing a unique login issue with Zoho One. I am attempting to log in from India using Zoho Login credentials provided by a USA-based client. Their Zoho account is hosted on a US data center. After entering the username and
Question Regarding Managing Sale Items in Zoho Books
Good day, I was wondering about something. Right now, Zoho Books doesn’t seem to have a way to flag certain items as being on sale. For example, if I want a list of specific items to be on sale from October 1 to October 12, the user would have to export
In the Zoho Creator Customer Payment form i Have customer field on select of the field Data want to fetch from the invoice from based on the customer name In the Customer Payment form i Have subf
In the Zoho Creator Customer Payment form i Have customer field on select of the field Data want to fetch from the invoice from based on the customer name In the Customer Payment form i Have subform update Invoice , there i have date field,Invoice number
Problem of Import Client Users From CRM and or Expense
I am premium plan user on Projects. I have about 500 customers on Expense and CRM that integrated with each other. According to at below link, I am trying to import clients from CRM, system not allowed to select any customer. If I import from Expense,
Unable to see free plan option
Hello Zoho Support Team, I hope you are doing well. I am trying to sign up for Zoho Mail, but I am unable to see the option for the free plan. Could you please guide me on how I can access or activate the free plan? Thank you for your assistance.
unblock my zoho mail account. outlines@zoho.com
please unblock my zoho mail account, outlines@zoho.com
domain not verified error
Hi when i try to upload a video from zoho creator widget to zoho work drive iam getting domain not verified error.I don't know what to do .In zoho api console this is my home page url https://creatorapp.zoho.com/ and this is my redirect url:www.google.com.Iam
equest to Disassociate Bigin from Zoho One and Migrate to Standalone (Upgrade to Bigin Premier – 3 Seats, Annual)
Dear Zoho One Support Team, I’m writing to request your assistance to disassociate (remove) the Bigin application from our Zoho One organization while preserving all existing Bigin data. After the disconnection is successfully completed, we intend to
SMTP email sending problem
Hello, I've sent emails before, but you haven't responded. Please respond. My work is being disrupted. I can't send emails via SMTP. Initially, there were no problems, but now I'm constantly receiving 550 bounce errors. I can't use the service I paid
billing
hi, I am being billed $12/year, and I can't remember why. My User ID is 691273115 Thanks for your help, --Kitty Pearl
Next Page