Extension Pointers #16: A way to sort through the stack and find a solution that works for you
Throughout the 'Extension Pointers' series, we've seen the features available in Zoho Developer platform that are helpful in building extensions for business needs. In this post, we've listed all of them for your quick reference. This will serve as a guide featuring a map between the need for a desired outcome and an approachable solution to achieve it.
Let's say you're planning to customize your Zoho CRM account by adding new features and functionalities that are unique to your business process. How can you build and deliver the enhancements as an installable component when needed? |
Extensions are applications designed to enhance the features of the existing Zoho products, or to integrate a third-party application with Zoho software for different enterprise needs. If you want to develop additional features to enhance the existing Zoho CRM functionality set, you can do so by building extensions. The scope of each extension lies within the different use cases that are handled during its development.
Sigma is the unified Zoho Developer platform available for developers to build and host extensions for different Zoho applications. Depending on your business needs as a developer, you can choose to create an extension using Sigma that acts as one of the following:
- An extension which adds to the core functionality of a Zoho product
- An integration between a third-party application and a Zoho product
Are you looking to establish connections with third-party applications for seamless data integration with Zoho CRM? Learn the possibilities provided in the platform |
You can integrate with third-party applications using either connectors or the custom variables option depending on the user authentication method supported by the third-party app.
- If the third-party application supports OAuth mode for user authentication, connection can be established via connectors. Learn more about connectors with an example.
- If the third-party application supports the API key for user authentication, connection can be established via custom variables. Learn in detail about custom variables with an example.
A Custom UI helps portraying information in a personalized manner. How can you create a customized UI for your extension? |
The creation of a customized UI can be achieved in the Zoho Developer platform using the Connected App feature. You can build a widget and associate it with your extension as a connected app. The connected app can be embedded either as a custom button, a related list, or a web tab in Zoho CRM, depending on your needs.
Take a look at the Widget posts (Part-1 and Part-2) to understand the steps involved in creating a widget.
Zoho CRM APIs supported in JS SDK helps to interact with third-party applications. Using these APIs, we can invoke connectors and GET APIs accordingly by constructing the required parameters. Refer to the example on how to invoke connector through API while building a widget. Similarly, take a look at building third-party integrations by incorporating Custom variables into widgets.
Say you want to get real-time data updates from a third-party application integrated with your Zoho CRM account and take action based on the updated data collected from the application. What might be useful in this scenario? |
Webhook plays an integral role in connecting two applications. Whenever an event occurs in a source application, a web callback occurs, and the webhook posts the real-time data to the required application. Learn the detailed steps involved in handling real-time updates between Zoho CRM and third-party applications using webhooks.
In addition to fetching and processing real-time data from an application, you may also want to receive real-time notifications that alert you on the occurrence of an event and help you act accordingly in your Zoho CRM account. How can you receive these customized real-time notifications in your Zoho CRM? |
The Signals feature enables an efficient and smooth customer interaction experience through the provision of real-time notifications. This helps you keep track of all your customer interactions from different channels in a single platform. It also supports actionable alerts and allows you to customize notifications for different events.
Check out the post on defining and raising a signal to receive timely notifications for a working example to help your understanding.
Say you want to test the functionality of your extension that you built before you publish it. How can you test your extension locally? |
The platform offers an isolated sandbox environment that allows you to test your extension functionality locally. Once you have finished building the extension, click the Test Your Extension button to test the extension in the sandbox environment. You can make changes and test the extension as many times as you want until you get your functionality right.
Have you finished building the extension to meet your needs? What could be done next to make this available to others? |
You can choose to publish your extension as either a private extension or a public extension.
Private Extension: Extensions built for personal or specific organizational purposes. When you publish a private extension, a hashed URL link is made available, which can be privately shared to the users to install the extension.
Public Extension: Extensions listed in Zoho Marketplace. They are available to all Zoho users for installation and use.
We hope this post has helped you gain a better understanding of the features available in Developer Platform that you can use in various scenarios.Please refer to the links provided for an in-depth study of the concepts with the help of a working example.
Trying to understand more about the Developer Platform's ability to develop extensions, stay tuned and follow this space.
See Also:
Access your files securely from anywhere
New to Zoho Recruit?
Zoho Developer Community
New to Zoho LandingPage?
Zoho LandingPage Resources
New to Zoho Survey?
New to Zoho CRM Plus?
Deliver unforgettable customer experiences
New to Zoho CRM Plus?
Deliver unforgettable customer experiences
New to Zoho Marketing Plus?
Everything you need to run your marketing
New to Zoho Marketing Plus?
Everything you need to run your marketing
New to Bigin?
Topic Participants
Nanditha Somasundaram Somasundaram
Developer
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 FAQsKaizen #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
New to Zoho TeamInbox?
Zoho TeamInbox Resources
Zoho CRM Plus Resources
Zoho Books Resources
Zoho Subscriptions Resources
Zoho Projects Resources
Zoho Sprints Resources
Qntrl Resources
Zoho Creator Resources
Zoho CRM Resources
Design. Discuss. Deliver.
Zoho Show Resources
Get Started. Write Away!
Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.
Zoho CRM コンテンツ
-
オンラインヘルプ
-
Webセミナー
-
機能活用動画
-
よくある質問
-
Ebook
-
-
Zoho Campaigns
- Zoho サービスのWebセミナー
その他のサービス コンテンツ
Nederlandse Hulpbronnen
ご検討中の方
Recent Topics
Multi-currency in Zoho CRM Forecast and Reports
As a company we have branches in 4 different countries with as many different currencies. Our Sales Teams would like to work with their local currency as much as possible. The Forecast module using only 1 currency is practically usable only by the salesHow to select from pricebook when creating a salesorder or quote
I am creating a sales order and when selecting the Products I do not see any where to select from pricebooks. How do i associate this to my orders?Proposal for Creating a Unique "Address" Entity in Zoho FSM
The "Address" entity is one of the most critical components for a service-oriented company. While homeowners may change and servicing companies may vary, the address itself remains constant. This constancy is essential for subsequent services, as it providesAutomatic Matching from Bank Statements / Feeds
Is it possible to have transactions from a feed or bank statement automatically match when certain criteria are met? My use case, which is pretty broadly applicable, is e-commerce transactions for merchant services accounts (clearing accounts). In theseI cannot find my older documents from 2024 and 2023
I cannot find my older documents from 2024 and 2023.System default SLA descriptions can't be modified
The system default SLAs have identical descriptions for all SLA levels, but their settings differ. However, I am facing an issue where I cannot modify these descriptions and save the changes. The content of the description box can be edited but the changesCustomising Help Center
Hi I don't think it is possible to add custom pages to help center? We'd like to use this as a customer portal with support tickets, FAQ/Guides, Billing and contracts. Is there any plans to add a feature like this or an alternative way to do it otherReplies sometimes creating separate ticket
Sometimes when a customer responds to an email coming from Zoho Desk, instead of adding a reply to the original ticket, a separate ticket is created. This happens even though the response subject line contained the ticket number, and the person respondingTicket Approvals - External Users
The ticket approval option - we need to be able to select external users (Contacts) for approvals. Sometimes we are working with an end user and their boss needs to approve a purchase. For example, working with a cashier on a broken cash register andForce Users to Ask Answer Bot a question... First
End users will always skip talking to a bot. It would be nice if Zoho adopted the standard and forced users to first ask a question to answer bot (or zia in some fashion) and then pass to the agent if it wasn't answered. Options to force the user to speakView Answer Bot conversations?
We are trialing Zia and are experimenting with Answer Bot on our knowledge base. So far so good! Management asks me if it is possible to view Answer Bot conversations, the purpose being to look over its shoulder and confirm that it is working as desMass Email an Account
It would be nice to mass email an account stating there is an outage at their business or something specific to an account is needed to be mass communicated. Even if it makes a ticket for every Email Out to every contact in the Account. Think: the customerMultiple Topics assigned to a single Campaign
Hello, is it possible to assign multiple Topics to a single Campaign? We frequently write a content to our subscribers that spans multiple Topics and we would like to send it to all Contacts that are subscribed to at least one of the Topics. But it looksBigin Android app update: User management
Hello everyone! In the most recent Bigin Android app update, we have brought in support for the 'Users and Controls' section. You can now manage the users in your organization within the mobile app. There are three tabs in the 'Users and Controls' section:Zoho Projects Fonts and Accessibility missing
I cannot find any more the tab where I can change the font in Zoho Project. I also checked the knowledgebase and there they have accessibility tab which I am completely missing. Is there some setup I am missing or is it a problem with our account?Introducing Version-3 APIs - Explore New APIs & Enhancements
Happy to announce the release of Version 3 (V3) APIs with an easy to use interface, new APIs, and more examples to help you understand and access the APIs better. V3 APIs can be accessed through our new link, where you can explore our complete documentation,Zoho Books Custom Widgets Deprecation Error
I created a simple sample widget with zet and published it using sigma Both in the Sandbox and Production the Widgets are showing this errorProblems with PDF files in notebook
I'm evaluating Zoho Notebook as an alternative to Evernote and imported my Evernote account to Zoho Notebook. First issue is that notes in Evernote that comprise a PDF are turned into a 'group' with a single note page (that has the text from the EvernoteAPI (v3) Tasks sorting issue
We are using the v3 API for Projects. When we gat all tasks, per page of 100 tasks, we get the task info alright. But when we try to sort based on DESC(last_modified_time) we don't get the correct sort order. It is roughly sorted by the last_modified_time,Assemblies make my stock go negative
I am sure this is just the way that we are using this feature, but we use assemblies, a lot. The issue for us is the way that the relive inventory and the fact that it makes our composite item stock go negative. I have added flows to auto assemble andUser Activity Reports
I'd like to get data related to user activity. For example, Login and logout times, emails sent/received, new records created , etc. Is that currently available. I just can't seem to find anything . Thanks, DaveHelp: Populate “Contact Owner” details into Customer custom fields (for email templates) in Zoho Books
We want to send invoices on behalf of our sales agents, and include the agent’s name, email, and phone in the email body using placeholders. Plan is to copy the Customer Owner details into three Customer custom fields, so they can be used as placeholdersUndocumented Books API error message - 1000 - The requested action could not be completed. Please try again. | Unexpected error
This code sometimes throws this error 1000 - The requested action could not be completed. Please try again. | Unexpected error What does it mean? result = zoho.books.updateRecord("salesorders",organization.get("organization_id"),salesorder_id,sales_Partial payments for retainer invoices
When a customer does not pay the entire retainer invoice there is no way to apply a partial payment. PLEASE add this function.Making Tags Mandatory
When creating an expense, is it possible to make the Tags field mandatory? I see the option in settings to make other fields mandatory, like Merchant, Description, Customer, etc, but nothing about Tags. Thanks! KevinMass Update not trigger workflows
Hi, I have performed a mass update of all records in a custom module using a custom view. I have a dummy checkbox on my module that I turn on or off - hoping to trigger all the new workflows that have been created for that module. However, no workflowsMulti-Select lookup field has reached its maximum??
Hi there, I want to create a multi-select lookup field in a module but I can't select the model I want the relationship to be with from the list. From the help page on this I see that you can only create a max of 2 relationships per module? Is that true?Generating CRM reports based on date moved in staged history
Hi everyone, I'm trying to generate CRM reports of jobs (I think these are called usually deals) based on when they were moved to a particular stage, ie all jobs that were moved to Proposal/Quote in the previous financial year. I can see from other similarModules for missed calls, emails, texts etc
Hi there. Is there a way to create a module that would automatically show a list of all inbound calls that were missed by our users, as well as any inbound SMS's, emails & WhatsApp messages. That way, a user who is available, can work through that listSubforms and automation
If a user updates a field how do we create an automation etc. We have a field for returned parts and i want to get an email when that field is ticked. How please as Zoho tells me no automation on subforms. The Reason- Why having waited for ever for FSMConditional layouts - support for multi-select picklists
Hi, The documentation for conditional layouts says the following: "Layout Rules cannot be used on the following field types: Auto Number Lookup Multi Select Lookup User Lookup Formula File Upload Multi Line" I have a custom module with a multi-pick listAbility to Set a General Email Signature for the Organization in Zoho Recruit
Dear Zoho Recruit Team, I hope you're doing well. We would like to request a feature that would allow us to set a general email signature at the organizational level within Zoho Recruit. Currently it is only possible for individual users to create theirCustom Buttons & Links Now Supported in Portals
We’ve just made portals in Zoho Recruit more powerful and customizable than ever! You can now bring the power of Custom Buttons and Links to your Candidate, Client, Vendor, and Custom Portals — enabling portal users to take direct action without recruiterChange Last Name to not required in Leads
I would like to upload 500 target companies as leads but I don't yet have contact people for them. Can you enable the option for me to turn this requirement off to need a Second Name? Moderation update (10-Jun-23): As we explore potential solutions forCC and/or BCC users in email templates
I would like the ability to automatically assign a CC and BCC "User (company employee)" into email templates. Specifically, I would like to be able to add the "User who owns the client" as a CC automatically on any interview scheduled or candidate submittedIs there a way to show contact emails in the Account?
I know I can see the emails I have sent and received on a Contact detail view, but I want to be able to see all the emails that have been sent and received between all an Accounts Contacts on the Account Detail view. That way when I see the Account detailLive webinar: Transform data into impactful visuals with Zoho Show
Data is frequently a core part of a presentation, whether it’s a sales pitch, project update, research report, or performance review. But when it’s just numbers on a page, the message you’re trying to convey can get buried. The real magic happens whenZoho 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 worthFile attachments not working - web version
Since Notebook announced better file attachments, I have experienced file attachments failing. When uploaded from my pc to the web version, notebook just spins. Acting like the attachment is very large. When it's 30k. If I cancel out of this, the notecardAPI - Barebones Data for Send Doc For Signiture
I am learning how to use with Zoho Sign API. I am wondering if someone can give me a bare bones JSON data sample for "Send Document For Signature". Below is the blank data that is pre-populated in postman. Seems like there is more here than the bare minimumNext Page