Kaizen #18 - Ruby SDK
Hello everyone!
Welcome back to another week of Kaizen!
This week, we will discuss the Ruby SDK.
What is the Ruby SDK for Zoho CRM?
Ruby SDK allows you to create client Ruby applications that you can integrate with Zoho CRM, effortlessly. It serves as a wrapper for the REST APIs, thus making it easier to use the services of Zoho CRM.
Here is a sample of how the SDK acts as a middle ware between Zoho CRM and a client Ruby Application.
What can you do with the Ruby SDK?
- Exchange data between Zoho CRM and the client application where the CRM entities are modeled as classes.
- Authenticate your application easily every time you sync data between Zoho CRM and your application, as the SDK takes care of generating the access/refresh tokens automatically.
Environment Setup
The client app must have the Ruby version 2.3.7 or above installed. Refer to Ruby Installation for the steps to install Ruby.
How to Start using the Ruby SDK?
Follow the below steps:
- Step-1: Register your application (Self Client or Web-based client)
- Step-2: Install the SDK
- Step-3: Initialize the SDK
3.a. Choose the token persistence method
3.b. Set up the configuration dictionary
3.c. Generate the tokens - Step-4: Connect to Zoho CRM through the available methods
Let us now discuss these steps in detail.
Step-1: Register your application
All the Zoho CRM APIs are authenticated by the OAuth2.0 standards. It is mandatory to authenticate your application with Zoho.
You can register your application either as a Self Client (single user app) or a web-based app (multiple users app).
1.a. Self Client
- Go to https://api-console.zoho.com.
- Click ADD CLIENT.
- Choose the Client Type as Self Client, and click CREATE.
- You will receive a client ID and a client secret upon successful registration.
1.b. Web-based Client
- Go to https://api-console.zoho.com.
- Click ADD CLIENT.
- Choose the client as Web based and click CREATE NOW.
- Specify the client name, homepage URL of your application's UI, and a redirect URI to which you want to redirect the users after they grant consent to your application.
- Click CREATE.
- Your Client ID and Client Secret will be displayed.
Step-2: Install the SDK
The Ruby SDK is available as a gem.
Run the below command to install the Ruby SDK for Zoho CRM.
gem install ZCRMSDK |
Step-3: Initialize the SDK
Initializing the SDK involves the following steps.
- Step 3.a - Choosing the token persistence method
- Step 3.b - Setting up the configuration dictionary
- Step 3.c - Generating the tokens
3.a. Token Persistence
Your application should retain tokens (grant, access, and refresh tokens) to automate the process of data transfer between your Ruby application and Zoho CRM.
You can persist (store) the tokens in three ways.
a. MySQL Persistence (default)
b. File Persistence
c. Custom DB Persistence
a. MySQL Persistence
When you want to store the tokens in the MySQL DB, ensure that MySQL2 is installed.
Run the below command to install MySQL2.
gem install mysql2 -v 0.5.2 |
For this type of persistence, you must include the following keys in the configuration dictionary (discussed in the next section), along with other mandatory keys.
"mysql_username":"root",
"mysql_password":"*****",
"mysql_port":"port_number"
Note
When you use MySQL persistence, ensure that
- MySQL runs in the same machine serving at the mentioned port. (by default 3306).
- There is a database named zohooauth.
- There is a table name oauthtokens with the columns useridentifier (varchar(100)), accesstoken (varchar(100)), refreshtoken (varchar(100)) and expirytime (bigint).
b. File Persistence
If you want to store the tokens in a file, you can create a file named zcrm_oauthtokens.txt and provide the absolute path of the folder containing this file in the below key of the configuration array.
"token_persistence_path":"path_to_the_folder_containing_the_txt_file"
If you do not create this file, the SDK itself creates this file in the path you have specified, and persists the token there.
Note: This method is recommended only for self client apps.
c. Custom DB Persistence
To use this method, you need to provide the following keys in the configuration dictionary.
"persistence_handler_class_path":"absolute path to the custom DB implementation"
"persistence_handler_class":"class name of the custom implementation".
You can use the inbuilt ZohoPersistenceHandler interface and include the following custom functions.
- saveOAuthData(ZohoOAuthTokens tokens)
- deleteOAuthTokens($userEmailId)
- getOAuthTokens($userEmailId)
Note
The order of precedence for token persistence is custom, file, and DB persistence. That is, if you provide the details for custom persistence (in persistence_handler_class_path) and file persistence details (in token_persistence_path), then custom persistence is given priority over file.
3.b. Configuration dictionary
The below tables contains the list of keys you must include in the configuration dictionary based on the type of persistence.
Mandatory Keys
File Persistence | MySQL Persistence | Custom DB Persistence |
client_id | client_id | client_id |
client_secret | client_secret | client_secret |
redirect_uri | redirect_uri | redirect_uri |
token_persistence_path | db_username | persistence_handler_class |
- | db_password | persistence_handler_class_path |
- | db_port | - |
current_user_email | current_user_email | current_user_email |
Optional Keys
File Persistence | MySQL Persistence | Custom DB Persistence |
application_log_file_path | application_log_file_path | application_log_file_path |
log_in_console | log_in_console | log_in_console |
sandbox | sandbox | sandbox |
access_type | access_type | access_type |
accounts_url | accounts_url | accounts_url |
api_base_url | api_base_url | api_base_url |
api_version | api_version | api_version |
Where,
- client_id, client_secret, and redirect_uri - Client details you received after registering your application. For self client apps, you can pass a dummy value for the redirect uri.
- token_persistence_path - The relative path to store the OAuth tokens in the zcrm_oauthtokens.txt file. This key is mandatory if you want to use file persistence.
- db_username, db_password, db_port - The MySQL username, password, and the port, respectively.
- persistence_handler_class - Name of the class of the custom implementation for persistence. This key is mandatory if you want to use custom persistence.
- persistence_handler_class_path - The absolute path to the custom DB implementation (.rb file).
- application_log_file_path - The absolute path to log the exceptions during the usage of the SDK.
- log_in_console - To print the exceptions on the console screen, when set as "true".
- sandbox - Boolean key to make API calls to the sandbox environment. The value true makes API calls to the sandbox. Default value is false.
- access_type - Must be set as offline as the SDK does not support online OAuth client, now.
- accounts_url - The domain-specific accounts URL from which you generate the tokens.
This key is mandatory when the user is not in the "com" domain.
For US: https://accounts.zoho.com
For EU: https://accounts.zoho.eu
For CN: https://accounts.zoho.com.cn
For IN: https://accounts.zoho.in - api_base_url - The domain-specific API URL from which you make API calls. For users from domains other than the US, this key is mandatory.
For US: https://www.zohoapis.com
For EU: https://www.zohoapis.eu
For CN: https://www.zohoapis.com.cn
For IN: https://www.zohoapis.in - api_version - Represents the version of the CRM APIs. The value is v2.
- current_user_email - The email ID of the current user. You must set this either in the configuration array or ZCRMSDK::RestClient::ZCRMRestClient.current_user_email = "current user email id".
Below is a configuration dictionary with all the keys.
config_details = { 'client_id' => 'xxxxx', #mandatory 'client_secret' => 'xxxxxx', #mandatory 'redirect_uri' => 'https://www.zoho.com', #mandatory 'current_user_email' => 'abc@xyz.com', #mandatory (should be either set in config array or ZCRMSDK::RestClient::ZCRMRestClient.current_user_email = "current user email id" ) 'api_version' => 'v2', #optional,default is v2 'sandbox' => 'false', #optional default is sandbox 'application_log_file_path' => "/Users/xxxx/Desktop/log.log", #optional, absolute path of log file 'log_in_console' => 'true', #optional default is false, to log on the console 'persistence_handler_class_path' => 'absolute/path/to/customClass.ruby', #absolute path to the custom db implementation 'persistence_handler_class' =>'classname', #name of the class 'token_persistence_path'=>'relativepath/to/zcrm_oauthtokens.txt', #for file persistence 'db_username' => 'username', #optional, default root 'db_password' => 'password', #optional, default '' 'db_port' => 'port_number', #optional, default 3306 } |
Now that you have created and registered your app with Zoho, you must authenticate it.
Pass the configuration dictionary in the method ZCRMRestClient.init(config) and authenticate your app.
3.c. Generating the tokens
As the V2 Zoho CRM APIs follow the OAuth2.0 protocol, it is mandatory to authorize the OAuth2.0 app before using the SDK functions.
You can generate an access token from a grant token.
You can generate the grant token in two ways based on the type of client.
For Self Client Applications
- Go to Zoho Developer Console.
- Select your Self Client.
- Provide the necessary scopes separated by commas, along with the scope aaaserver.profile.READ.
- Select the Time Duration from the drop-down. This is the time the grant token is valid for.
- Provide a description for the scopes. Click GENERATE.
- Copy the grant token.
For Web-based Applications
It is the responsibility of your client app to generate the grant token for the users trying to login.
Your Application's UI must have the Login with Zoho option to open the grant token URL of Zoho, which would prompt for the user's OAuth2.0 authorization.
Upon the successful login of the user, the grant token will be sent as a parameter to your registered redirect URL.
Generating an access token from the grant token
Use the below code snippet in your main class.
client = ZCRMSDK::OAuthClient::ZohoOAuth.get_client_instance grant_token = 'grant_token' client.generate_access_token(grant_token) |
Note
- The code snippet to generate the access token from the grant token is valid only once per grant token. If the grant token expires before you generate the access token, you must generate a new grant token only.
- Generating access and refresh tokens is a one-time process. After the tokens are generated the first time, the SDK persists them based on the keys defined in the configuration dictionary, and refreshes the access token as and when required.
Step-4: Connect to Zoho CRM through the available methods
Here is a sample to get a specific user's details. You can find the code for this sample in the attachment.
The isTokenGenerated Method
def self.is_token_generate(user) tokens = ZCRMSDK::OAuthClient::ZohoOauth.get_persistence_instance.get_oauth_tokens(user) unless tokens.nil? return true end rescue Exception => e return false end |
You need to add this method to check if the access token has already been generated or not. It returns a Boolean value.
- true - The access token has already been generated.
- false - The access token has not been generated previously, thus, it shifts the control to the code snippet that leads to access token generation.
For more sample codes, refer to our SDK guide.
We hope you found this post useful. Stay tuned for more!
Cheers!
Access your files securely from anywhere
Centralize Knowledge. Transform Learning.
All-in-one knowledge management and training platform for your employees and customers.
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
Shylaja S
Sticky Posts
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.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 thisKaizen #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 howKaizen #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
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
Zoho mail to Teaminbox
Hello, We're searching for new mail program. Now I'm testing a bit with zoho mail and team inbox. My findings in the research: Pop mail throught zoho mail is almost instant. Any pop or imap via external provider takes a couple minutes to 15 minutes beforeCrear tarea CRM con recordatorio desde Zoho Flow
Hola, estoy intentando crear desde Zoho Flow una tarea en CRM. Lo he logrado hacer pero sin recordatorio, ya que no se como se debe escribir el string adecuado. He probado varias alternativas, pero ninguna me funcionó hasta ahora. - FREQ=NONE;ACTION=EMAIL;TRIGGER=DATE-TIME:${FechaVto}Inquiry Regarding Automated Assignment of Zoho TeamInbox Messages using Zoho Flow and Deluge
Hello, Our company is currently using Zoho TeamInbox, and we are interested in automating the assignment of responsible parties using tools such as ZOHO Flow and Deluge. Is it possible to achieve this? Allow me to provide more details. Currently, whenMultiple clients in one project
Hi team, What is the possibility to have more than one client to be linked for one project in the Zoho Books? Our business model is to have a project, and this project have expenses/bills, as well, we issue invoices for this same project to several customers.Upgrade Zoho Desk Agent-Side Answer Bot to GenAI
Hello Zoho Desk Team, We hope you're doing well. Following the recent announcements and rollout of the GenAI-based Answer Bot in Zoho SalesIQ (Nova '25), we’d like to formally request a similar upgrade for the Answer Bot used by agents inside Zoho Desk.Marketers' Space: The importance of warming up your sender domain
Hello Marketers, Welcome back to yet another post! Today, we'll talk about why warming up your sender domain matters. Imagine you've recently started a business and want to share the news with your customers. You've designed a great email campaign usingAn Exclusive Session for Zoho Desk Users: AI in Zoho Desk
A Zoho Community Learning Initiative Hello everyone! This is an announcement for Zoho Desk users and anyone exploring Zoho Desk. With every nook and corner buzzing, "AI's here, AI's there," it's the right time for us to take a closer look at how the AISearch Just Got Smarter in Notebook
Hello there! Introducing Our New & Improved Search Experience! We heard your feedback! Many of you shared that our previous search had some challenges like • Inconsistent results across different clients • Limited accuracy in finding the right contentZoho Desk app update - AI Integration for IM Chats
Hello everyone! We have now introduced AI integration for IM Chats within the Zoho Desk mobile app. To access the feature, please enable the 'Generative AI' settings on the desktop site(desk.zoho.com). Please refer to the help link attached below: ZohoOpen A.I assistant Connect with Zoho Desk instant Message Conversations
I would like to know how do I connect my instant messenger in Zoho desk with my Open A.I Gpt Assistant. this is very easy to setup using the Salesiq Zobot but when it comes to Zoho Desk i cannot figure how to make the connection. Ideal workflow CustomersZoho Projects - Refine Access to Collaboration Menu
Hi Projects Team, I noticed that Calendar, Chat and Meeting menu options in the Collaboration section are visible to client users, even when they don't have access to the features. This could be confusing and frustrating, because if it's there you expectCannot upgrade subscription plan due to payment error message
Hi Zoho team, This is to request support on an issue I am facing during an upgrade I am trying to make to our company's yearly Zoho subscription. I am trying to add 3 more license to my plan and during the payment phase I get the below error as in theEnhancing Zia's service with better contextual responses and article generation
Hello everyone, We are enhancing Zia's Generative AI service to make your support experience smarter. Here's how: Increased accuracy with Qwen One of the key challenges in AI is delivering responses that are both contextually accurate and empathetic whileZoho Desk app update: AI powered features
Hello everyone! We’ve introduced various AI-powered services on the Zoho Desk app. Let's take a look at what's new. Generate Content: Generate Content uses AI to formulate responses based on the your query and provides a ready-to-use reply which can beBulk update Archived Ticket
Dear All We would like to update the "Category" values to the new filed. We found the archived Ticket seems to be don't support the bulk action. Do we have any way to update it. Finally, we would to generate a report for our ticket system. Regards IChannel Configuration and Default Channels
There are some of the default fields that cannot be removed or changed. Examples are the social media ones, such as Facebook. It would be nice to be able to remove these fields as it would be confusing if someone selected this but it's not configureDelay function execute
I've got a workflow which uses a webhook to send information to Flow, which in return updates a record in Creator. Problem is, by the time this has executed, the rest of my script has run and can't find the (yet to be) updated info in the record. Is thereSupport www.camcard.com
Hi, Is it possible CRM Zoho have integrations with https://camcard.com/? Thanks Br, AndyOption 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 toCan't make a document editable to anyone
Hey everyone, I am using Zoho Workdrive and trying to share a document so that it is editable by anyone with the link. I am trying to convince people to shift from Google to Zoho, but they don't have accounts yet. When I try to change the share settingsEdit Default Print
What I want to do is create / edit the "Default Print" template without changing the layout I'm using. Currently I can create "Email Templates" but I don't use them for emailing and getting to that selection takes multiple clicks. If an email template could be set to be the Default Print template that would be helpful. I'd also like to print these in bulk but don't see that option (there is a mail merge macro but that goes straight to emailing, not to print or PDF).Widget shows error
Hi， May I ask why below characters will be auto added into the widget link and how to solve this error? As my widget shows 404 error now. ?serviceOrigin=https%3A%2F%2Fcrm.zoho.com&frameorigin=https%3A%2F%2Fcrm.zoho.comHow to print envelope labels from Zoho CRM
Can anybody give me any clue how to print envelope/package labels directly from Contacts view? Regards, Alexandru Moderation Update: The Canvas Print View, which also facilitates the formatting of mailing labels, is now available! Learn more here: ZohoData Import: New interface, improved field mapping, and more
Hello everyone! We’ve redesigned the data import process to ensure accurate field alignment and verify that every column in the uploaded file maps correctly with Desk fields before import. Here's how: Streamlined Import Steps Importing data is now moreAddress labels
Hi, we've been searching for a long time for a simple way for our employees to print address labels using a Dymo Label Writer 450. We came up with two alternatives that work, bur aren't really optimal. First one is WebMerge. Webmerge is a great application that does 100% what we need but it is way too expensive for our needs. We only need to print a couple of labels per month. The second one is the integrated print tool in Zoho CRM, (Print preview) You would think this is the obvious way to do thisPrint Labels
How can I configure my address to print my labels like this: Name Mailing Address Mailing City, Mailing State Mailing Zip Country Instead of: Name Mailing Address Mailing City Mailing State Mailing Zip Country Thanks!!!!Mailing labels - Improperly formatted
All I'm trying to do is print one, properly formatted, mailing label. I'm in the Contacts module. In the default "list view" for mailing labels I selected a single client, hit the "more actions" drop down and selected print mailing label. Unfortunately,Printing mailing labels
The ability to print mailing labels would seem to be an important, basic, function of a good CRM. I find it very surprising that this has still not been addressed adequately by Zoho. When trying to use the existing "mailing label" included: 1. the dataPageless mode needed to modernise Writer
When we switched from GSuite to Zoho, one of the easiest apps I found to give up, was Docs. In many ways, Writer has always been more powerful than Docs, especially in terms of workflows/fillable forms/etc. However, I went back into Docs because I noticeZoho Projects - Visual improvement to parent and sub-task relationship
Hi Projects Team, My feature request is to improve sub-task visibility. Please see screenshot below. I really think parent child relationships could be visually improved. Even if the first letter of the parent task was inline with other same level tasksAPI method to get activity feed in Recruit
Hi community, I'm trying to figure out - is there any API method tto get information about datetime when Recruit/Candidates record tag where added?Printing Mailing labels
Is there any way to adjust the size of the printing labels? or product would I use to print labels from Zoho? Thanks, Josef Krieger Moderation Update (14th April 2025): We have another post discussing the same topic with votes and feedback from users.Default to Current Date
I'm importing data from a excel spread sheet that does not have date column and I'd like the date column in the Zoho Database to default to the current date. Any way I can do this?Different Company Name for billing & shipping address
We are using Zoho Books & Inventory for our Logistics and started to realize soon, that Zoho is not offering a dedicated field for a shipping address company name .. when we are creating carrier shipping labels, the Billing Address company name gets alwaysMake Packages from multiple sales order of a single customer
Our customers sends orders to us very frequently, some times what customer wants is to ship items from 5 to 6 sales orders in a single shipment. it will be very nice if, zoho can implement this function, in which we can select items from other sales orders of the customer.Show Custom Button in Portal Listview Canvas
I have created a custom button that shows in a list view of deals (internally I can see it). I have permissions to allow this button on the portal. But it is not displaying in the canvas list? Before I do too much leg work, is this function allowed?Zoho Sites "pages" management page
I have 80 plus pages on zoho sites. When I go to the "pages" link to view and edit pages, They are not in any kind of order, so I spend lots of time searching for pages when I need to edit or create new. How can I change the view order of all my pagesAI feature in Zoho Desk suggesting answers based on past ticket threads
Hi I would like to suggest something that would be very useful : instead of suggesting answers based on the Knowledge Base, I think it would be great if Zia could analyze the history of all customer and agents threads, to suggest answers in new tickets.Advanced Customization of the Help Center using JavaScript
Hello everyone, The Help Center in Zoho Desk can be customized by using HTML and CSS to provide structure and enhance the page's appearance—but what if you want to add interactive and dynamic elements? You can add these effects with JavaScript, a programmingIntroducing Zoho POS for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Hey everyone, We are excited to kick-start December with a completely personalized edition of POS for retail businesses in Saudi Arabia to help run your operations with ease. It offers four different subscription plans—Free, Standard, Professional, andNext Page