Kaizen #22 - Connections in Zoho CRM

Hello everyone!

Welcome back to another post in the Kaizen series!

This week, we will discuss Connections in Zoho CRM.

In this post, we will discuss the following:

What are connections?
Authentication types
Creating a connection
Using a connection

1. What are Connections?

A Connection (or a connector) is a simple authentication mechanism to connect your Zoho CRM account with a third-party app.

Zoho provides default integration support to a wide range of apps like core Google services (Contacts, Calendar, and Google Ads) and Microsoft software (MS Office, MS Outlook, etc).

However, there is no default integration with third party services like PandaDoc, SignEasy etc,. In these cases, you can use a connector to expand Zoho's third-party support. Connectors use the OAuth 2.0 or other authentication types to facilitate this integration.

You can use connections to invoke any third-party apps' REST APIs and get access to the authenticated data through your functions or widgets.

Zoho provides more than 20 connections to the most popular third-party apps, out of the box. You can also create your own connection and integrate your app with Zoho CRM.

2. Authentication types

Since different services have different methods of authentication for their service, Connections are equipped with four different modes of authentication.

a. Basic Authentication

b. API Key

c. OAuth 1.0

d. OAuth 2.0

a. Basic Authentication

This is the authentication method where the user's username and password are sent in the header, form data, or the query string in the format username:password. This method uses the Base64 encoding standard to encode the username and password.

b. API Key

This is a token that the client provides that you can send in the query string or in the header. The API key is unique to every user and stays the same for that user as long as the user uses the service.

c. OAuth 1.0

This method uses a Request Token and an Access Token to get access to the resources on the resource server. The access token does not expire until the user revokes it.

d. OAuth 2.0

This method provides an app limited access by providing an access token only to specific resources. The access token is valid only for an hour.

3. Creating a Connection

To create a new connection,

Go to Setup > Developer Space > Connections.
Click Get Started. The Create Connection page opens.
The Pick your Service tab lists all the connections that are already available. Choose the one that meets your needs.
If any third-party app is not listed under this tab, you can add a new service under the Custom Service tab.
For already existing services (under the Pick Your Service tab),
a. Select the service of your choice.
b. Enter the details of the connection such as the name and choose the scope you require from the list.
c. Click Create and Connect. The below image shows a sample connection created for the YouTube app, and you can use the code shown in the box to invoke the YouTube APIs.
For a new service (services not listed under the Pick Your Service tab),
a. Click the Custom Service tab.
b. Enter the name of the service and choose the authentication type that the third-party service supports.
c. For services that use the OAuth1.0 or OAuth2.0 protocol, enter the following details:
Client ID and Secret you obtained from the third-party service.
The URLs to obtain the request token and the access token (OAuth1.0).
The URLs to obtain the access token and refresh token (OAuth 2.0).
You must obtain these details from the third-party service's documentation.
The below image shows a sample connection created for the third-party service "SignEasy".
Enter the name of the connection and the required scope.
Click Create and Connect.
The connection will be created and the summary will be displayed.
The system also displays the code you must use in a function to invoke the connection.
The below image shows the sample connection created for the third-party service "SignEasy". You can use the code in the box to use the APIs of SignEasy.
Where,
url: The URL that you can obtain from the third-party service.
type: The HTTP request method (GET, POST, PUT, or DELETE) that the request performs.
parameters: The parameters that the function uses to replace the dynamic values present in the API with user-specific values.

4. Using a Connection

After creating a connection, you can use them in functions to invoke them.

Let us consider a case where you want to send out newsletters through a MailChimp campaign to the contacts stored in Zoho CRM. Before you can send them the newsletters, you want to obtain their consent through a consent form stored in Google Drive.

Here, you must establish a connection between MailChimp and Google Drive and have the consent form as a button in the View page of the Contacts module in CRM.

You can choose to place this widget as a button in the View page of a contact. When the CRM user (an agent) clicks this button, the Consent form widget opens where the agent fills the details of the user.

This triggers the function where an email is sent to the customer. When the customer grants consent, the details of that contact are added to the MailChimp campaign list.

Simply put, you must

a. Establish a connection between Google Drive and MailChimp.

b. Write a function to call the APIs of both these apps.

c. Make the function available as an API.

d. Create a widget and invoke the function.

Let us now see these steps in detail.

a. Establish a connection between Google Drive and MailChimp

Follow the steps in the "Create a Connection" section, and create connections for Google Drive and MailChimp.

b. Write the function code

Go to Setup > Developer Space > Functions > +New Function.
Enter details like the function name, display name, description, and choose the function category (Standalone, in our case).
Write the code in the console as shown below. You can find the code as an attachment to this post.
What does this sample function do?
a. Invokes the MailChimp API.
b. Checks for the Campaign ID.
c. Checks for the email address. If the email already exists on the campaign list, throws the message "The member has already subscribed to the newsletter." Otherwise, adds the email to the campaign list.
d. Invokes the Google Drive API to get the link of the Consent form.
e. If the consent form exists on Google Drive, sends the form to the email address.
e. If the form does not exist, throws the error "No document found".
This function takes the following parameters
listId (string) - The Campaign ID from MailChimp,
emailAddress (string) - The email ID of the contact you want to send the newsletter to,
extraDetails (string) - To capture any extra information about the contact after they grant consent such as the mobile number, address etc.
Click Save and Execute. Provide the listId, emailAddress, and extraDetails to check if the function works as expected.
Click Close.

c. Make the function available as an API

Go to Setup > Developer Space > Functions.
Choose the required function and click the Settings icon. Select REST API.
Enable the OAuth2.0 and API key sliders and click Save.
The function is now available as an API. You can use the URL as a webhook to trigger the function or use the API name of the function in your code to trigger it.

For more details about functions, refer to this post.

d. Create a widget and invoke the function

Since the function is now available as an API, you can use it in any widget and trigger the function based on your needs.

The HTML and the script for the below consent form is attached to this post.

You can also write your own implementation of the widget. Refer to this page to know how.

What does the sample widget code do?

a. The HTML renders the widget.

b. When the user hits the "Subscribe" button, the script invokes the connection and calls the above function (4.b.3) via JavaScript.

We hope you found this post useful. Stay tuned for more!

Cheers!

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