Kaizen #8 - Handling Recurrence and Participants in the Events Module via API

Kaizen #8 - Handling Recurrence and Participants in the Events Module via API

Hello everyone!

We are back this week with an exciting post—Handling recurrence and participants in the Events module through API.

First things first—What is the Events module?
"Events" is a part of the Activities module in Zoho CRM. 
An event is an activity that happens at a given place and time. You can find Events on the user's Zoho CRM's home page, Activities home page, Calendar, and in other related records.

What are the types of Events?
Events are of two types—Recurring and non-recurring events.
Recurring events: These events repeat/recur at a set frequency. You can set them to repeat by day, week, month, or by year. You can also set them to repeat a fixed number of times. 
Non-recurring events: These are one-time events.
Both these events can also be all-day events.

Now, let us see how to handle a recurring event and add/update participants via API.

1. Creating a Recurring Event through API
You must use the Insert Records API to insert a record in the Events module.

Request URL: {{api-domain}}/crm/v2/Events
Request method: POST

Sample input to create a recurring event that repeats every two weeks

{
    "data": [
        {
            "All_Day": false,
            "Event_Title": "Kaizen_9_Weekly",
            "Start_DateTime": "2020-02-02T10:00:00+05:30",
            "End_DateTime": "2020-02-02T11:00:00+05:30",
            "Participants": [
                {
                    "type": "contact",
                    "participant": "3652397000001281003"
                },
                {
                    "type": "lead",
                    "participant": "3652397000000415063"
                },
                {
                    "type": "user",
                    "participant": "3652397000000186017"
                }
            ],
            "Recurring_Activity": {
                "RRULE": "FREQ=WEEKLY;BYDAY=SU;INTERVAL=2;UNTIL=2020-03-15"
            },
            "Remind_At": "2020-02-01T09:45:00+05:30",
            "Who_Id": {
                "id": "3652397000000649013",
                "name": "Patricia Boyle"
            },
            "Venue": "Chennai",
            "$se_module": "Accounts",
            "What_Id": "3652397000000624046",
            "$send_notification": true
        }
    ]
}


Mandatory keys
The following table lists the mandatory fields you must specify while creating a recurring event. Not including any one of these fields results in the MANDATORY_NOT_FOUND error.

Key
Data Type
Description
Event_Title
String
Title of the event. Accepts a maximum of 255 characters, alphanumeric, and special characters. 
Start_DateTime
DateTime
The date and time (in ISO8601 format) at which the event begins. 
End_DateTime
DateTime
The date and time (in ISO8601 format) at which the event ends. 
Recurring_Activity
JSON Object
JSON Object that contains information about the recurrence pattern of the event in the key "RRULE".

Other Keys

Key
Data Type
Description
All_day
Boolean
Represents if the event takes place all day.
Participants
JSON Array
Contains the ID and type of each participant in individual JSON objects. Possible participant types are "lead", "contact", "user", and "email".
Remind_At
DateTime
The date and time in the current user's time zone (in ISO8601 format) at which a reminder is sent to the participants. 
Who_Id
JSON Object
The name and ID of the contact that the event is related to; that contact may or may not be a participant of the event.
What_Id
JSON Object
The name and ID of the Account, Deal, Product, Quote, Invoice, Campaign, Vendor, Case, Purchase Order, or Sales Order that the event is created for.
$se_module
String
The API name of the parent module given in the key "What_Id". This key is mandatory when you include the "What_Id".
Venue
String
The place where the event takes place. Accepts a maximum of 255 characters, alphanumeric, and special characters.
$send_notification
Boolean
Represents if you want to send invitations to the participants of the event. The value true sends out invitations, and false does not. 

We will now discuss the Participants and RRULE keys in detail.

1.1 Participants
The Participants key is a JSON array of participant JSON objects. You can add four types of participants to an event—lead, contact, user, and email. 
You must include each of these participant types as individual JSON objects inside this array as shown below.

"Participants": [
        {
            "type": "contact",
            "participant": "3652397000001281003"
        },
        {
            "type": "lead",
            "participant": "3652397000000415063"
        },
        {
            "type": "user",
            "participant": "3652397000000186017"
        },
        {
            "type": "email",
            "participant": "carissa-kidman@yahoo.com"
        }
]

Where, 
type - The type of participant. The possible values are lead, contact, user, email
participant -  The record ID of the lead, contact, or user.

1.2 RRULE
RRULE is the key in the Recurring_Activity JSON object that determines the recurrence pattern of the event. 
RRULE holds multiple key-value pairs for different types of recurring events (i.e Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly). You must separate each key-value pair by a semicolon.

Mandatory key-value pairs for RRULE
Key
Possible Values
Description
FREQ
DAILY, WEEKLY, MONTHLY, YEARLY
Frequency; represents how often the event repeats. 
INTERVAL
1–99
The gap between each event. For example, for a weekly recurring event, if the INTERVAL value is 2, the gap between the first and the next event will be two weeks. 
COUNT
1–99
The number of events you want to create. For example, if the COUNT value is 3, three events will be created. 

Note
You must specify FREQ and (INTERVAL or COUNT) in RRULE.

Other key-value pairs in RRULE
Key
Possible Values
Description
BYMONTHDAY
1–31
The day of the month the event repeats on. Applicable only for  monthly and yearly events.
BYDAY
SU, MO, TU, WE, TH, FR, SA
The day of the week the event repeats on. Applicable for daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly events.
BYSETPOS
1, 2, 3, 4, -1 
The week of the month the event repeats in.
Applicable only for monthly and yearly events.
1 - Event repeats every first week of the month
2 - Event repeats every second week of the month
3 - Event repeats every third week of the month
4 - Event repeats every fourth week of the month
-1 - Event repeats every last week of the month.
UNTIL
Date in yyyy-MM-dd format
The date until which the event must repeat.

Therefore, according to the sample input given at the beginning of the post, the event starts on Feb 2, 2020 at 10:00 AM and ends the same day at 11:00 AM.

According to  "RRULE":"FREQ=WEEKLY;BYDAY=SU;INTERVAL=2;UNTIL=2020-03-15", the event occurs every Sunday, with an interval of 14 days (2 weeks), and recurs until Mar 15, 2020.
Therefore, the sequence is as shown below.
  1. The event begins on Feb 2, 2020.
  2. The first recurring event happens on Feb 16, 2020.
  3. The second recurring event happens on Mar 1, 2020.
  4. The last recurring event happens on Mar 15, 2020.
Therefore, the response will have four JSON objects—one for the first event as specified in the Start_DateTime key, and one for each recurring event.

Note
You can only create one set of recurring events using the RRULE in a single API call.

A few other examples of RRULE:
  • "RRULE": "FREQ=MONTHLY;COUNT=3;BYDAY=WE;BYSETPOS=2".
    This RRULE creates three events that recur every Wednesday in the second week of the month.
  • "RRULE": "FREQ=MONTHLY;INTERVAL=2;COUNT=3;BYMONTHDAY=14".
    This RRULE creates three events that recur on the 14th day of the month, and repeat once in two months.

2. Updating an Event
You must use the Update Specific Record API to update an event.
In this section, we will discuss
  1. Adding a participant to an event
  2. Updating all future events
2.1 . Adding a participant to an event
Details you need to add a participant to an event
  1. The event's record ID. You can obtain this from the response you received while creating the event.
  2. The ID of the participants that are added already. The GET Specific Event response will have a unique ID for each participant in the "Participants" JSON array.
The sample input is as follows.

{
    "data": [
        {
            "All_Day": false,
            "Event_Title": "Kaizen_10_Weekly",
            "Start_DateTime": "2020-02-02T11:00:00+05:30",
            "End_DateTime": "2020-02-02T12:00:00+05:30",
            "Participants": [
                {
                    "type": "contact",
                    "participant": "3652397000001281003",
                    "id": "3652397000001326102"
                },
                {
                    "type": "lead",
                    "participant": "3652397000000415063",
                    "id": "3652397000001326100"
                },
                {
                    "type": "user",
                    "participant": "3652397000000186017",
                    "id": "3652397000001326098"
                },
                {
                    "type": "email",
                    "participant": "john-butt@gmail.com"
                }
            ],
            "Remind_At": "2020-02-01T10:45:00+05:30",
            "$send_notification": true
        }
    ]
}
As you can see, a new participant of type email and email ID john-butt@gmail.com is added. Since the ID of the existing participant with the email ID carissa-batman@yahoo.com is not specified, it gets deleted.

Note
  • participant is the record ID of the participant (lead, contact, or user).
  • ID is the unique ID of the participant for that event.
  • While adding a participant, you must specify the IDs of other participants for the event. Otherwise, only the new participant is added, while the rest are deleted.

2.1 . Updating all future events
While updating an event, you can choose to update all future events with the new change.
Use the boolean key update_all_future_events. The value true updates all future events, and the value false updates only that particular event.
Here is a sample input.

{
    "data": [
        {
            "All_Day": false,
            "Event_Title": "Kaizen_10_Weekly",
            "Start_DateTime": "2020-02-02T11:00:00+05:30",
            "End_DateTime": "2020-02-02T12:00:00+05:30",
            "Participants": [
                {
                    "type": "contact",
                    "participant": "3652397000001281003",
                    "id": "3652397000001326102"
                },
                {
                    "type": "lead",
                    "participant": "3652397000000415063",
                    "id": "3652397000001326100"
                },
                {
                    "type": "user",
                    "participant": "3652397000000186017",
                    "id": "3652397000001326098"
                },
                {
                    "type": "email",
                    "participant": "carissa-kidman@yahoo.com"
                }
            ],
            "Remind_At": "2020-02-01T10:45:00+05:30",
            "update_all_future_events": true,
            "$send_notification": true
        }
    ]
}

Points to Note
While creating recurring events,
  • You must specify either COUNT or INTERVAL in the RRULE. Otherwise, the system creates 365-day events.
  • For WEEKLY recurring events, you must include BYDAY in RRULE. Otherwise, the system creates 365-day events that recurs weekly.

While updating a recurring event,
  • You must specify the record ID of the event you want to update. 
  • You must set the value of the key update_all_future_events to true to update all future events. Otherwise, the system updates only that event and the other recurring events that you created previously will remain unaltered.
  • While adding a participant, you must specify the IDs of other participants. Otherwise, only the new participant is added, while the rest are deleted.
  • You cannot update RRULE through the API.
  • You cannot update check-in related information through the API.

We hope you found this post useful. Please reach out to us if you have questions, or let us know in the comment section.
Cheers!
















    Access your files securely from anywhere

          Zoho Developer Community




                                    Zoho Desk Resources

                                    • Desk Community Learning Series


                                    • Digest


                                    • Functions


                                    • Meetups


                                    • Kbase


                                    • Resources


                                    • Glossary


                                    • Desk Marketplace


                                    • MVP Corner


                                    • Word of the Day



                                        Zoho Marketing Automation


                                                Manage your brands on social media



                                                      Zoho TeamInbox Resources

                                                        Zoho DataPrep Resources



                                                          Zoho CRM Plus Resources

                                                            Zoho Books Resources


                                                              Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                                                                Zoho Projects Resources


                                                                  Zoho Sprints Resources


                                                                    Qntrl Resources


                                                                      Zoho Creator Resources



                                                                          Zoho Campaigns Resources


                                                                            Zoho CRM Resources

                                                                            • CRM Community Learning Series

                                                                              CRM Community Learning Series


                                                                            • Kaizen

                                                                              Kaizen

                                                                            • Functions

                                                                              Functions

                                                                            • Meetups

                                                                              Meetups

                                                                            • Kbase

                                                                              Kbase

                                                                            • Resources

                                                                              Resources

                                                                            • Digest

                                                                              Digest

                                                                            • CRM Marketplace

                                                                              CRM Marketplace

                                                                            • MVP Corner

                                                                              MVP Corner





                                                                                Design. Discuss. Deliver.

                                                                                Create visually engaging stories with Zoho Show.

                                                                                Get Started Now


                                                                                  Zoho Show Resources


                                                                                    Zoho Writer Writer

                                                                                    Get Started. Write Away!

                                                                                    Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                                                                                      Zoho CRM コンテンツ






                                                                                        Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


                                                                                            ご検討中の方





                                                                                                  • Recent Topics

                                                                                                  • Automation#22 Track Ticket Duration at Specific Status

                                                                                                    Hello Everyone! Welcome back to the Community Learning Series! Today, we explore how Zylker Techfix, a gadget servicing firm, boosted productivity by tracking the time spent at a particular ticket status in Zoho Desk. Zylker Techfix customized Zoho Desk’s
                                                                                                  • Self-Support Portal invites

                                                                                                    I'm a one man operation and I'm using the free version of the Zoho Desk for now, but I am in need of help. When I do test tickets, I get a reply from the system inviting me to join the Self Service portal. I don't plan on using that, so I wonder if there
                                                                                                  • Tip #10: Automatically add tags to Zoho CRM records using form responses

                                                                                                    You may be using tags to filter records, create reports based on specific tags, or let your sales team to know which clients to give priority to. Don't skip tagging for the crm records added via forms. The tags can be set to be automatically captured during the form submission. How it works When you set up a configuration to push form entries into CRM, you can add a tag to them automatically. The tag value can vary based on the respondent's input (captured using form fields), or you can include a
                                                                                                  • Understanding response time

                                                                                                    We have the following set up for our SLA. When a contact first writes in, the response due and resolution due dates are set. When one of our agents responses, the response due goes away. When a ticket gets a response from the contact, it appears to reset
                                                                                                  • Publish multiple languages at once in Knowledge Base

                                                                                                    Does anyone know if it is possible to publish multiple translated articles at the same time? My knowledge base has about 35 languages, and while I have them set up to automatically translate, I still have to go in and select each language and manually
                                                                                                  • Canvas and Related lists

                                                                                                    Hi, As much as I like canvas, when adding in a asection with related lists,it doesnt mimic the same functionality as the standard view within the CRM e.g left hand panel will show the module and total number of records. Is there a way of indicating this
                                                                                                  • Email address ZOHO suggestions in replying - how to delete unwanted suggestions?

                                                                                                    Hi, I have some "unwanted" email addresses suggestions by ZOHO, and made some mistakes by replying for some tickets already. How can I clear this in ZOHO directly, I deleted all web browser history and cookies . Did not help :/ Below example, where one
                                                                                                  • Subform edits don't appear in parent record timeline?

                                                                                                    Is it possible to have subform edits (like add row/delete row) appear in the Timeline for parent records? A user can edit a record, only edit the subform, and it doesn't appear in the timeline. Is there a workaround or way that we can show when a user
                                                                                                  • Zoho Learn vs. Trainer Central

                                                                                                    Hi, I'm currently using Zoho One with a WordPress-based website and WooCommerce to manage my online courses. I would like to know what is the difference between Zoho Learn and Trainer Central and if it's possible for these two platforms to replace WP
                                                                                                  • How to Display a Logo Image on a Public Form?

                                                                                                    I would like to display a logo image in the header of a form. To achieve this, I added an Add Notes field to the form. The code below works perfectly for Zoho users accessing the form. However, when the form is made public, the image does not load properly:
                                                                                                  • Creating a Zoho Online Meeting in a Blueprint

                                                                                                    We are looking for an easy solution to schedule online meetings in a blueprint and ran into the same problem discussed in this topic: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/custom-function-to-set-meeting-to-online-meeting (After connecting Zoho
                                                                                                  • Enabling 'From Number' and 'To Number' fields in the Calls module

                                                                                                    Hello everyone, We've added "To Number" and "From Number" fields in the Calls module as part of our latest update to provide users with the option to enable or disable them through the Calls Preferences tab. When enabled, these fields will be displayed
                                                                                                  • Workaround for Zoho Inventory changing previous Fiscal Year Trial Balance in QBO

                                                                                                    We've run into an issue where Zoho Inventory syncs to QBO and makes adjustments to journal entries from previous fiscal years. Fiscal Year End reporting has been long completed, but the Trial Balance keeps changing. Zoho does not have a fix for this,
                                                                                                  • Route Optimizer

                                                                                                    Does Zoho Inventory offer route optimization for our in-house deliveries? It will save us time to manually route our daily orders. Thank you
                                                                                                  • Can documents attached to different ZohoForms automatically go to different OneDrive folders?

                                                                                                    Hi there, I set a workflow to track and store applications coming in from our website. I created two different Zoho forms, one for unsolicited applications, one for applications to job postings. After any of the forms has been filled in, a new record
                                                                                                  • TeamInbox down?

                                                                                                    Hi everyone, we are getting message "Sorry, this action cannot be performed due to an internal error. Please try again later. We are on the Canadian data centers. Can someone please confirm if the service is down? Thank you! F
                                                                                                  • Purchase Requisition in Zoho Books

                                                                                                    I want to understand if Zoho Books is having the following workflow: PR ( Purchase Requisition ) >> PO ( Purchase order) >>  GRN/SRN ( Goods/Services receipt note) >> Bill
                                                                                                  • Confirmation prompt before a custom button action is triggered

                                                                                                    Have you ever created a custom button and just hoped that you/your users are prompted first to confirm the action? Well, Zoho knows this concept. For example, in blueprint, whenever we want to advance to the next state by clicking the transition, it is
                                                                                                  • Marketer's Space: Streamline marketing and sales by integrating ZMA's Planner with Zoho CRM

                                                                                                    In a competitive market, clear goal-setting and seamless campaign execution are crucial for marketing and sales alignment. When integrated with Zoho CRM, Zoho Marketing Automation's Planner enables marketers to create, manage, and measure campaigns effectively
                                                                                                  • Custom emails for Portals not working

                                                                                                    I changed the standard templates to custom email templates for all three options, but the invitation is still sending the original email layouts. Anyone know why this would be happening? I changed them 2 days ago.
                                                                                                  • Switching scheduled webinars from Live to On-demand

                                                                                                    Now that On-Demand webinars has been added as an option for webinar presenting, is there a way I can edit already scheduled webinars from Live to on-Demand? These scheduled webinars already have people registered. Thanks
                                                                                                  • Zoho CRM v2.1 deprecation or sunset plans ?

                                                                                                    Hi Team Wanted to know if there is any plan to deprecate v2.1 CRM apis https://www.zoho.com/crm/developer/docs/api/v2.1/ and if yes by when
                                                                                                  • Forex Bank Refund Entry

                                                                                                    Hello, please advise how to enter refunds from our bank forex department. The refund was because we were on preferential rates but at the time of USD purchase were not given the preferential rate, therefore the bank calculated the excess that we paid
                                                                                                  • Auto-Populating Custom Field

                                                                                                    This is to request a feature enhancement for our invoicing system. We're currently creating invoices with a single item per invoice and have a custom field called "Related Vehicle." We would like the "Related Vehicle" field to be automatically populated
                                                                                                  • How can i Customize Delivery Note?

                                                                                                    I need to customize delivery note like change the tittle for language purposes and also include only the balance due
                                                                                                  • Delivery note template

                                                                                                    We have some reasonable templates for sales docs but the delivery note one is very limited. It would be nice if we could have the same options as the sales form templates or even create our own by cloning an existing sales template, modifying (ie: removing
                                                                                                  • INTERCOMPANIES INVOICING

                                                                                                    Dears , I paid expenses on behalf of our sister company from my cash account , then month End i issued an invoice to the sister company , my question is how to put the expenses GL in the invoices
                                                                                                  • Zoho CRM Theme Color?

                                                                                                    I've read multiple articles stating it's possible to change Zoho CRM theme colour (top menu bar) from personal settings menu, however, my zoho has no options for this at all and I've looked everywhere........has this feature been removed? I'm currently
                                                                                                  • How can i force the user to select a project when creating an invoice ?

                                                                                                    Hello I tried all the ways that i know , but no way is able to stop creating an invoice without project.
                                                                                                  • Sales

                                                                                                    1/ How can I make a discount on invoice exmple : invoice 5,100 le , custmar pay 5000 and I need to make this 100 le as a discount , how can i make it ?! 2/ Is thare any report can make me match my company’s balance with the customer’s balance?
                                                                                                  • Include Project Hours when Creating Estimates from Projects

                                                                                                    Hi Currently, in Books, you can create estimates from Projects by inserting tasks that pull both the task and the hourly charge rate. But it doesn't pull the budgeted hours for the task, so you manually have to remember the number of hours for a given
                                                                                                  • acc

                                                                                                    Regularly sending statements to customers is an imperative part of many business processes as it helps foster strong customer relationships and provides timely guidance on pay//
                                                                                                  • South African Payment Gateways

                                                                                                    Since the "Demise" of Wave many South African users have moved over to Zoho and yet for years users have been requesting Integration with a South African Payment Gateway to no avail. Payfast was the most commonly requested gateway as it supports recurring
                                                                                                  • CRM Implementation

                                                                                                    I need to implement Zoho CRM. Is there a useful user manual available to guide me through the implementation?
                                                                                                  • Zoho Social integration with Zoho Flow

                                                                                                    Is there any plans for Zoho Social integration with Zoho Flow?
                                                                                                  • Marketing 2.0 has been a catastrophe

                                                                                                    Anyone else having significant issues with their link between their CRM and Marketing automation since moving to version 2.0? We had an easy flow for triggering leads in the CRM to journeys in Marketing Automation but now nothing seems to work properly.
                                                                                                  • Cannot average "Duration (Time)" from Pick List History Tracking in Reports

                                                                                                    Okay, let's say I have a custom module. In this custom module I have a pick-list named "Status" with "New", "In-Progress", "Completed" values. I also have turned ON pick-list history tracking and chose "Time" to track the duration in (instead of "Calendar
                                                                                                  • Customer Statement Template

                                                                                                    Hi. how can i add order number "customer LPO number" in the customer statement. regards
                                                                                                  • Authorize.Net Update: Disable Transaction IP Velocity Filter to Avoid Payment Failures

                                                                                                    Update: The Authorize.Net integration was updated on November 20, 2024. To prevent recurring transaction failures, we recommend disabling the Transaction IP Velocity Filter at the earliest. We’re updating the Authorize.Net integration in Zoho Books on
                                                                                                  • Need to send a single email to up to 20 recipients

                                                                                                    I want to send a single email to ~16 or 20 recipients. It appears that I cannot do this in Zoho email as it gets flagged as unusual activity. I need to be able to communicate with this group on a regular basis. What am I missing that Zoho doesn't allow
                                                                                                  • Next Page