Manipulating Subforms from third-party Application using Functions

Manipulating Subforms from third-party Application using Functions

Hey folks! Welcome to a fresh week of Kaizen. 

In this post, we will see how to work with subforms and external fields in a module through CRM functions. 

Consider a scenario where a High School utilizes Zoho CRM to manage student records, academic performance, and offered courses. Additionally, the school employs an Exam portal for students to take examinations. After the examination, the portal sends the mark information back to Zoho CRM along with it's own course id, student id, marks & other details. 

Problem Statement 

When the exam portal initiates a webhook call to CRM, the high school management wants to capture that data and update the CRM subform records accordingly. This subform should act as a semester progress report for each student.  

Solution Overview 

To address this requirement, a custom function must be implemented. The webhook URL will be the API REST URL of the custom function in Zoho CRM. Upon receiving the notification, the function is triggered, and the details from the notification are used to manipulate the subform.

Let us walk through this process of triggering functions using a webhook to manipulate subforms. 

Prerequisites 

From the Third-Party Application 

  • We assume that a webhook will be triggered from the third-party application when the exam is over and evaluated by the teacher. The webhook will carry the following information:  
Field
Data Type
Description
Exam Name
String
Name of the examination that the student attends.
Student ID
Long String
Unique ID of the student within the Portal App.
Course ID
Long String
Unique ID of the course within the Portal App.
Marks
Integer
Total marks of the student in the particular course.
Total Time
Integer
Time taken by the student to complete the exam.

  • The webhook URL should correspond to the API REST URL of the custom function in Zoho CRM.  

From Zoho CRM 

Here is a data model image of the CRM modules involved in this scenario for your ease of understanding.  



The Courses, Students and Student Exams modules are assumed to be pre-loaded with records. Following are the module wise fields that are expected to be already configured in the school's CRM org.  

Courses and Students Modules 

External fields named Student Code in the Students module and Course Code in the Courses module are used to match the IDs deployed in the third-party application. 



Note
      External fields can be updated only using the Update Records API.

Student Exams Module 

Following are the custom fields that we assume to be already available in the Student Exams module. 

Field Name
Data Type
Description
Student
Lookup
The field looks up to the Students module.
Total Marks
Integer (Formula)
A subform aggregate field that sums up the values of the Marks field in the Student Performance subform.
GPA
Integer (Formula)
Calculates the GPA of a student in that particular examination.
Exam Name
String (Picklist)
List downs the examinations that are planned to be conducted for the academic year.
 


Student Performance Subform 

A subform named Student Performance within the Student Exams module, comprising the following fields.

Field Name
Data Type
Description
Course
Lookup
Represents the course name and it looks up to one of the courses from the Courses module.
Total Time
Integer
Time taken by the student to complete the exam.
Marks
Integer
Marks of the student in the particular course.

Grade
String (Formula)
Grading system is infused as formula and it works depending on the value in the Marks field.



The subform is assumed to be empty and will be updated only on receiving a webhook notification from the Portal App. 

Note 
      Make a Modules Metadata API call to get the API names of the modules and the subform. Next, fire the GET Fields API call to get the API names of the fields. We will need them in crafting the custom function. 

Creating the Custom Function 

Step 1: Navigate to the Setup > Developer Hub > Functions and click the New Function button. 



Now, create a Standalone function by filling in the details. 


Flow of the Function 

Argument Setup 

Define function arguments to receive details from the function as shown here: 



Data Retrieval 

Invoke the COQL API within the function to retrieve the necessary records from the Student Exams and Courses module. 

student_examMap = Map();
student_examMap.put("select_query","select id from Student_Exams where Student.Student_Code =" + student_id + " and Exam_Name=" + exam_name + " limit 1");
exam_response = invokeurl
[
type :POST
parameters:student_examMap.toString()
connection:"crm_oauth_connection"
];
exam_id = exam_response.getJSON("data").get(0).get("id");

Here, the query is structured to retrieve the ID of the Student Exam record where the Student lookup field corresponds to the record with the Student Code matching the student_id in the notification, and the Exam Name picklist field matches the value of exam_name from the notification. 

Note: You can use only =, !=, in and not in operators for querying External fields in Zoho CRM. 

courseMap = Map();
courseMap.put("select_query","select id from Courses where Course_Code =" + course_id + " limit 1");
course_response = invokeurl
[
type :POST
parameters:courseMap.toString()
connection:"crm_oauth_connection"
];
course_id = course_response.getJSON("data").get(0).get("id");

In this COQL call, the query fetches the ID of the record from the Courses module whose Course Code field matches the course_id received in the notification. 

Subform Update Handling

The custom function should address the following three cases inorder to effectively manipulate the subform data from the third-party application. 
  • Every webhook call from the Exam portal should be added as a new entry to the subform.
  •  If entries already exist in the subform, the function should perform PATCH operation.
  • Before executing the PATCH operation, it is crucial to check whether the webhook call is for a new course or an update to the existing course. In such cases, the function should refrain from adding the course; instead, it should update the corresponding entry. 
To append new entries to the subform, you can use the UPDATE Records API. Refer to this kaizen to learn more about manipulating subforms using Zoho CRM APIs. 

Student Performance is a module created for the subform configured in the Student Exams module. In order to perform the PATCH operation with an Update API, make a COQL API call to the Student Performance module and fetch the existing data, if any.  

subform_examMap = Map();
subform_examMap.put("select_query","select Course, Total_Time, Marks from Student_Performance where Parent_Id.id =" + exam_id);
subform_response = invokeurl
[
type :POST
parameters:subform_examMap.toString()
connection:"crm_oauth_connection"
];

This query retrieves the exam records of the student for that particular exam in Student Exams module, from the Student Performance subform. The subform should correspond to the parent record that matches the notification data. Since we already have the ID of that parent record from one of the previous COQL call, we have directly used the response in this query. 

Now that we have the existing subform data, the function has to verify whether the data from webhook call matches any of the Course in the subform data. If it matches, the new entry replaces the existing one; otherwise, the new entry is added to the existing entries and forms a request payload called examinfo. This payload will be used in the later part of the functions to update the record in Student Exams module. 

Following is how you should achieve this using for-each loop. 

final_subform = List();
flag = true;
if(!isBlank(subform_response))
{
subform_data = subform_response.getJSON("data").toList();
if(subform_data.len() > 0)
{
for each  data in subform_data
{
if(data.get("Course").get("id") == course_id)
{
final_subform.add({"Course":{"id":course_id},"Total_Time":time_taken,"Marks":marks});
flag = false;
}
else
{
final_subform.add(data);
}
}
}
}
if(flag || isBlank(subform_response))
{
final_subform.add({"Course":{"id":course_id},"Total_Time":time_taken,"Marks":marks});
}
examinfo = {"Student_Performance":final_subform};

Next, let us update the Student Performance subform in the Student Exams module using the pre-defined integration task called Update Record in Zoho CRM functions. This task makes an Update Records API call to replace all entries within the subform. It updates the entries with the same course_id provided in the notification, inserts new entries and removes old entries accordingly.   

response = zoho.crm.updateRecord("Student_Exams",exam_id,examinfo);
return "nothing";

Save the function and click the more icon of the function you have created and choose REST API.  



Enable the OAuth2 and API Key for the function. 

Next copy the API key and provide it in the webhook URL of the Portal App. 



On receiving notifications to this URL the function will be triggered and the records will be updated. 



We believe you found this post both beneficial and informative!

Your thoughts and perspectives matter to us. If there is a topic you would like us to delve into or if you have any questions, please feel free to drop a comment below or send us an email at support@zohocrm.com.

Stay tuned until we circle back to you on next Friday! 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Recommended Reads

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


    Access your files securely from anywhere







                            Zoho Developer Community





                                                  Use cases

                                                  Make the most of Zoho Desk with the use cases.

                                                   
                                                    

                                                  eBooks

                                                  Download free eBooks and access a range of topics to get deeper insight on successfully using Zoho Desk.

                                                   
                                                    

                                                  Videos

                                                  Watch comprehensive videos on features and other important topics that will help you master Zoho Desk.

                                                   
                                                    

                                                  Webinar

                                                  Sign up for our webinars and learn the Zoho Desk basics, from customization to automation and more

                                                   
                                                    
                                                  • Desk Community Learning Series


                                                  • Meetups


                                                  • Ask the Experts


                                                  • Kbase


                                                  • Resources


                                                  • Glossary


                                                  • Desk Marketplace


                                                  • MVP Corner




                                                            • 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 FAQs
                                                            • Kaizen #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


                                                            Manage your brands on social media



                                                                  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

                                                                                      • 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

                                                                                                            • Zoho Desk Integration - Add the option to send the estimate from the Zoho Desk Ticket Integration

                                                                                                              Hi, Currently in the Zoho Desk integration, the user is able to create an estimate from a ticket, once the estimate is created the user can see the estimate under the ticket (see screenshot below), but is not able to send that estimate from Zoho Desk.
                                                                                                            • Zoho Creator to Zoho CRM Images

                                                                                                              Right now, I am trying to setup a Notes form within Zoho Creator. This Notes will note the Note section under Accounts > Selected Account. Right now, I use Zoho Flow to push the notes and it works just fine, with text only. Images do not get sent (there
                                                                                                            • Utilisation de Zoho en conformité avec l’article 286 du Code général des impôts (CGI)

                                                                                                              Cher(e) client(e), Conformément à l’article 286 du Code général des impôts (CGI) impose aux entreprises assujetties à la TVA d’utiliser des systèmes de caisse ou de gestion commerciale certifiés lorsqu’elles enregistrent des ventes à des particuliers.
                                                                                                            • Issue showing too many consultations in my workspace link.

                                                                                                              Hi Team, I’ve set up two Workspaces to track meetings from different sources. So far, this has been working well, and the two Workspaces are differentiated without any issues. However, when I navigate to Consultations and share the link to my personal
                                                                                                            • Zoho Books - France

                                                                                                              L’équipe de Zoho France reçoit régulièrement des questions sur la conformité de ses applications de finances (Zoho Books/ Zoho Invoice) pour le marché français. Voici quelques points pour clarifier la question : Zoho Books est un logiciel de comptabilité
                                                                                                            • Zoho CRM Plain Text Template: Line Breaks and Formatting Issue

                                                                                                              Hello, I'm following the instructions to create email templates in Zoho CRM, but I'm having a problem with the plain text version. https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/zoho-sign/integrations/zoho-apps/zoho-crm/articles/zoho-crm-email-templates#Steps_to_create_a_custom_email_template
                                                                                                            • Signature field is showing black

                                                                                                              Hello, When customer signed the service form, it is showing as below picture Phone model: iPhone 16 Pro We tried delete and install application, but it not solved. This has on phone of a few person. There is any advice to solve this?
                                                                                                            • Introducing Profile Summary: Faster Candidate Insights with Zia

                                                                                                              We’re excited to launch Profile Summary, a powerful new feature in Zoho Recruit that transforms how you review candidate profiles. What used to take minutes of resume scanning can now be assessed in seconds—thanks to Zia. A Quick Example Say you’re hiring
                                                                                                            • Zoho MCP has no tools for Creator or 3rd Party Apps?

                                                                                                              I don't see a Zoho MCP community forum so putting this here. Two big problems I see: 1) Although Zoho advertises "over 950 3rd party apps" as available through their MCP, when I go to "Add Tools" there are ZERO 3rd party apps available to choose from.
                                                                                                            • 👋 Welcome to the Zoho MCP Community

                                                                                                              Hello all, glad to have you here! This is your space for everything AI agents, MCP tools, and intelligent business apps. This community is for you — developers, partners, creators, and businesses exploring how agents can transform work. Whether you’re
                                                                                                            • CRM Validation Rules Support Only Single Condition

                                                                                                              Simply put, CRM validation rules support only a single condition for each field on "All Records". You also cannot specify additional validation rules on the same field because it has already been used in an existing validation rule. The ONLY solution
                                                                                                            • Strategic Idea: A Unified and Interactive Employee Lifecycle Dashboard

                                                                                                              Hello Zoho Community and Team, I am proposing a powerful, high-level feature that could transform the HRMS from a system of record into a truly strategic talent management platform: A Unified Employee Lifecycle Dashboard. The Problem: Currently, employee
                                                                                                            • Maximum file limit in zoho people LMS

                                                                                                              Dear Team, I am having approximately 4.9 GB of material, including PPTs and videos for uploading in zoho people LMS course. May I know what is the maximum limit limit for the course files Thanking you, With regards, Logeswar V Executive _ Operations
                                                                                                            • Unapproved Leaves are hard to distinguish in Attendance View

                                                                                                              This is a an unapproved leave request It appears in the Attendance view without any visual indicator if its approved or not For a whole day request this might be manageable but for hourly requests it gets very hard to know which are approved, which are
                                                                                                            • Performance Appraisal Probation Period

                                                                                                              Hello All,  Is there any possible way to create an appraisal cycle for new staff members, at the end of probation period? Many thanks!
                                                                                                            • Zoho Creatorの一括操作における処理の同期/非同期について

                                                                                                              現在、Creatorのレポート機能を利用して、複数のレコードに対して一括で処理を実行しようとしていますが、処理の実行順序について確認したいことがあります。 レポート内の複数レコードに一括で処理を実行した際、処理は同期的に行われるのでしょうか?それとも非同期的に行われるのでしょうか? 【同期処理の場合】 レコード①に対する処理が開始され、終了後にレコード②に対する処理が開始され、最後にレコード③に対する処理が実行されるように、処理が順番に行われる場合。 【非同期処理の場合】 レコード①、レコード②、レコード③の処理が一斉に開始され、それぞれ並行して処理が行われ、全処理が終了する場合。
                                                                                                            • Control who sees Timeline and Interactions in Zoho CRM through Profiles

                                                                                                              The feature has been enabled for all DCs (except US, EU, and IN DCs). We will be rolling it out to the other DCs in the upcoming days. Dear All, In a CRM, not all users would require access to the history of a record. For instance, a Marketing Operations
                                                                                                            • Adding Chargebee as a Data Connector

                                                                                                              Is it possible to get Chargebee added as a Zoho Analytics data connector?
                                                                                                            • Need Easy Way to Update Item Prices in Bulk

                                                                                                              Hello Everyone, In Zoho Books, updating selling prices is taking too much time. Right now we have to either edit items one by one or do Excel export/import. It will be very useful if Zoho gives a simple option to: Select multiple items and update prices
                                                                                                            • Search Records returning different values than actually present

                                                                                                              Hey! I have this following line in my deluge script: accountSearch = zoho.crm.searchRecords("Accounts","(RS_Enroll_ID:equals:" + rsid + ")",1,200,{"cvid":864868001088693817}); info "Account search size: " + accountSearch.size(); listOfAccounts = zoho.crm.searchRecords("Accounts","(RS_Enroll_ID:equals:"
                                                                                                            • Delete commerce website

                                                                                                              I need to delete a commerce website, but the only option is to click on settings, REQUEST DELETE, choose an urgency notice, add a message....AND THEN nothing, no way to send the request. Why is nothing simple!?!?!  I just want to delete the store.  The
                                                                                                            • Adding external users to Zoho Social under Zoho ONE licence - how to best achieve this

                                                                                                              My client has a small business, and we are looking to implementing Zoho ONE with a single flexible user licence as that is all they really need and offers the best pricing for the range of modules we eventually wish to set them up with, one of which will
                                                                                                            • Has anyone built a custom AI support agent inside Zoho (SalesIQ/Zobot)?

                                                                                                              Hi all, I’ve been experimenting with building my own AI support assistant and wanted to see if anyone here has tackled something similar within Zoho. Right now, I’ve set up a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipeline outside of Zoho using FAISS. It
                                                                                                            • Whats the Time out Limit for API Calls from Deluge?

                                                                                                              Hi Creator Devs, We are making API calls to third party server via Deluge. Getting this error message: Error at line : 24, The task has been terminated since the API call is taking too long to respond. Please try again after sometime. Whats the default
                                                                                                            • Can't create package until Bill created?

                                                                                                              I can't understand why we cannot create a package until a Bill is created? We are having to created draft Bills to create a package when the item is received, but we may not have received a Bill from the supplier. Also, Bill # is required, but we normally
                                                                                                            • This mobile number has been marked spam. Please contact support.

                                                                                                              Problem Description: One of our sales agents in our organization is unable to sign in to Zoho Mail. When attempting to log in, the following message appears: This mobile number has been marked as spam. Please contact support at as@zohocorp.com @zohocorp
                                                                                                            • Print checks for owner's draw

                                                                                                              Hi.  Can I use Zoho check printing for draws to Owner's Equity?  This may be a specific case of the missing Pay expenses via Check feature.  If it's not available, are there plans to add this feature?
                                                                                                            • Dynamically prefill ticket fields

                                                                                                              Hello, I am using Zoho Desk to collect tickets of our clients about orders they placed on our website. I would like to be able to prefill two tickets fields dynamically, in this case a readonly field for the order id, and a hidden field for the seller id. The clients access the ticket form by clicking a link in our customer area, so ideally I would like to pass the values to prefill with as part of the URL. I imagine that this could be along the lines of calling https://our-domain/portal/newticket?order_id=123&seller_id=456
                                                                                                            • Zoho Desk Partners with Microsoft's M365 Copilot for seamless customer service experiences

                                                                                                              Hello Zoho Desk users, We are happy to announce that Zoho Desk has partnered with Microsoft's M365 to empower customer service teams with enhanced capabilities and seamless experiences for agents. Microsoft announced their partnership during their keynote
                                                                                                            • Zoho Books - Show Related Sales Orders on Quotes

                                                                                                              Hi Books team, I've noticed that the Quotes don't show show the related Sales Order. My feature request is to also show related Sales Orders above the Quote so it's easy to follow the thread of records in the sales and fulfilment process. Below screenshot
                                                                                                            • Zoho Books - Hide Convert to Sales Order if it can't be used.

                                                                                                              Hi Books team, I noticed that it is not possible to convert a Quote to a Sales Order when a Quote is not yet marked as accepted. My idea is to not show the Convert to Sales Order button when it is not possible to use it, or show it in a grey inactive
                                                                                                            • What’s New in Zoho Inventory | April 2025

                                                                                                              Hello users, April has been a big month in Zoho Inventory! We’ve rolled out powerful new features to help you streamline production, optimise stock management, and tailor your workflows. While several updates bring helpful enhancements, three major additions
                                                                                                            • Copy a Record Template from one Form to another

                                                                                                              I have a Creator application with several forms.  I developed a record template for one of the reports/forms but want to use most of it for another of the form/report combinations in the application. Is there a way to copy the template (code or otherwise) to another form?
                                                                                                            • Zoho Books - Quotes to Sales Order Automation

                                                                                                              Hi Books team, In the Quote settings there is an option to convert a Quote to an Invoice upon acceptance, but there is not feature to convert a Quote to a Sales Order (see screenshot below) For users selling products through Zoho Inventory, the workflow
                                                                                                            • Zoho Books - Include Quote Status in Workflow Field Triggers

                                                                                                              Hi Zoho Books team, I recently tried to create a Workflow rule based on when a Quote is Accepted by the customer. This is something which I thought would be very easy to do, however I discovered that Status is not listed as a field which can be monitored
                                                                                                            • When Zoho Tables Beta will be open to EU data center

                                                                                                              Hello all, We in EU are looking at you all using and testing and are getting jealous :) When we will be able to get into the beta also? We don't mind testing and playing with beta software. Thank you!
                                                                                                            • Pass current date to a field using Zoho Flow

                                                                                                              I am trying to generate an invoice automatically once somebody submits a record in Zoho CRM. I get an error in the invoice date. I have entered {{zoho.currentdate}} in the Date field. When I test the flow, I get "Zoho Books says "Invalid value passed
                                                                                                            • API: Mark Sales Order as Open + Custom Status

                                                                                                              Hi, it's possible to create Custom Status (sub-status actually) states for the Sales Order. So you have Open, Void. Then under Open you can have Open, and create one called Order Paid, Order Shipped, etc etc...which is grouped under Open. I can use the
                                                                                                            • Zoho Quartz Screen Recording

                                                                                                              Hello, can we get access to Quartz, please, as a standalone solution? It would be great for creating training videos for current and future staff on how to use Zoho software according to our company requirements. Thank you
                                                                                                            • Please add an “Auto-Apply Unused Credits” toggle

                                                                                                              Hello — please add a simple org-level option to automatically apply unused credits (credit notes, excess payments, retainers) to new invoices and/or bills. An ON/OFF toggle with choices “invoices”, “bills”, or “both” would save lots of manual work for
                                                                                                            • Next Page