Connections in Zoho IoT provide a secure and standardized way to integrate the Zoho IoT Application with other application, including other Zoho Service and third-party services. They establish authenticated access, allowing the application to securely, and reliably utilize the data and functionality offered by these applications or services.

Why use Connections?
Below are some key reasons to use connections:

1. Simplifies secure authentication with Zoho and third-party services.
   
2. Eliminates the need to manually handle OAuth tokens or credentials.
   
3. Streamlines integrations across applications with minimal setup.
   
4. Enables centralized credential management for better control and security.
   
5. Allows seamless data transfer between Zoho IoT and external services without extra coding.
   
6. Ensures compliance with Zoho’s authentication and security standards.
   
7. Once created and connected, the same connection reference can be reused across multiple places in the Zoho IoT application to access Zoho or other service APIs.  
   

Creating Connections  

1. Access the Developer Application.
   
2. Select the Automate tab, and select Connections in the left pane. The available connections will be displayed.
   

   (or) 
   

4. Select the required service from the available default services list. Services act as connectors that allow you to create connections. The available types of services are: Default and Custom Services.

1. Default Services - These are pre-configured services available in Zoho IoT. You can easily create a connection for any of the default services listed and authenticate it using your credentials.
   

These default services are provided to simplify and speed up integration between Zoho IoT and other Zoho applications such as such as Creator, CRM, Books, Contacts, Mail, and others that organizations commonly use. Each of these preconfigured services includes the necessary OAuth scopes, endpoints, and authentication settings, so you don’t have to manually configure them.

1. Custom Services - If the service you need is not listed by default, you can manually configure it. Once configured, you or other members of your organization can create multiple connections to that service as needed, simply by providing the required credentials.
   
   Note: For existing system services, when certain scopes are not listed we can add connections for those scopes also via custom service like bdass in IOT 
   
   Refer to the configuring custom services document for more details on creating custom services.

5. Select Zoho IoT service.

Note: In this example using connections we are going to call a Zoho IoT API from within Zoho IoT using Deluge scripts we have selected the Zoho IoT service. A Connection is required to ensure secure and authorized communication between your Deluge function and the Zoho IoT service. Therefore, we are selecting Zoho IOT.

6. Enter the connection name. The connection link name will be auto filled and displayed.

7. Set the Use Credentials of Login User toggle to ON.

Use credentials of login user: This allows other users to utilize the connection that you've created. If this switch is turned on, other users can authenticate your connection using their credentials and a copy of it will be listed under “Shared connections” in their connections page.
Consider the following scenarios to understand the "Use credential of login user" switch and shared connections:

Example:

Let's assume you want to create and publish a Zoho Cliq bot for everyone in the organization that will upload the files forwarded to it into the user’s Dropbox account. To achieve this integration, you must create a connection to Dropbox and use it in the invoke URL Deluge task. And while creating the connection, you must turn on the "user credential of login user" switch so that the users can authenticate your connection using their credentials. Hence, the files will be uploaded to the user’s Dropbox account. If the switch was not turned on, the connection will run using the credentials of the connection owner, and the files sent by all the users will be uploaded to your (connection owner’s) Dropbox account.

In this example, the "Use credential of login user" switch should be turned on, and all the bot users will authenticate your Dropbox connection using their credentials. Therefore, a copy of your connection will be listed under "Shared Connections" in their connections page while it will be listed under “My Connections” in your connections page.

8. Select from the scopes available for the selected service. Scopes to specify what level of access your application should have to that service.

Refer to the Scopes document for more details.

 9.  Click Create and Connect to provide permission for this to access your account.

Note: This screen will vary based on the selected service.

Note: When multiple applications exist in the portal, select the specific application you want to use for authenticating the connector.

11. The Deluge access permission screen.Click Accept. The resultant screen with connection details is displayed.
       

 Note: This connect screen will vary based on the selected service.

Note: The Deluge and JSon sample code will be displayed in the respective tabs below the Connection Summary. These codes can be used inside the custom function to establish the connection.

Refer to the Deluge Connections document for more additional details.

https://www.zoho.com/deluge/help/connections.html#CreateConnection1 

Using Connections in Webhook & Custom Function

Note: Connections in already connected state connector cannot be updated. The connection must be revoked, updated, and connected again.

If the connection is being used in a Webhook, you cannot update its scope while it is in the connected state.

For additional details, refer to the deluge Connections document.

Deleting  Connections

Connections that are not associated to any webhook can be deleted from the application.

To delete a Connection:

1. Click on the ellipsis next to the connection name and connect/revoke button.
2. Click Delete.
   
   
   
   

or

Click the Delete icon on the Connection in the connection's home page.

3. Click Delete in the confirmation box. The connection will be deleted if there are no associations.
   
   
   
   If there are associations to the connection from webhook, the dependency message popup will be displayed, and the connection will not be deleted.