Episode II: Begin Your Automation Journey in Zoho Desk with Deluge

Episode II: Begin Your Automation Journey in Zoho Desk with Deluge



To travel to another country, you need a passport. But that's not enough, you also need a visa, flight tickets, and, most importantly, a mode of transportation. Without these, your journey cannot begin.
Similarly, custom functions in Zoho Desk are essential but what are they without an understanding of Deluge?

So, have you met Deluge yet?

Remember Chef Gusteau's famous motto from the movie Ratatouille, "Anyone can cook." Zoho's Deluge is for anyone, from anywhere, who wants to code.

Anyone can code with Deluge   

Deluge is accessible for beginners and advanced coders. With Deluge, you can easily create custom functions to automate ticketing operations, integrate external services, or perform actions on records within Zoho Desk.

What is Deluge?

Deluge is Zoho's native scripting language. If you would like to try Deluge, play here.

How does Deluge simplify Custom Functions?
Deluge aims to make coding approachable for everyone.
The simple Drag-and-Drop Simplicity helps you use prebuilt code snippets, eliminating the need for extensive coding knowledge.
Deluge has broad scalability, allowing you to configure from basic automation to complex workflows, making it suitable for businesses of all sizes.

Zoho Desk's API documentation

To perform different operations, one has to know the different APIs and methods used within Zoho Desk. Zoho Desk offers comprehensive API documentation, like an open book, to guide curious developers and users across modules, customization, functions, and operations.
Even if you’re new to Deluge, Zoho Deluge provides prebuilt commands to help you perform tasks within Zoho Desk.  The prebuilt commands are a step-by-step guide to help you execute integration tasks efficiently.
Deluge is the core component for formulating custom functions in Zoho Desk. It helps turn ideas into reality and enables automation by empowering users without deep programming expertise. The integration capabilities, scalability, and user-friendly design make it an essential tool for users looking to maximize the power of Zoho Desk. From ticketing to complex workflows, Deluge helps in bringing a smooth automation flow.

What’s next?

Similar to a passport, the functions are valuable documents stored in the Customs Functions gallery. To make a custom function work, it must be integrated with Automation.
Just like different flight services manage routes across various locations, the Automation features help in executing these custom functions:
  1. Workflows
  2. Macros
  3. Schedules
  4. Blueprint
  5. Guided Conversation
NotesNOTE: One automation cannot override another, just as two flights cannot share airspace at the same altitude and time.
In the upcoming episodes, we shall explore integrating custom functions with each Automation. We will dive into practical use cases, configurations, and real-time execution to help you understand how Deluge complements each automation type in delivering seamless business processes.

Previous episode : 
Episode I : Exploring the World of Custom Functions in Zoho Desk

Until the next episode drops, 

Cheers, 
Lydia | Zoho Desk



      • Sticky Posts

      • Register for Zoho Desk Beta Community

        With the start of the year, we have decided to take a small step in making the life of our customers a little easier. We now have easy access to all our upcoming features and a faster way to request for beta access. We open betas for some of our features
      • Share your Zoho Desk story with us!

        Tell us how you use Zoho Desk for your business and inspire others with your story. Be it a simple workflow rule that helps you navigate complex processes or a macro that saves your team a lot of time; share it here and help the community learn and grow with shared knowledge. 
      • Tip #1: Learn to pick the right channels

        Mail, live chat, telephony, social media, web forms—there are so many support channels out there. Trying to pick the right channels to offer your customers can get pretty confusing. Emails are most useful when the customer wants to put things on record. However, escalated or complicated issues should not be resolved over email because it's slow and impersonal.  When you need immediate responses, live chat is more suitable. It's also quick and convenient, so it's the go-to channel for small issues. 
      • Welcome to Zoho Desk Community - Say hello here!

        Hello everyone! Though we have been here for a while, it’s time to formally establish the Zoho Desk Community; we’re really happy to have you all here! This can be the place where you take a moment to introduce yourself to the rest of the community. We’d love to hear all about you, what you do, what company or industry you work for, how you use Zoho Desk and anything else that you will like to share! Here’s a little about me. I am Chinmayee. I have been associated with Zoho since 2014. I joined here
      • Webinar 1: Blueprint for Customer Service

        With the launch of a host of new features in Zoho Desk, we thought it’ll be great to have a few webinars to help our customers make the most of them. We’re starting off with our most talked about feature, Blueprint in Zoho Desk. You can register for the Blueprint webinar here: The webinar will be delivered by our in-house product experts. This is a good opportunity to ask questions to our experts and understand how Blueprint can help you automate your service processes. We look forward to seeing

        • Recent Topics

        • How Do I Refund a Customer Directly to Their Credit Card?

          Hi, I use books to auto-charge my customers credit card. But when I create a credit note there doesn't seem to be a way to directly refund the amount back to their credit card. Is the only way to refund a credit note by doing it "offline" - or manually-
        • Zoho Flow Needs to Embrace AI Agent Protocols to Stay Competitive

          Zoho Flow has long been a reliable platform for automating workflows and integrating various applications. However, in the rapidly evolving landscape of AI-driven automation, it risks falling behind competitors like n8n, which are pioneering advancements
        • Important Features Missing

          Hey all I love linkthread, but i am missing some important features. I want to be able to include my Google Tag Manager. I have all the important stuff in my GTM Container: Facebook Pixel, LinkIn Pixel, Zoho Pagesense and so on. So i am able to do retargeting
        • Zoho SignForms: Prefill parameters with spaces render as “+” in the document (even when using %20)

          Hello Zoho Sign team, we are using SignForms with prefill parameters passed via URL. Spaces in parameter values are being rendered as “+” in the finalized document—even when we URL-encode spaces as %20. This is critical for us because we prefill addresses
        • Currency selector (based on variable) usage in comparsion

          Hi, I've developed a currency selector based on the following topic, and it's working well in pivot tables and charts: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/how-can-i-allow-my-users-to-choose-a-currency-for-the-dashboard I also have a comparison
        • Customize Column in Projects - Default View for Template?

          Is there a way to have the columns you'd like to see added to a template? I want my customized columns to show up every single time I create a project from that template. It appears I can customize them in the template but when I create the project they do not transfer over.  Template: See below how the columns in order are : Task, Owner, Status, Assigned, Website URL, Blog H1..etc. When I create a project from that same template it comes out as: Task, Owner, Status, Tags, Start Date, End Date, etc
        • Ask the Experts 24: Analytics, data administration, and mobile experience with Zoho Desk

          Hello Everyone! Welcome back to the Ask the Experts(ATE) series! We were so focused on our Autumn 2025 release that we didn't host an ATE session last month. In this month's ATE, we'd like to expand our areas for discussion: we'd like to listen to your
        • Multi-Page Forms in Zoho Creator!

          Let’s make long applications easier to handle by dividing them into pages, adding a progress bar, and guiding users step by step through complex data entry. This would be a total game-changer for the user experience and could significantly boost completion
        • Email login error

          Login successfully but email page error
        • Shared Mailboxes Disappeared

          Zoho Mail users in our company haven't been able to see their Shared Mailboxes for the past few hours. I've checked with App and Web Access, but they can't access them. When I send emails to their addresses, I get no error messages. They're still visible
        • Remote Server is misconfigured

          Dear Team, I am unable to use email id as remote server is misconfigured. It would be really great if you could help on this and get this resolved. Thanks & Regard Rohit Gupta
        • why cant i access my email account. it keeps asking me for reverifiying my account by entering my password.

          I cant access my account. it keeps asking me for reverifcaton by entering my password. once its entered it asks for it over and over.
        • Free webinar alert on October 16 - Less Complexity, More Security: Workplace + Directory

          Hello Zoho Workplace Community! Security and productivity shouldn't be at odds—and with Zoho, they're not. Discover how Zoho Workplace + Directory delivers seamless collaboration with enterprise-grade security, all in one integrated ecosystem. Join our
        • Workdrive and ChatGPT Team Synced Connectors

          Hi, we want to be able to integrate Zoho Workdrive with OpenAI’s ChatGPT Team plan. Google Drive and OneDrive both offer this, zoho please catch up asap. We dont want to have to put our company files in google drive, we want to allow chatgpt Team edition
        • Alias Name (on items) use case in Zoho inventory

          Hey, Hope everyone is well. Wondering if anyone can shed some light on the use case of Alias Names on Products in Zoho Inventory? Cheers, Chris
        • Updating an Invoice Line Item's Discount Account via API Call / Deluge Custom Function

          I need help updating an invoice line item's discount account via API. Below is a screenshot of the line item field I am referring to. Now the field to the left of the highlighted field (discount account) is the sales income account. I am able to modify
        • Send e-mail with attachments

          Dear Zoho, How is that possible in Zoho Flow to send an e-mail with attachment?  Just a simple example: Zoho Flow checks my Zoho mails and if the conditions starts the trigger then I would like to send an email with the original email's attachment. Any idea? BR, Adam
        • How to I get checkboxes on a subform to update via deluge

          Hello, would someone be able to tell me what I'm doing wrong here? I am trying to take the contents of a Deals subform and add them to an invoice then update the checkbox on each row so that 'add to invoice' is unticked and 'invoiced' is ticked. The output
        • Urgent Security Feature Request – Add MFA to Zoho Projects Client Portal Hello Zoho Projects Team,

          Hello Zoho Projects Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to submit an urgent security enhancement request regarding the Zoho Projects Client Portal. At this time, as far as we are aware, there is no Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) available
        • Unified customer portal login

          As I'm a Zoho One subscriber I can provide my customers with portal access to many of the Zoho apps. However, the customer must have a separate login for each app, which may be difficult for them to manage and frustrating as all they understand is that
        • Zoho Projects - Task Owner filter at Project level

          Hi Projects Team, The feature requests I would like to raise is the ability to create a custom view at the project level for projects with tasks owned by a user or users. For example "Ashley's Projects" custom view might contain a list of project in which
        • Cadences

          I have just started using Cadences for follow-up up email pipeline. Is it just me or do you find the functionality very basic? For example, it will tell me (if I go looking for it) if someone has replied to a follow-up and been unenrolled; but it won't
        • Custom Fonts in Zoho CRM Template Builder

          Hi, I am currently creating a new template for our quotes using the Zoho CRM template builder. However, I noticed that there is no option to add custom fonts to the template builder. It would greatly enhance the flexibility and branding capabilities if
        • Would be really awesome to have Created Time and Modified Time showing for custom functions list

          It would be SO HELPFUL to be able to sort custom functions by created time/ modified time. Also seeing a created by/ modified by with the little profile picture would be supremely helpful as well. Just really hard sometimes to find a function you were
        • Ticket Export Does Not Include Ticket Threads

          Dear Zoho Desk Support Team, I hope you’re doing well. I would like to report an issue regarding the ticket export functionality in Zoho Desk. Currently, when exporting tickets, the ticket threads or conversation history are not included — only the ticket
        • Payments made notification

          This is a really wonderful feature but we can only use it for about 50% of payments made & have to revert to sending statements which is a real chore. Credits applied to the bills paid in the notification aren't included & this causes great confusion in the accounts receivable departments. Please, please add this required feature asap ! .....
        • Ability to add VAT to Retainer Invoices

          Hello, I've had a telephone conversation a month ago with Dinesh on this topic and my request to allow for the addition of VAT on Retainer Invoices.  It's currently not possible to add VAT to Retainer Invoices and it was mutually agreed that there is absolutely no reason why there shouldn't be, especially as TAX LAW makes VAT mandatory on each invoice in Europe!   So basically, what i'm saying is that if you don't allow us to add VAT to Retainer Invoices, than the whole Retainer Invoices becomes
        • ZOHO DESK link with Power BI

          HI, I am using ZOHO Desk for last two years and now my client is asking to integrate ZOHO desk data to Power BI so that they can use Data for reporting. Kindly guide in details so that i can give access to ZOHO desk export data for more visibility.
        • URLs being masked despite disabling tracking

          Hey, We had disabled click tracking from an email update we are sharing with our users. Despite this, the URL the end user is receiving is masked, and looks like "https://qksyl-cmpzourl.maillist-manage.net/click/1d8e72714515cda6/1d8e72714515ca70" instead
        • Dashboard Autorefesh

          Good day, I am a dashboard that displays the number of tickets based on "Product Name". This dashboard is displayed on a big TV for the team to monitor. Can the dashboard auto-refresh every few minutes to display the new values? Currently, we have closed
        • Deferred/ Unearned revenue

          Dear Zoho Team, Just in case you have missed out my query posted few days ago: We issue invoices relating to 12-month web hosting service. When we issue the invoice, we should record the entire amount of the invoice as DEFERRED/UNEARNED REVENUE (ie. $10
        • Bigin Android app update: Zoho Books integration

          Hello everyone! We’re excited to introduce Zoho Books integration on the latest version(v1.8.5) Bigin Android app. Once the integration is completed in the web(bigin.zoho.com), the Zoho Books tab will be visible in detail View of Contacts, Companies,
        • Audit Log enhancements: Increased retention period, better user visibility, and more

          Hello everyone, The Audit Log brings in the following enhancements which improve the overall ability to manage data. Why did we make these updates? Extended Data Retention: Audit data can now be filtered and exported for a 60-day period, doubling the
        • Question Regarding Managing Sale Items in Zoho Books

          Good day, I was wondering about something. Right now, Zoho Books doesn’t seem to have a way to flag certain items as being on sale. For example, if I want a list of specific items to be on sale from October 1 to October 12, the user would have to export
        • [WEBINAR] Smooth year-end closure with Zoho Books (KENYA)

          Hello there, This webinar is for all Kenyan businesses looking to wrap up their financial year smoothly! Join our free session to learn how Zoho Books can simplify your year-end process. What to expect from this webinar: - All the latest updates in Zoho
        • System flaws and lack of response from Zoho

          I have had to go on here as no-one is replying to my emails regarding my problem (been 10 days and no email reply) and your chat facility online through your Zoho Books software opens and closes immediately, so not functioning properly. I actually called
        • Customer Grouping

          Hi, how can I group multiple customers into single group. So that I can have idea of accounts receivables of all the customers in single group. Like if there are multiple subsidiaries of same company we have having a business with, and want to view the
        • Two currencies

          More and more I am finding that internattional payments' fees are unpredictable. I would like, on my invoices that are in a foreign currency (eg. USD$ or EUR€) for there to be a GBP£ TOTAL display alongside the invoice's currency total. This would make
        • Zoho Books | Product updates | September 2025

          Hello users, We’ve rolled out new features and enhancements in Zoho Books. From PayNow payment method to applying journal credits to invoices and bills in other locations, explore the updates designed to enhance your bookkeeping experience. Integrate
        • GST Slabs Redefined: Stay Compliant Using Zoho Books!

          Hello Everyone! The Government of India is rolling out new GST rates, a major reform aimed at simplifying the current tax structure starting 22 September 2025. GST will move from four slabs (5%, 12%, 18%, 28%) to two main slabs (5% and 18%), plus a special
        • Next Page