Zoho Developer Community Monthly Digest - September 2023

Zoho Developer Community Monthly Digest - September 2023



Hello everyone!

As we step into the crisp and colorful month of October, it's time to take a step back to reflect on the fantastic month of September. In this month's issue, we have curated exciting updates, insightful articles, interesting community discussions, and helpful resources to keep you at the forefront of the Zoho Developer Community. Let's dive right in!

One of the major developments in the Developer Community arena is the newly revamped Zoho Developer Community websitewhere we've consolidated all the resources from the developer community learning series into a centralized hub for your convenient access. Consider bookmarking this site to stay informed about the latest updates in the developer community.

International Programmers' Day

September is special for us tech enthusiasts, as it hosts a significant day that celebrates something near and dear to our hearts - International Programmers' Day!

Zoho Creator Developers' Summit

At Zoho, we celebrated Programmers in style by hosting the Zoho Creator Developers' Meetup in our Chennai HQ. This meetup left a profound impact on all who attended. Developers were treated to a deep dive into the world of low-code development, gaining insights from our Developer Community members and Zoho Creator Champions @Deepa Govind and @Radha R. This celebration empowered developers with both knowledge and valuable connections poised to drive innovation.

Developers' Ask Me Anything

We organized an exclusive AMA session on LinkedIn to commemorate International Programmers' Day, featuring our CEO Sridhar Vembu. He provided detailed and insightful answers to a wide range of questions on all things technology and low-code development. Watch the enlightening conversation here.

Upcoming Events

Here are the exciting events lined up for the community in the coming weeks:
  1. Zobot 101In this five-part online webinar series that started on August 24, learn all about Zobot – Zoho SalesIQ's AI -powered chatbot builder platform – and explore the ways to leverage its capabilities effectively for your business. For registration and more details, click here.

  2. Zoho Developer Hangout 10: Our Developer Community member, @Anonymous User - CRM Engineer at Vaspian - will delve into error handling in Deluge, debugging and testing on October 17. He will also discuss best practices when using services such as Zoho Catalyst, GCP, AWS, and other serverless functions with an API. To register and know more about this meetup, click here.

  3. Zoho Cliq for Developers 101: Zoho Cliq for Developers 101 is a three-part webinar series starting October 19, curated to provide a comprehensive understanding of Zoho Cliq's Development platform and its various components such as slash commands, bots, widgets, and more. Click here for registration and more details.

  4. Creator Tech Connect Series: Creator's tech connect series would comprise of technical sessions that provide immersive training on the key essentials and technical nuances of building a solution in Zoho Creator. This is a great opportunity for our developer community to stay informed about Creator's new feature releases, product roadmap, best practices to follow while scripting in deluge, new deluge concepts, cloud functions and the most awaited feature "Canvas Builder." Click here for more information

    Date: October 12th, 2023

    Topic: Technical Series - Cloud Functions in Zoho Creator

    APAC & ANZ - 11 AM to 12 PM IST - Registration Link

    Americas & EMEA - 9 PM to 10 PM IST - Registration Link

  5. Creator Learning Table Series: This series is designed to provide users with valuable insights and knowledge about Creator's capabilities in various business use cases and applications. This year we've adopted the "12 Months, 12 Industries" concept. Each month, we will focus on a specific industry, illustrating its unique processes with real-time business scenarios and how to make best use of Creator for that industry.

Date: October 5th, 2023

Topic: Learning Table Series For Insurance 

APAC & ANZ - 11 AM to 12 PM IST - Registration Link

Americas & EMEA - 9 PM to 10 PM IST - Registration Link

September Highlights

Besides International Programmers' Day celebrations, September also brought forth other notable events.


Zoho in Sync with Apple's Latest Updates

Zoho is always quick to embrace latest Apple tech in our Mobile apps, making it a breeze for our users to manage their businesses on their devices. Discover our latest and high-quality updates here.

Zoho Developer Hangout - Episode 9

Our community member @Anonymous User, Developer and Zoho Team Lead at AspenTech CRM, shared expert tips on Client Script implementation in Zoho CRM. Client Script is a dynamic feature introduced within Zoho CRM designed to achieve and extend real-time business cases through customization. 

Zobot 101

In the third session of the Zobot 101 series, @Anonymous UserFounder & CEO of Spikra - Zoho's Premium Partner, graciously shared her bot-building journeyShe provided valuable insights into the do's and don'ts, shared best practices, some handy hacks, and expertly addressed all questions, aiding the community to kick-start their own Zobot journeys.

Community Discussions

Zoho Developer Forum

  • Discussions about the implementation of Client Scripts are continuing within the Zoho CRM Developer Series: Client Script announcement post. This post serves as a valuable resource for developers who are exploring Client Scripts in Zoho CRM.

  • Wondering how to update date/time field with the current time on page load using Client Script? @Anonymous User and @Anonymous User has got you covered in this post.

  • When @Anonymous User encountered difficulties while attempting to set up a custom function to auto update Deal name on create/edit, our MVP @Hugh Marshall identified the problem and provided assistance in resolving it in this post.

  • Take a look at the suggestions and codes shared by @Anonymous User and @Anonymous User to tackle date format discrepancies in @Anonymous User's Client Script use case. 

  • Want to know how to store data between events using Client Script? Check how @Federico got a solution from @Haiku Technical Support.

Developers ZUG Cliq Channel

Note: These conversations are confined to the Developers ZUG Cliq channel members. If you're keen on becoming a part of this space, please fill in this onboarding form to receive your invitation to join the channel.
  • Learn how to add validation to the user field to restrict record ownership to specific users using Client Script in this conversation.
  • Can you use Zoho as an Identity Provider for third-party websites? Explore the possibility in this discussion.

  • Looking for a way to fetch the actual "true available stock" that accounts for committed stock using the Zoho Inventory API? Go through this discussion to find out how.

Resource Spotlight

  • #Simple yet significant pointers Check out these posts for simple fixes for some common mistakes that are frequently made while building Zoho CRM extensions.
  • Zoho CRM Developer Updates: 
  • Kaizen: This series aims to benefit developers to gain insights into the various developer tools available in CRM.
    • Kaizen #100: A significant landmark calls for a special Q & A post. This post contains responses from our product experts to the queries posed by the community members.
    • Kaizen #101: This post is the extended version of the previous Kaizen post and contains answers to the questions on Assignment Rules and Widgets
    • Kaizen #102: To accommodate the myriad of queries, this post is also dedicated to the responses for all the remaining questions posed by the community members.
    • Kaizen #103: This post explores Bulk Write API in detail, and how to implement it using Zoho CRM PHP SDK.
    • Kaizen #104As a continuation of the previous Kaizen post, this post guides you to create a bulk write job, fetch the job status, and download the results.
    • Kaizen #105: This post discusses Functions, Integration Tasks and API Credits.

Community Spotlight

ZDH Speakers

The contributions of our ZDH presenters have been instrumental in the success of the this segment. We extend our heartfelt appreciation for their efforts.


As a continuation of featuring a ZDH presenter each month, this time, we would like to introduce our second ZDH presenter, Jesus Sosa. Explore this post to discover the knowledge and insights he shared with the community. 

Cliq Contributors

The Developers ZUG Cliq channel has consistently served as the primary hub for community members seeking technical assistance and engaging in savvy discussions. Here are our top contributors who have gone the extra mile to support and assist the Zoho Developer Community:



We want to express our sincere appreciation to all our community contributors. Your commitment, expertise, and the time you invest are invaluable to the community. 


For those who are new to the Zoho Developer Community, check out this post to get started. 

We appreciate you dedicating your time to peruse this month's digest. Make sure to follow the digest each month for the most recent insights and conversations. Stay connected and participate in the forums to be featured in the upcoming month's digest. Wishing you a fantastic month ahead!


Happy coding!

SEE ALSO




        • Recent Topics

        • Font breakage in Zoho Mail Desktop Lite application for Mac

          Dear Zoho Mail and Workplace Community, With the latest update of macOS Sequoia and macOS Tahoe, there has been font breakages in the email preview of Zoho Mail Desktop Lite application for Mac. This breakage is due to the corruption of the System fonts
        • Feature request - image resizing on sales orders

          I need to be able to show the items on the sales orders, currently the item image shows really small and no way to resize it, need the ability to make the image larger to showcase the product on the pdfs
        • What's new in Zoho Sheet: Simplify data entry and collaboration

          Hello, Zoho Sheet community! Last year, our team was focused on research and development so we could deliver updates that enhance your spreadsheet experience. This year, we’re excited to deliver those enhancements—but we'll be rolling them out incrementally
        • Nueva edición de "Ask The Expert" en Español Zoho Community

          ¡Hola Comunidad! ¿Te gustaría obtener respuestas en directo sobre Zoho CRM, Zoho Desk u otra solución dentro de nuestro paquete de CX (Experiencia del Cliente? Uno de nuestros expertos estará disponible para responder a todas tus preguntas durante nuestra
        • Automation Series: Auto-Notify External Users on Issue Closure

          Hello Folks! In Zoho Projects, you can notify external issue reporters via email when an issue is marked as Closed. This helps the users avoid manual follow-ups and keeps the reporter updated. In this post, we’ll walk through a simple setup using a Web
        • Turn chat conversations into real action with Integration Blocks in Guided Conversations

          When a Guided Conversation fails, it's usually not because the logic is wrong. They fail because the conversation stops moving. A customer starts a chat with a clear goal: report an issue, check a status, or confirm something. At first, the flow does
        • Basic Mass Update deluge schedule not working

          I'm trying to create a schedule that will 'reset' a single field to 0 every morning - so that another schedule can repopulate with the day's calculation. I thought this would be fairly simple but I can't work out why this is failing : 1) I'm based in
        • click to call feature

          I've Zoho CRM and in that i want click to call feature.
        • We Asked, Zoho Delivered: The New Early Access Program is Here

          For years, the Zoho Creator community has requested a more transparent and participatory approach to beta testing and feature previews. Today, I'm thrilled to highlight that Zoho has delivered exactly what we asked for with the launch of the Early Access
        • From Zoho CRM to Paper : Design & Print Data Directly using Canvas Print View

          Hello Everyone, We are excited to announce a new addition to your Canvas in Zoho CRM - Print View. Canvas print view helps you transform your custom CRM layouts into print-ready documents, so you can bring your digital data to the physical world with
        • Can the Product Image on the Quote Template be enlarged

          Hello, I am editing the Quote Template and added ${Products.Product Image} to the line item and the image comes up but it is very tiny. Is there anyway that you can resize this to be larger? Any help would be great! Thanks
        • Creating Parent Child relationship in Accounts

          We have customers with multiple locations, I setup the HQ as an account, then I setup the different sites marking the HQ as the parent to that location. If I then do a Deal for one of the locations, is there a way to show by looking at the parent account
        • Learner transcript Challenges.

          Currently i am working on a Learner Transcript app for my employer using Zoho Creator. The app is expected to accept assessment inputs from tutors, go through an approval process and upon call up, displays all assessments associated with a learner in
        • Client and Vendor Portal

          Some clients like keeping tabs on the developments and hence would like to be notified of the progress. Continuous updates can be tedious and time-consuming. Zoho Sprints has now introduced a Client and Vendor Portal where you can add client users and
        • need a packing list feature

          In our business, goods listed on an invoice are packed in separate boxes and shipped off. for e.g. an invoice may have 10 items. each item could then be packed in different boxes depending on qty of each item. this packing list is as important as the invoice for purposes of shipping documents.  Request you to add this feature asap.
        • Recording the deducted TDS on advance received from Customer (Zoho Books India)

          Hi, How can we record the tds that has been deducted by my customer for the advance that he has paid to me. 1) My customer has paid Rs 10000 to me as advance (Rs 9800 as cash and deducted Rs 200 as TDS). I am not able to record the tds that has been deducted
        • #7 Tip of the week: Delegating approvals in Zoho People

          With Zoho People, absences need not keep employees waiting with their approval requests. When you are not available at work, you can delegate approvals that come your way to your fellow workmate and let them take care of your approvals temporarily. Learn more!
        • Admin Tip: Manage sub-domain emails using sub-domain stripping

          As an admin, you may need separate domains for different departments such as sales, support, and marketing. While this approach offers flexibility, creating and managing multiple domains can quickly become overwhelming, especially since each domain requires
        • Quick Copy Column Name

          Please add the ability to quickly copy the name of a column in a Table or Query View. When you right-click the column there should be an option to copy the name, or if you left-click the column and use the Ctrl+C keyboard shortcut it should copy the
        • Ability to Edit YouTube Video Title, Description & Thumbnail After Publishing

          Hi Zoho Social Team, How are you? We would like to request an enhancement to Zoho Social that enables users to edit YouTube video details after the video has already been published. Your team confirmed that while Zoho Social currently allows editing the
        • How do I remove a data source from Zoho Analytics?

          I am unable to find a delte option on a datasource that i put in the system as an error. On teh web it refers to a setup icon but I do not see that on my interface?
        • Add Employee Availability Functionality to Zoho People Shift Module

          Hello Zoho People Product Team, Greetings and hope you are doing well. We would like to submit a feature request to enhance the Zoho People Shift module by adding employee availability management, similar to the functionality available in Zoho Shifts.
        • Bigin, more powerful than ever on iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe, and watchOS 26.

          Hot on the heels of Apple’s latest OS updates, we’ve rolled out several enhancements and features designed to help you get the most from your Apple devices. Enjoy a refined user experience with smoother navigation and a more content-focused Liquid Glass
        • Delay in rendering Zoho Recruit - Careers in the ZappyWorks

          I click on the Careers link (https://zappyworks.zohorecruit.com/jobs/Careers) on the ZappyWorks website expecting to see the job openings. The site redirects me to Zoho Recruit, but after the redirect, the page just stays blank for several seconds. I'm
        • Is Desk Down?

          Across department - always an error. [Status Mode] - error [Table View and the rest] - working
        • How do I change the wording of the tile of SignForm?

          When my user opens a SignForm url, the title that is presented is always "SignForm signer Information" and a form is displayed asking for the username and email address. This can be confusing to the end user. How can I change the title at least (Or at
        • How to link tickets to a Vendor/Vendor Contact (not Customer) for Accounting Department?

          Hi all, We’re configuring our Accounting department to handle tickets from both customers and vendors (our independent contractors). Right now, ticket association seems to be built around linking a ticket to a Customer / Customer Contact, but for vendor-originated
        • Automatic Matching from Bank Statements / Feeds

          Is it possible to have transactions from a feed or bank statement automatically match when certain criteria are met? My use case, which is pretty broadly applicable, is e-commerce transactions for merchant services accounts (clearing accounts). In these
        • Unify Overlapping Functionalities Across Zoho Products

          Hi Zoho One Team, We would like to raise a concern about the current overlap of core functionalities across various Zoho applications. While Zoho offers a rich suite of tools, many applications include similar or identical features—such as shift management,
        • Automation #7 - Auto-update Email Content to a Ticket

          This is a monthly series where we pick some common use cases that have been either discussed or most asked about in our community and explain how they can be achieved using one of the automation capabilities in Zoho Desk. Email is one of the most commonly
        • Ticket to article and Ticket to template

          Hello! I would like to know if it is possible (and how) to do the following actions: 1. To generate an article from a ticket (reply + original message) 2. Easy convert an answer to an email template
        • Is there API Doc for Zoho Survey?

          Hi everyone, Is there API doc for Zoho Survey? Currently evaluating a solution - use case to automate survey administration especially for internal use. But after a brief search, I couldn't find API doc for this. So I thought I should ask here. Than
        • Kaizen #225 - Making Query-based Custom Related Lists Actionable with Lookups and Links

          Hello everyone! Welcome back to another post in the Kaizen series! This week, we will discuss an exciting enhancement in Queries in Zoho CRM. In Kaizen #190, we discussed how Queries bridge gaps where native related lists fall short and power custom related
        • WebDAV / FTP / SFTP protocols for syncing

          I believe the Zoho for Desktop app is built using a proprietary protocol. For the growing number of people using services such as odrive to sync multiple accounts from various providers (Google, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, etc.) it would be really helpful
        • Change the "from" field

          Hello, I used some random word to create the account ID to later host the domain based emails. That username shows up in the "from" field on test emails. How do I change that to a custom one, like first name/last name or business name? I tried to create second user and "named" it the way I want and it worked to a degree, although the "from" field shows all lower case letters, while original had some capital letters. So the "all-low-case" is another issue I am having... Thank you
        • [Free Webinar] Learning Table Series - AI-Enhanced Logistics Management in Zoho Creator

          Hello Everyone! We’re excited to invite you to another edition of Learning Table Series, where we showcase how Zoho Creator empowers industries with innovative and automated solutions. About Learning Table Series Learning Table Series is a free, 45-60
        • How to use Rollup Summary in a Formula Field?

          I created a Rollup Summary (Decimal) field in my module, and it shows values correctly. When I try to reference it in a Formula Field (e.g. ${Deals.Partners_Requested} - ${Deals.Partners_Paid}), I get the error that the field can’t be found. Is it possible
        • 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
        • Error Logs / Failure logs for Client Scripts Functions

          Hi Team, While we are implementing client scripts for the automation, it is working fine in few accounts but not working for others. So, it would be great if we can have error Logs for client scripts also just like custom functions. Is there any way that
        • Zoho Books blocks invoicing without VeriFactu even though it is not mandatory until 2027

          I would like to highlight a very serious issue in Zoho Books for Spain. 1. The Spanish government has postponed the mandatory start of VeriFactu to January 1st, 2027. This means that during all of 2026 businesses are NOT required to transmit invoices
        • Next Page