Episode IV:Handling User Inputs in custom functions

Episode IV:Handling User Inputs in custom functions

Hi Everyone,

We've been exploring custom functions which help in performing advanced automation tasks. Custom functions enable you to achieve possibilities based on your organization's requirements. Custom functions require user inputs that allow the function to operate specifically for your organization based on the data provided.

The User Inputs section

Zoho Desk team provides you custom functions in a uniform code format. We have the "user inputs section" at the beginning of most of our custom functions.
The code below demonstrates what the User Inputs section looks like in custom functions. The User inputs section lets you feed in customized inputs based on your organization/portal.
  1. // ----<<<< User Inputs format>>>>----
  2. logs = Map();
  3. deskUrl = "https://desk.zoho.com";  //Replace .com the domain based on your DC
  4. Orgid = "***********" //replace with org ID
  5. cfApiName = "cf_field_name";// replace with the API name of the custom field
  6. departmentId = ***********;// Replace *********** with your department Id
  7. templateId = "enter_the_email_template_id";
  8.  
  9. from_email = "enter_the_from_email_address";
  10. // ----<<<< Code Section >>>>----
  11.  
  12. logs.insert("templateId":templateId);
  13. if(templateId != "")
  14. {
  15. // info templateId;
 
Here's how you can add your portal-based inputs to the custom function:
  1. // ----<<<< User Inputs with data >>>>----
  2. logs = Map()
  3. deskUrl = "https://desk.zoho.au";  //DC is au
  4. Orgid = "10000000x7" //replace with the complete org ID
  5. cfApiName = "cf_country_name";// replaced with the API name of the field Country name.
  6. departmentId = 29x0x0x0x0x0x9;// Replace *********** with your department Id
  7. templateId = "1x3x00xx9x8xxx0x0x";
  8. from_email = "1x4x00xx1x0xxx0x0x";
  9. // ----<<<< Code Section >>>>----
  10. logs.insert("templateId":templateId);
  11. if(templateId != "")
  12. {
  13. // info templateId;

What makes the 'User Inputs' section valuable in custom functions?

Some developers prefer to include user inputs directly within the code in every line.  However, using the dedicated User Inputs section offers several advantages: it keeps your code clean, enhances efficiency, and separates hard-coded values from the logic, making your custom function more manageable and easier to maintain.
In the User Inputs section, you’ll need to replace the sample values or placeholders with actual data. This is necessary because the Arguments option in the Custom Function script provides access to only a limited set of field values. In most cases, inputs such as Org ID, ticket ID, and API names must be entered in the User Inputs section to ensure the function runs correctly and is tailored to your organization/portal.

User Inputs: where to get the required values?

This section explores how to fetch the user inputs required for specific parameters.  These inputs play a key role in helping you code custom functions tailored to your needs. In most cases, they include IDs related to your organization, tickets, custom views, departments, holiday lists, and more; each referring to a unique record ID within the Zoho Desk platform.

1. Zoho Desk Domain

Many user inputs begin with "replace .com based on the your DC".
The easy way to find your DC(data center) or location is from the browser's URL. Login to your Zoho account via this link, your DC is present after accounts. zoho.
For example : deskURL = "https://desk.zoho.com";
If your DC is IN, replace .com with in in the deskURL like this "https://desk.zoho.in". Based on your DC : eu/au/in, replace .com with the respective DC alone.


2. Org ID

To get the Org ID of your Zoho Desk portal, go to Setup >> APIs under Developer Space. You will find the Org ID under the API Plan details.

3. Ticket ID

To get the ticket ID, go to Tickets >> open the ticket for which you want the ticket ID. In the browser's URL, you will find an 18-digit number  after the "/tickets/details/" section, which is the ticket ID of the particular opened ticket.



4. Contact ID

To fetch the contact ID, go to Customers and choose the contact for which you wish to find the Contact ID. In the browser's URL, you will find an 18-digit number at the end of the URL after the "/contacts/details/" section. This is the contact ID for the selected contact.



5. Account ID

To get the Account ID, click on Customers in your Zoho Desk portal, then click on Account on the bottom left of the window. Click on the account for which you want the account ID. Once the account is displayed, the 18-digit number at the end of the browser's URL after "/accounts/details/" is the Account ID for the selected account.


6. Agent ID

To fetch the Agent ID, go to Setup (S) >> User Management >> Agents. You can search the Agent using the Search space on the top left. Select the Agent for detailed view. The 18 digit number in the browser URL at the end after the "/user-control/agents/" is the Agent ID of the selected ID.


7.  Department ID

Navigate to Setup >> Organization >> Departments >> select the department for which you want to fetch the ID. The URL in the browser has the department ID after the "/general/departments/" section.


8. Help Center ID

To fetch the ID of the Help Center, go to Setup >> Channels >> Help Center >> select the Help Center for which you want to fetch the Help Center ID, then click Customization. Now the browser URL will have the 18-digit number between #setup/channels/  <Help Center ID> and /hcCustomize.


9. ID of Business hours

To get the ID for a business hour configured, go to Setup >> Organization >> Business Hours. Select the Business hour to view the Business hour page. The browser's URL will have the business hour ID after "/businesshours/edit/" section.


10. ID of a Holiday list

To get the ID of the Holiday Lists configured, go to Setup >> Organization >> Holiday Lists. Click on the Edit button in the Holiday list to view the Holiday list page. You will find the Holiday list ID next to "/holidaylist/edit/" in the browser URL.


11. Email template ID

Navigate to Setup >> Customization >> Email Templates. Click on the Email template for which you need the ID. Once you've selected the Email template, you can locate the Email template ID in the URL of the email template page. It is found after the "/emailtemplates/edit/" section.
 

12. Custom field API name

When custom functions are triggered based on  a specific field or a custom field created, they require the field's API name to be included in the user inputs.
To fetch the API names, go to Setup >> Customization >> Layouts and Fields >> Field list. You will find the API name for the respective Field Name in the Fields list. 

13. Custom view ID

Some custom functions operate based on a custom view you've created. To execute the custom function based on the custom view within your portal, you'll need the custom view ID.
To fetch the ID of the Custom View, select the Module where you created the Custom View >> Views >> choose the custom view, right click on the page and select inspect. Click on Network in the Inspect tab. Click clear to clear the Network tab. Click Save on the custom view. In the Network console, the first 16 digit number you see is the Custom view ID. Click on the ID to view the headers, you can confirm the ID here.
To fetch the Custom View ID:
  1. Navigate to the module where the custom view was created.
  2. Go to Views and select the desired custom view. Click Edit on the custom view.
  3. Right-click on the page and select Inspect to open the developer tools. Click the Network tab.Click on Click Clear to empty the Network logs.
  4. Now, click Save on the Custom View. In the Network console, look for the first 16-digit number—this is the Custom View ID.
  5. Click on that entry to view the Headers, where you can confirm the ID.
 
With this episode, we bring the custom function series to a close.

Here are the links to visit the previous episodes:

We’d love to hear how these inputs have helped you! If there are any topics you'd like us to focus on, share them in the comments below.
Until the next post, see you soon!
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

    • Zoho Voice VS in Zoho CRM for logging calls

      I don't understand the differences between logging calls in Zoho Voice VS in Zoho CRM. Why the 2 separate platforms? Seems confusing

    • Updates to Auto-Upgrade in Zoho Campaigns

      Hello everyone, We've rolled out a new update that slightly modifies how the auto-upgrade option in Zoho Campaigns works. Even if you hit the contact limit, this update ensures that your account is upgraded and that contacts are imported smoothly—without

    • Adding Sub-Forms to Merge Documents

      I am setting up a Mail Merge, which includes sub-form table data. I've done it before but now I am having issues: 1. The headings don't show. I had to enter these manually 2. The table lines are separated. I want them together. Anyone know how to fix

    • Zoho Bookings Online Training | July 31, 2025

      Hi everyone! We’re back with the second session of our Zoho Bookings training series! This time, we’ll show you how to automate your scheduling, manage appointments more efficiently, and explore advanced features for your industry. Join our free, two-hour

    • Translation of Tooltip Messages

      The descriptive help messages should be available to provide translations for.

    • Delete Inactive Zoho Accounts - Access Cleanup_User Id: 60001640923

      As part of our Zoho access hygiene, we’ve reviewed and deactivated several inactive user accounts. These accounts have not been used in the past year and are no longer tied to active operations. All access rights have been revoked, and records retained

    • CREATE button is grayed

      On Android adding new notes to notebooks with collections is impossible because the CREATE button is grayed. What can be done?

    • Can Zoho Creator Apps have multiple actors and steps? Example

      Mortgage Application App- Outside party fills out form via published website form, Inside party approves for additional documentation, outside party recieved requests for x, y, and z documents.  Outside party submits x, y and z but z is wrong.  Inside

    • How to download all attachments from inbox, send, other folders in one go

      Hi All, Appreciate if anyone could help me with steps for below requirement. How to download all attachments from inbox, send, other folders in one go. Even mapping to new folder will help me.  Thanks in advance. 

    • Re-Apply SLA When Ticket Reopened from Closed Status?

      If you have an SLA applied, timers are deactivated when going to "On Hold" status type and reactivated when going back to an Open status type. What we discovered is when a customer replies to a closed case and it reopens, the SLA is not applied and timers

    • Zoho Expense Reimbursement

      I am using Zoho Expense for employee expenses.  At year end I accounted for reimbursement for the founders' expenses by doing a manual entry between employee reimbursements and shareholder loan.  All is correct in the balance sheet, but in Zoho expense the expense report totals are showing as owing still.  It doesn't impact the books, but I don't want to see amounts owing.  How can I zero these out?  The only way I can see it is by creating a transaction in Books that pays the employee via a bank

    • Request to Delete Mistakenly Created Zoho Desk Account – Access Blocked to Company Directory

      Dear Zoho Support Team, I hope this message finds you well. I am writing to request assistance regarding a Zoho Desk account I mistakenly created using my company email address. I created the account before being officially onboarded by my company, and

    • Introducing an AI-driven CAPTCHA for Help Center that offers improved accessibility and enhanced security | Zoho Desk | Product Update

      Captcha protects your help center from fraud and abuse without creating friction. What is a CAPTCHA? CAPTCHA is a test used in computing to verify that a user is human by requiring them to complete a challenge. It helps prevent bot attacks and reduce

    • Announcing new features in Trident for Windows (v.1.29.4.0)

      Hello Community! Trident for Windows just got better! It’s packed with new features designed to enhance communication, manage important information securely, and give you a smoother, more productive experience. Let’s dive into what’s new! Access Zoho

    • Exporting Ticket Threads/Comments and Attachments in Reports

      Hi, I would like to know is it possible for Ticket Comments and/or Attachments to be displayed in Reports?

    • Product management across integrated apps

      Hi everyone, I’m setting up my business for selling products and integrating CRM, Inventory/Books, Ecommerce, and other apps. Where should I load products for the first time so they reflect across all apps? And for updating prices or adding new products—where

    • Calculate Number of Days Between Two Dates

      Can someone help me with how to create a field using the formula function to calculate the number of dates between a campaign start date and end date? The closest I have gotten is using the "Datecomp" function but it gives you the dates in minutes, rather

    • Improved RingCentral Integration

      We’d like to request an enhancement to the current RingCentral integration with Zoho. RingCentral now automatically generates call transcripts and AI-based call summaries (AI Notes) for each call, which are extremely helpful for support and sales teams.

    • Zoho Writer Docx files not able to be converted into Google Docs

      Since July 23rd, I've encountered an issue where DOCX files exported from Zoho Writer no longer convert properly into Google Docs when uploaded to Google Drive. My workflow relies on generating merged DOCX documents from Zoho Forms using Zoho Writer templates,

    • Schedule Campaign - Recipients Time Zone

      Something seems to be wrong with the scheduling feature for scheduling campaigns to be deployed at a specific time to the recipients time zone. I scheduled campaigns twice to be sent at the recipients time zone and the campaigns are deploying at the wrong time. When communicating with Zoho support they said to make sure it was scheduled at least 24 hours in advance so we did this with our last campaign and it was still deployed at the wrong time. Anyone else having this issue?

    • Zoho Vault App for Windows

      Hello, is there a Windows app that can be used to access the passwords saved in Zoho Vault? Thank you

    • Zoho Cursor Jumping

      Hi, Zoho Support, We received the below email for a bug when using Zoho on Firefox. Please let us know if there is anything that can be done to solve this issue. Have any other Zoho Mail users reported issues the past few days with Zoho auto-saving drafts

    • tomorrow option within the due date section and drag and drop into calendar

      Firstly, thank you for creating such a well-designed and user-friendly to-do list app. It’s almost perfect for my needs, but I wanted to offer a couple of suggestions that I believe could significantly enhance its usability, particularly for those who

    • low quality videos

      when in puplish videos or reel in social media platforms it pulished in low quality

    • Using Zoho Forms vs Zoho Survey

      Hello - I'm looking for advice on whether to use Zoho Survey or Zoho Forms for our small non-profit. We have a Zoho One subscription, so have access to both. The main use case at the moment is application forms for our professional development programs.

    • Kaizen #200 - Answering Your Questions | Authentication using Zoho CRM Python SDK

      We’re incredibly excited to bring you the 200th post in our Kaizen series! This journey has been as much about listening as it has been about sharing. And today, we’re making both count. Over the past few weeks, we’ve collected your feedback through the

    • Zoho CRM sync

      Just wondering if the plan is for the Zoho CRM implementation to always be just an import and not a sync? At the very least, a one-way sync that kept the data in Tables up-to-date would increase the amount of usecases, but ideally the option to two-way

    • Add serial number in print page list

      How can i add serial number in print page for every entries?

    • Trying to Delete records from Creator not found in CRM

      Hi, In the following script, I am trying to delete records from Creator not found in CRM, but I am getting the error message "Error at line number: 55 Improper Statement Error might be due to missing ';' at end of the line or incomplete expression". Please

    • Can't login to Zoho mail

      I'm logged into Zoho but when I try to go in zoho mail I get: Invalid request! The input passed is invalid or the URL is invoked without valid parameters. Please check your input and try again. I just set up my mx records and stuff with namecheap a few

    • REST API for Branch and Budget

      Hi Team, Can you please guide me with the appropriate rest API documentation for fetching Branch and Budget details?

    • STOP FRAUDULENT TRANSACTION IMMEDIATELY

      I DID NOT AUTHORIZE THIS TRANSACTION OR RENEWAL, STOP IMMEDIATELY CHARGING MY CARD I CAN NOT CONTACT SUPPORT, NO ONE IS AVAILABLE ON CHAT PAYMENT ID RPCW2003260759193

    • Best way to handle a credit card download fiasco

      Hi there, hoping that someone knowledgable with book keeping can give me the answer here. One of my credit cards has been integrated with Zoho books and we have been downloading transactions with no issue. The credit card got compromised and was used

    • When Opening Zoho Mail I always get a Tab with an error (See attached image)

      Everytime I open Zoho mail I get this. It is trying to open a deleted email. I already tried going to Settings > While Starting up Changed that option back and forth but this persists. Its annoying. Other than that I love this. Any help would be appreciated.

    • Pre-Registration - Suggestion

      Suggest to add a Pre-Registration feature for non-scheduled events. Scenario is that we have a training academy and would like to collect pre-registrants prior to an actual scheduled event so we can use this as a basis for demand management and scheduling of new events for those expressing interest.

    • Not all messages showing in folders in iOS mail.app

      I have a bunch of emails filed in various folders. Those folders are showing all of the emails in them on Zoho.com and in the Zoho Mail app on my iPhone and my iPad. They also all show up fine in Mail.app on my Mac. The problem is that certain (not all)

    • Where do the 'Archived' mails go?

      I have hit 'Archive' on quite some mails I still needed, but didn't want in my inbox anymore. I obviously thought 'Archive' is not the same as 'Delete', since they don't even pass the trash folder this way, and right now I was looking for one of those

    • Signature image size changing on replied emails

      Hi, Sometimes I see the size of the image I use as signature changes when I open replied emails. Do you know why is this happening? It doesn't seem to happen when I send emails to Gmail though. Signature should look like in attachment "Signature_normal.jpg"

    • Não consigo enviar emails. "Razão:533"

      Não consigo enviar emails. "Razão: 533 Relaying disallowed. Invalid Domain" aparece e me impede de enviar emails... Como resolver o problema?

    • Error when setting up IMAP access in Gmail

      Hi I set up POP3 access via Gmail for my Zoho-hosted domain email. I just tried to change it to IMAP access, however when inputting the settings I received the following error message from Gmail "Missing +OK response upon connecting to the server: * OK

    • Next Page