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

    • Syncing zoho books into zoho crm

      I was wondering how I can use zoho books in crm as I have been using them separately and would like to sync the two. Is this possible and if so, how? Thanks

    • Announcing new features in Trident for Mac (1.34.0)

      Hello everyone! We’re excited to introduce the latest updates to Trident, which are designed to take workplace communication to the next level. Let’s take a quick look at what’s new. Connect with customers using Zoho Voice integration. You can now easily

    • Massive Zoho Books failure

      We have not received any communication or notification from Zoho, but we have detected that Zoho Books is not working for all our users. We cannot access or use Zoho Books. This is critical. We are trying to contact Zoho on the Spain telephone number,

    • The Social Wall: January 2026

      Hello everyone, We’re back with the first edition of The Social Wall of 2026. There’s a lot planned for the year ahead, and we’re starting with a few useful features and improvements released in January to help you get started. Create a GBP in Social

    • How to block whole domain?

      I am getting at least 50-75sometimes over 100 spams emails a day. I see a lot of the spam is coming from .eu domains. I would like to block /reject all email coming for the .eu domain. I do not have any need for email from .EU domains. Why won't the BlackList

    • How Zoho Contracts Makes Negotiations Clear, Secure, and Transparent

      Negotiation is one of the most critical—and often most chaotic—stages of the contract lifecycle. Multiple stakeholders review the same document, propose changes, debate terms, and exchange feedback. Without the right tools, this collaborative process

    • Error: Invalid Element tax_override_preference

      In both Books and Inventory, we're getting the following error whenever we try to enter any Bill: I think this is a bug. Even cloning an old bill (that obviously was entered just fine), this error occurs.

    • Assign Income to Project Without Invoice

      Hello, Fairly new user here so apologies if there is a really obvious solution here that I am just missing... I have hundreds of small deposits into a bank account that I want to assign to a project but do not want to have to create an invoice every time

    • How to Print the Data Model Zoho CRM

      I have created the data model in Zoho CRM and I want the ability to Print this. How do we do this please? I want the diagram exported to a PDF. There doesnt appear to be an option to do this. Thanks Andrew

    • our customers have difficult to understand the Statements

      our costumers have big problems to understand Zohos Statements. we need a text box after the payment number to explain what the payments are for. Is it possible to develop a version of the Statement with that kind of box and if so whu can do it

    • How to track a list of ALL the items that ONE customer bought?

      Hello, I am interested in getting a list of all the items that only ONE of my customers bought, and the invoices are what show up instead. It's very tedious to go through every single invoice when we sell a lot of items to this customer. Surely there

    • Exchange Rate Updates

      Hi, It would be great that when you work with multiple currencies, the exchange rate updates automagically every day (as seen on Zoho Books) or at least that when you create/update an opportunity the exchange rate could be manually updated, or maybe both!

    • Locked Out of Super Admin Account

      I'm locked out of my Super Admin account and the external e-mail is no longer associated with it. There seems to be a problem during set up, the system ought to ask to assign a new password instead of using Google accounts. Please help me get back access.

    • Emails are going to notification folder and not in inbox

      emails are going to notification folder and not into inbox

    • 550 5.4.6 Unusual sending activity detected. Please try after sometime

      Hi, I am receiving this error message when trying to send my emails. The only reason I can think why this is happening is my previous two emails were bounced back to me due to a non working mailbox error. I have followed the online links for unblocking

    • Projects Home Customization

      Hello! We've been in Zoho One since July of last year, and my team has started providing feedback on what they'd like to do. Their latest wish is that they could have more control over the Projects Home content. For example, they want a card that shows

    • IMAP search support

      Does Zoho Mail support IMAP search? https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9051.html#name-search-command TEXT <string> Messages that contain the specified string in the header (including MIME header fields) or body of the message. Servers are allowed to implement

    • Performance is degrading

      We have used Mail and Cliq for about three years now. I used to use both on the browser. Both have, over the past 6 months, had a severe degradation in performance. I switched to desktop email, which appeared to improve things somewhat, although initial

    • Cannot reorder fields in Page Layout in Expenses and Purchase Requests

      It is very inconvenient that the custom fields in Page Layout cannot be re-ordered. The only way is to remove the fields and re-create them; however, it is impractical. This would affect the reports and dashboards we are having. Not able to re-order the

    • bouncing emails

      My recurring invoices have bounced back

    • Probable Scam / Phising attempt from email pretending to be Zoho

      I think this is a scam email right? It says "zohCworkplace.com". I'm on the Mail Free plan The link in the CTA button seems to go to a redirect. Just wanted to bring it up to the security team.

    • Feature Request: Ability to set Default Custom Filters and apply them via URL/Deluge

      I've discovered a significant gap in how Zoho Creator handles Custom Filters for reports, and I'm hoping the Zoho team can address this in a future update. This limitation has been raised before and continues to be requested, but remains unresolved. The

    • Email Address Search in "To" Field Search is broken, Zoho refuses to fix it

      Typing a part of the email address string other than the beginning of the string does NOT work, I kindly urge Zoho to fix this. Let's say you remember writing an email so someone called "smith" from company "corp.com", but can't remember their first name,

    • Emails not being received by @hotmail.com, @outlook.com and a few others

      When I try to send emails from zoho mail to people with email addresses ending @outlook.com and @hotmail.com (and a few others), I get a 'delayed' automatic email and then a few hours later, an 'undelivered' automatic email. This has started a few months

    • scroll bar for far left of screen

      I am unable to even see the scroll bar to the right of "inbox" etc on the left; it is stuck at "streams" and I can't get to inbox or anything else. It would help if it could be made a lighter color as the black or dark grey can't bee seen.

    • OUt of office every friday

      Hi, I tryed to configure my out of office, because i'm not working or emailing on fridays. But when i select only friday as unavailable day, the out of office still sets for the whole week. What am I doing wrong?

    • Signature line

      How do I set signature line in email

    • Zoho email

      I cannot send email to mail.ru

    • 【参加無料】東京 Zoho ユーザ交流会 NEXUS ー CRMで始めるマーケティング事例 / AI活用法(Zia Agents)

      ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。コミュニティチームの藤澤です。 3月27日(金)に東京、新橋で東京 Zoho ユーザー交流会 NEXUS を開催します！ 昨年度までより、さらにパワーアップして戻ってきました！ ユーザー活用事例は、2人のユーザーさんからお話しいただきます。Zoho サービスの活用の幅を広げたい方や、他のユーザーの利用法を気軽に知りたい方など、多くの方にとって学びのあるセッションになること間違いなしです✨ また今年は、これまで以上に、AI機能にも焦点を当てて行く予定です。 初回として、Zoho社員からZoho

    • Issue Exporting Data – CSRF Token Invalid Error

      Dear Zoho Team, We are experiencing an issue when exporting data from our Analytics workspace. Whenever we attempt to export data from our analytical pool, the system displays the following alert message: Alert Message: The CSRF token is invalid. It could

    • Deluge Learning Series – Client functions in Deluge | January 2026

      We’re excited to kick-start the first session of the 2026 Deluge Learning Series (DLS) with Client functions in Deluge. For those who are new to DLS, here’s a quick overview of what the series is all about: The Deluge Learning Series takes place on the

    • Zoho Mail 505 error I can not send email

      Hi, I’m having issues sending emails from my custom domain email address. When I send emails to Outlook addresses, I receive an “Undeliverable 505” error. However, emails send and receive correctly when I use Gmail. This is important for my business,

    • Multiple MFA Methods

      With SMS-based MFA methods being discontinued, there is now no way to have mutliple MFA methods. I'd like to add my zoho account on two seperate phones using the Google Authenticator app. In the https://accounts.zoho.com/home#multiTFA/modes you can only

    • Reuse Standalone Function

      I noticed that there's a missing information in documentation to reuse a standalone function and it is because the parameters require an argument. Here is my code and it is working. response = invokeurl [ url: "https://people.zoho.com/api/v3/function/sample/execute"

    • Domain renewals

      Need to know how hoe to renew the domain

    • MX shopify problem

      hello, i added all MX values in my shopify DNS - it shows those values on the shopify panel + your toolkit. I tried to send some email and it works, however on my gmail it says they cant verify this email. When i try to answer into my domain's email -

    • Best Way to Manage Email Notifications While Running a Strategy Website

      I am currently managing a content-based website, and I use Zoho Mail for handling contact forms, user queries, and collaboration emails. One challenge I am facing is organizing incoming emails efficiently, especially when messages come from different

    • What is the maximum email domains ?

      I help manage about 20 associations and I'm looking for a way to centralize them in one place. Does Zoho Mail pro or enterprise support 20-30 domains for 3-5 users each?

    • Add to Workdrive filter

      I'm trying to create a filter that will upload attachments in emails and the e-mail body to a folder in workdrive. I am able to do one or the other (attachment, or e-mail content), but not both. I first tried it using the "Email (EML) + attachment" option.

    • Forgot my admin Panel Id and password

      Sir, I have an account , where a domain mycityestate.in is added for Zoho email , now it is hard for me to manage email because i have forgotten the Email account and password registered with Admin Panel of Zoho. Just need email name which is registered

    • Next Page