Kaizen #125 Manipulating Multi-Select Lookup fields (MxN) using Zoho CRM APIs

Kaizen #125 Manipulating Multi-Select Lookup fields (MxN) using Zoho CRM APIs

Hello everyone!
Welcome back to another week of Kaizen. In last week's post in the Kaizen series, we discussed how subforms work in Zoho CRM and how to manipulate subform data using Zoho CRM APIs.
In this post, we will discuss how to manipulate a multi-select lookup fields using Zoho CRM APIs.

Multi-select lookup field

The Multi-Select Lookup Field enables you to establish a many-to-many relationship between two different modules in CRM. It allows you to associate multiple records with each other, from two different modules. 
These associations are stored in an individual module called "Linking Module". Consider there are two modules, Employees and Skills. The Employees module contains details regarding Zylker's workforce, and the Skills module contains details regarding various skills like Social Media Marketing and Content Marketing.
We want to associate multiple skills to an employee. So, a multi-select lookup can be created in the Employees module. When doing so, similar multi-select lookup field will be automatically created in the Skills module, along with the EmpXSkills linking module by Zoho CRM. The underlying data model is described in the below image.
The above chart shows the data model representation when you create a multi-select lookup field in a module. Here, there are two lookup fields—one pointing to the Employees module and the other pointing to the Skills module.
In the linking module, two lookup fields (lookup fields with api names - Employees and Skills) will be created. The lookup fields, one pointing to Employees and the other pointing to Skills from the linking module, establish a connection between the linking module and its associated module.

How to associate an employee's skills while creating an Employee record through the Insert Records API

API names you need before invoking the API
  • The API name of the multi-select lookup field in the modules you want to insert data.
  • API names of the lookup fields in the linking module. Eg: here the API Name of the linking module is "EmpXSkills" and the corresponding lookup field api names are "Employees" & "Skills". You can use the Fields Metadata API for Employees and Skills to get these details.
Step 1
Know the API name of the multi-select lookup field in the module (In our case, Skills is the multi-select lookup field in the Employees module)

To know the API names of the multi-select lookup fields, make a GET - Fields Metadata API call. Among all the Employee's fields, multi-select lookup field can be identified by the json key data_type with the value multiselectlookup. The corresponding connected module can be found from the json connected_module. Below is the API call & response for such a multi-select lookup field.

Request URL : {api-domain}/crm/v6/settings/fields?module=Employees
Request Method: GET

Sample Response: 

The above highlighted keys are the details of the Multi select lookup field. The corresponding keys are explained below:

"multiselectlookup": {
                "display_label": "Skills",   //Display label of the MxN field in the Employees module
                "linking_module": {
                    "api_name": "EmpXSkills", //API name of the linking module
                    "id": "5725767000002166520"
                ...
                "lookup_apiname": "Employees", //API name of the Employee lookup field in the linking module
                "connected_module": {
                    "api_name": "Skills", //API name of the connected module
                    "id": "5725767000002165263"
                },
                "api_name": "Skills_In_Related_List", //API of the related list of the connected module Skills in the Employees module.
                "connectedfield_apiname": "Employees", //API Name of the multi-select lookup field in the connected module (Skills)
               "connectedlookup_apiname": "Skills", //API name of the Skills module lookup field in the linking module.
                "id": "5725767000002166655" //Related List ID
            },
                ...

Step 2
Using the api_name of the linking module, make a GET Fields metadata API call to get the list of fields (along with their api_name) present in it. It lists all fields of the linking module in the response. 
Sample Request and Response

Search for the "data_type": "lookup" in the response. The lookup fields represent the connected modules in association with the linking module.
For example, in our case, the response will have two lookup fields. One of the lookup fields (with api name Employees) points to the Employees module, and the other one (with api name Skills) points to the Skills module. 

Step 3
Associate records via the Multi-select lookup field using the Insert Records API

To associate records via the MxN field, you need to know the IDs of the records in the Skills module. Here is the input body to insert the skills in the Employee module with the multi-select lookup field Skills. 
Here is the input body to insert a new Employee record and associate a Skills record to it using the MxN field.

Request URL: {{api-domain}}/crm/v6/Employees
Request Method: POST
Sample Input:
{
    "data": [
        {
            "Name": "Patricia",
            "Email": "patricia@mail.com",
            "Position": "Marketing Specialist",
            "Year_of_Experience": 5,
            "Skills": [ //API name of the multi-select lookup field in Employee module
                {
                    "Skills": { //API Name of the lookup field pointing to the Skills module in the linking module
                        "name": "Marketing",
                        "id": "5725767000002149427" //Record ID in the Skills module 
                    }
                },
                {
                    "Skills": {
                        "name": "Social Media Marketing",
                        "id": "5725767000002149476" 
                    }
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}



How to disassociate an employee & skills relation while updating an Employee record through the Update Records API 

Request URL: {{api-domain}}/crm/v6/Employees
Request Method: PUT

Sample Input:

{
    "data": [
        {
            "id": "7890710000097291",
            "Name": "Patricia",
            "Email": "patricia@mail.com",
            "Position": "Marketing Specialist",
            "Year_of_Experience": 5,
            "Skills": [
                {
                    "_delete": null, //This association in the linking module will be deleted
                    "id": "5725767000008126002" //Record created in the linking module
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Sending _delete:null will cause delinking of the association.

How to associate an employee's skills via "Linking Module"

You can associate the relationship between Employees and Skills module by creating records in the Linking module (EmpXSkills). Use the API names for the corresponding lookup fields, Employee (API Name: Employees) and Skills (API Name: Skills) in the input body.

Request URL: {{api-domain}}/crm/v6/EmpXSkills
Request Method: POST

Sample Input
{
   "data": [
        {
            "Name": "Patricia",
            "Employees": { 
                "id": "5725767000002161001" //unique record ID in the Employees module. GET your ID here
            },
             "Skills": { 
                "id": "5725767000002149476" //unique record ID in the Skills module. GET your ID here
            }
        }
    ]
}


Sample Response


The id in the above response is the Primary Key ID of an Employee-Skill association record in the linking module. This ID can later be used to do specific operations like association update or deletion via API.

How to disassociate an employee & skills relationship via "Linking Module"
Use the Delete Records API to delete the record which corresponds to the specific relation between Employee and Skills module in the EmpXSkills module. You can get the record ID for the specific association using the Get Records API for the linking module. 
Use the Delete Record API to delete the specific record, thereby deleting the specific association between the Employee and Skills record. Please note that only the association is removed, and not the individual records. 
Sample Request and Response



When to use create/update operation in Employees/EmpXSkills module?

Use "Employees" module: When you want to create/update records in the Employees module, and associate the record with a Skills record in a single API call.
Use "EmpXSkills" module: When you want to associate/disassociate the relationship between existing Employees and Skills records. 

Retrieve data via COQL API and Bulk Read API

There may be situations where you need to fetch records based upon certain conditions.
For example, Zylker's HR team wants to retrieve the list of employees having more than 4 years of experience and are experts in Social media marketing. In this case, they can use Zoho CRM's COQL API or Bulk Read API. Let's see how to achieve this.

Retrieving MxN data via COQL API

We know that both the Employees and Skills modules' association data is maintained in the linking module. In order to retrieve data from the linking module, query using the API name of the lookup fields in the linking module.

Request URL: {{api-domain}}/crm/v6/coql
Request Method: POST

Sample Input:

{
    "select_query" : "select Employees.Name as employee_name, Employees.Year_of_Experience as employee_experience, Skills.Name as skill_name from EmpXSkills where Employees.Year_of_Experience > 4 and Skills.Name like '%Social%'"
}


From the SQL perspective, above COQL can be interpreted as
select emp.Name as employee_name, emp.Year_of_Experience as employee_experience, skill.Name as skill_name from EmpXSkills left join Employees as emp on EmpXSkills.Employees = emp.id left join Skills as ski on EmpXSkills.Skills = ski.id where emp.Year_of_Experience > 4 and ski.Name like '%Social%'

Sample Response


Retrieving MxN data via Bulk Read API

Bulk Read API allows you to fetch a large set of data i.e., you can fetch a maximum of 200,000 records in a single API call. 
To export linking module records, use its API name.

Request Method: POST
Sample input to export linking module's records:
{
    "callback": {
        "method": "post"
    },
    "query": {
        "module": {
            "api_name": "EmpXSkills" //API name of the linking module
        },
        "file_type": "csv"
    }
}

Export linking module records that meet the specified criteria
To export linking module's records based on the given criteria above (similar to the COQL API).
{
    "callback": {
        "method": "post"
    },
    "query": {
        "module": {
            "api_name": "EmpXSkills"
        },
        "fields": [
            "Employees.Name",
            "Employees.Year_of_Experience",
            "Skills.Name"
        ],
        "criteria": {
            "group": [
                {
                    "field": {
                        "api_name": "Employees.Year_of_Experience" 
                    },
                    "comparator": "greater_than",
                    "value": "4"
                },
                {
                    "field": {
                        "api_name": "Skills.Name"
                    },
                    "comparator": "contains",
                    "value": "Social"
                }
            ],
            "group_operator": "AND"
        }
    }
}


As the API is an asynchronous API, the response will not be available instantly; the bulk read job is scheduled, and the status can be checked. Once the job is completed, you will be notified in the callback URL. The records are available in a downloadable CSV file or ICS file (for events). See the Bulk Read API document to know how to view the status of the scheduled job and download the file, along with more sample requests and responses.

We trust that this post meets your needs and is helpful. Let us know your thoughts in the comment section or reach out to us at support@zohocrm.com
Stay tuned for more insights in our upcoming Kaizen posts!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cheers!



    • Sticky Posts

    • Kaizen #198: Using Client Script for Custom Validation in Blueprint

      Nearing 200th Kaizen Post – 1 More to the Big Two-Oh-Oh! Do you have any questions, suggestions, or topics you would like us to cover in future posts? Your insights and suggestions help us shape future content and make this series better for everyone.

    • Kaizen #226: Using ZRC in Client Script

      Hello everyone! Welcome to another week of Kaizen. In today's post, lets see what is ZRC (Zoho Request Client) and how we can use ZRC methods in Client Script to get inputs from a Salesperson and update the Lead status with a single button click. In this

    • Kaizen #222 - Client Script Support for Notes Related List

      Hello everyone! Welcome to another week of Kaizen. The final Kaizen post of the year 2025 is here! With the new Client Script support for the Notes Related List, you can validate, enrich, and manage notes across modules. In this post, we’ll explore how

    • Kaizen #217 - Actions APIs : Tasks

      Welcome to another week of Kaizen! In last week's post we discussed Email Notifications APIs which act as the link between your Workflow automations and you. We have discussed how Zylker Cloud Services uses Email Notifications API in their custom dashboard.

    • Kaizen #216 - Actions APIs : Email Notifications

      Welcome to another week of Kaizen! For the last three weeks, we have been discussing Zylker's workflows. We successfully updated a dormant workflow, built a new one from the ground up and more. But our work is not finished—these automated processes are

    • Recent Topics

    • 【続々公開】Zoholics Japan 2026 セッション情報を更新しました！

      ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは！ Zoholics Japan 2026のセッション情報を続々と公開しています！ 今年は3つのトラックで、Zohoの最新情報やAI活用、製品アップデート、 活用事例など、多彩なセッションをお届けします。 現在公開中のセッション（一部） ・Zoho CRM 製品アップデート ・Zoho CRM Plus 製品アップデート ・Zoho Community セッション ・Zoho Desk セッション ・中堅・成長企業の人事DX ～AI時代に何から始めるべきか？～ ・Zoho

    • Zoho CRM Community Digest - July 2026 | Part 1

      Hello everyone, July is here! The first two weeks brought six CRM updates ranging from privacy-ready webforms to a significantly more powerful Layout Rules engine, two community wins worth a look (a dashboard workaround for spotting leads with no activities,

    • New Ways to Personalize, Organize, and Share Your Notes

      We're excited to introduce a new set of enhancements in Zoho Notebook that make your note-taking experience cleaner, more flexible, and easier to share. With this update, you can create notes that automatically adapt to your device theme, browse your

    • SPAM (and some other) folders missing on three of my Zoho Mail accounts

      I have four email accounts with Zoho Mail. Three days ago, the Spam folder on three of these accounts vanished. It is gone on the Windows and Linux desktops as well as the web-based and Android versions, and I have tried it on multiple machines. The only

    • Zoho Commerce B2B

      Hello, I have signed up for a Zoho Commerce B2B product demo but it's not clear to me how the B2B experience would look for my customers, in a couple of ways. 1) Some of my customers are on terms and some pay upfront with credit card. How do I hide/show

    • Introducing spam detection for webforms: An additional layer of protection to keep your Zoho CRM clean and secure

      Greetings all, One of the most highly anticipated feature launches—Spam Detection in webforms—has finally arrived! Webforms are a vital tool for record generation, but they're also vulnerable to submissions from unauthenticated or malicious sources, which

    • Rich-text fields in Zoho CRM

      Moderation Update: During the initial release of Rich Text fields, it was supported only in the Enterprise and Ultimate editions. We have gradually extended Rich Text fields to all the paid editions of Zoho CRM. Hello everyone, We're thrilled to announce

    • Add Large Lists to Choice-Based Field Rules

      Hi, The new Large List is good, but you can't then use the Choice-Based Field Rules with it to limit the Group Choices or Choices? Thanks Dan

    • Email-Data Synchronization with Zoho Analytics

      Hello, Enterprise Support Community! We're excited to announce the availability of Email Data Synchronization with Zoho Analytics! This highly requested enhancement allows you to sync email data from Zoho CRM into Zoho Analytics, making it easier to analyze

    • Zoho - shopify sales order - invoicing

      we have integrated zoho with shopify. so now , when an order comes through shopify-it raises a sales order in zoho. And at this time- the inventory goes down in shopify, according to the sale. Then we manually convert the sales order to an invoice, and

    • Enable Replenishments Option not Available

      I'm looking to turn on the replenishment option in Zoho Inventory and I'm not finding settings for it in Zoho Books or Zoho Inventory. This is the tutorial I was following from Zoho. Is there a step I'm missing to have Replenishments be available in Zoho

    • Kiosk Page Refresh

      We have a Kiosk running from a button in contacts to update values and also add related lists, which works great, but when the kiosk is finished the page does not refresh to show the changes. Is there a way to force the contact to refresh/update when

    • [Solution] Analyze, Act and Automate with Drill Actions

      Insights create value only when they lead to action. Traditional dashboards excel at helping you understand what is happening, but acting on those insights often requires manual intervention leaving the dashboard, opening another application, finding

    • Building extensions #6: Handling modal boxes to enhance user experience

      In our previous post, we explored creating custom graphical user interfaces using widgets. In this post, we'll learn about enhancing user experience through modal boxes. What is a modal box, and where is it used? A modal box is essentially a widget interface

    • Improve User Onboarding in Zoho Projects with Zoho DAP

      Rolling out new processes or onboarding new users in the tool comes with a familiar challenge: the employees need guidance at the moment they are doing the work. Traditional training sessions and knowledge sharing often require users to leave the application.

    • Zoho Social API for generating draft posts from a third-party app ?

      Hello everyone, I hope you are all well. I have a question regarding Zoho Social. I am developing an application that generates social media posts, and I would like to be able to incorporate a feature that allows saving these posts as drafts in Zoho Social.

    • Your CRO data is now on your AI Assistant: PageSense is live on Zoho MCP

      Hello Everyone, We are excited to announce Zoho PageSense is now live on Zoho MCP servers. Here is what that means for you. Every answer about your website lives behind tons of data across different modules. Which test is winning. Where visitors bail.

    • Feature Enhancement Request – Bulk Download of Signed Documents in Zoho Sign

      Hi Team, We would like to request a Bulk Download feature for signed documents in Zoho Sign. Currently, Zoho Sign allows users to send documents in bulk using an Excel sheet, but there is no option to download the completed signed documents in bulk. Users

    • delete a user on Zoho Desk

      Kindly I Need help to delete a user on Zoho Desk but I deactivated but not deactivated with licenses so what can I Do?

    • Unable to open Attendance Regularization request, reason?

      Unable to open Attendance Regularization request.

    • What's New in Zoho Inventory | June 2026

      Hello users, June 2026 introduces a range of exciting enhancements to Zoho Inventory. With the full rollout of the Zoho Inventory Windows application, the launch of Terminal Payments, and new tracking combinations in Advanced Inventory Tracking, you can

    • Tax/Vat Number Field As Standard - Customer & Vendor

      Hello, when are you'll going to have the customer & vendor tax/vat number as a standard field under the relevant profile pages? I find it strange that after 6 years of using Zoho Inventory that I still have to use a custom field for a tax/vat number,

    • Zoho CRM - Feature Request - Conditional Lead Conversion

      Hi CRM team, My feature request is to allow admins to create some conversion logic in the Lead Conversion settings. It is a common case where we want to convert a Lead to a Commercial or Residential Deal layout. Layout rules are not ideal because the

    • Zoho CRM Approval Process based on Field Update

      Hello, In current structure, Zoho CRM send records to approval based on record creation and edit.  I think, it should be to set approval process trigger based on any field update in record. When the user update any field, the record can assign to approval

    • Free webinar: Automate signature workflows with Zoho Sign and Zoho WorkDrive

      Hi there! Are you still storing and managing physical paperwork before and after signing? This traditional method is bulky, costly, and impractical at scale. Attend our free webinar to learn how you can connect Zoho Sign, our digital signature app, with

    • Global Sets for Multi-Select pick lists

      When is this feature coming to Zoho CRM? It would be very useful now we have got used to having it for the normal pick lists.

    • Introducing the Zoho Projects Learning Space

      Every product has its learning curve, and sometimes having a guided path makes the learning experience smoother. With that goal, we introduce a dedicated learning space for Zoho Projects, a platform where you can explore lessons, learn at your own pace,

    • Leave request problem on mobile phones

      Hello, When any employee attempts to submit a leave request on an Android or iOS phone, the error shown in the attachment appears. How can we solve this problem?

    • [Webinar] Digitizing forms and form-based workflows

      Live webinar on August 13, 2026 | Time: 2 PM IST | 2 PM EDT Hi, Struggling with paper forms, manual data entry, disconnected approvals, and form data that never reaches the apps that need it? Join our live webinar to learn how Zoho Writer's fillable templates

    • Multi-currency and Products

      One of the main reasons I have gone down the Zoho route is because I need multi-currency support. However, I find that products can only be priced in the home currency, We sell to the US and UK. However, we maintain different price lists for each. There

    • Price Book in foreign currency

      We have many customers who buy in foreign currency (USD), where our base currency is our local currency (AUD). It would be normal (it is in Zoho Books, Zoho Inventory etc.) to assign a currency to a price book, but I cannot find this option in Zoho CRM

    • Assign Price Book to Accounts (again!)

      I can see this topic has been bumping about for over 10 years and unfortunately Zoho hasn't seen the need (or use case) in CRM to be able to assign an account to a price book to automate quoting (amongst other things). Strange given they DO assign price

    • Remove "Subject" as a required field on quotations

      Not sure why, but Zoho has made 'Subject' a system defined required field. I'm not entirely sure why subject would be required as a key field (i.e. you cannot deactivate it or change it from required). It doesn't make much sense on many product quotations,

    • Approve records efficiently: Useful enhancements to My Jobs module and Approval process in Zoho CRM

      Dear Customers, As you might know, approval process is a process automation tool that allows you to automate approvals in your organization and My Jobs is where you approve requests from a single point of view. Here's how you'd go about it: You’d add

    • Text/SMS With Zoho Desk

      Hi Guys- Considering using SMS to get faster responses from customers that we are helping.  Have a bunch of questions; 1) Which provider is better ClickaTell or Screen Magic.  Screen Magic seems easier to setup, but appears to be 2x as expensive for United States.  I cannot find the sender id for Clickatell to even complete the configuration. 2) Can customer's reply to text messages?  If so are responses linked back to the zoho ticket?  If not, how are you handling this, a simple "DO NOT REPLY" as

    • Need complete Zoho Commerce theme ZIP example and safe staging workflow

      I want to build a complete custom Zoho Commerce storefront through Edit Code, including: • Global header and footer • Responsive homepage • Category, search and filter pages • Product cards and product-detail pages • Cart and checkout wrapper • Mobile

    • Add Support to Upload Inventory Items with Categories or Enable Separate Upload for Inventory Categories

      Currently, Zoho Inventory does not support uploading new items along with their parent and sub inventory categories using the item import feature. This creates challenges for businesses with structured inventory hierarchies when trying to upload items

    • i need active of my whatsapp business number in zoho

      i am waiting from 3 days for active of my whatsapp business account in crm ,its too late to configure.its just showing account details i can't able to know its connected or not anything else

    • Sub-Form Padding in CSV Export

      Hi, When you use the Sub-Form, and for example you have a Date Field on the Main Page, then Option 1 and Option 2 fields on the Subform, when you export this to CSV the Date column will only have the Date in 1 row, the first row, it would be nice to pad

    • Integrate your Outlook/ Office 365 inbox with Zoho CRM via Graph API

      Hello folks, In addition to the existing IMAP and POP options, you can now integrate your Outlook/Office 365 inbox with Zoho CRM via Graph API. Why did we add this option? Microsoft Graph API offers a single endpoint to access data from across Microsoft’s

    • Next Page