Kaizen #60 - Get Records, Search Records, Query and Bulk Read APIs

Kaizen #60 - Get Records, Search Records, Query and Bulk Read APIs

Hi everyone.. Welcome back!

In this post, we will discuss when to use Get Records, Search Records, Query, and Bulk Read APIs to fetch records. Please note that the information in the article holds true for version 3 of Zoho CRM APIs.

Get Records API

The GET Records API allows you to fetch all the records from a module in your CRM account. 

When should you use GET Records API?

       Use this API to fetch a specific set of records whose IDs you already know, or to fetch all the records from a module without any filters, or using the pre-defined filters.
      For instance, when you want to render a mobile/web UI to show the list of records in a module or a specific custom view, you can make use of Get Records API.

Pagination

  • You can retrieve up to 200 records using this API in a single call.
  • To fetch more than 200 records, you must use pagination and make further API requests with the page parameter.
  • For more than 2000 and up to a maximum of 100,000 records, use the page_token parameter in the request. The value for this parameter is available from the key "next_page_token" in the response of the first Get Records call. 
  • You cannot use the page_token parameter with the page parameter.

Points to remember

  • You should specify the field API names to fetch the records.
  • You can fetch up to 50 fields using this API.
  • You can sort the records by id, Created_Time and Modified_Time fields.
  • Each Get Records API call consumes one API credit.

Examples

1. To fetch the records from 1801-2000 in the Leads module with the Last_Name and Email fields

The info JSON object in the response contains the next_page_token to retrieve the next set of records. 

2. To fetch after 2000 records
 [GET] "https://www.zohoapis.com/crm/v3/Leads&fields=Last_Name,Email&per_page=200 
&page_token="db8d4276axxxxxxx713748a4e""

Search Records API

Search Records API lets you search for records in a module based on a criteria that you define. You can search for records with a specific word in the text fields, or by email or phone fields across the specified module. You can also search for a variety of other fields like currency, Date, DateTime, picklists etc.

When should you use Search Records API?

      Use this API when you want to search for a specific text, phone or email in the records of a module, or when you want to do a module-level word search. Search API is the go-to API  when you know the details like email, phone or a specific text, but not the individual IDs of the records.
      For example, when you want to render a search box in your web/mobile UI, and do a module-level search for the word, use Search Records API. 

Pagination

  • You can search for up to 200 records in one API request.
  • To fetch more than 200 and up to 2000 records, use the page parameter.

Points to remember

  • Your search criteria can have  equals, starts_with, in, equals, not_equal, greater_equal, greater_than, less_equal, less_than, starts_with, or between conditions.
  • There will be a delay in accessing recently inserted or updated records using this API due to data indexing.
  • Due to the indexing delay, it is advised not to use Search API to check for record duplication while creating a new record. 
  • Each Search Records API call consumes one API credit. 

Examples

1. To search for all the Leads with the word Zoho in the record

2. To fetch records from the Leads module whose Last_Name is 'Thomas' and First_Name starts with 'M'

Query API

Query API lets you query for records based on queries using the CRM Object Query Language(COQL). COQL is based on the SQL query syntax, and supports the SELECT query to fetch records. Using this API, you can query for data across different modules that are linked using lookup fields.  This API allows you to search for a variety of fields like picklist, Date, DateTime, Lookup, Number, Currency, Boolean, or string fields, and sort the records on the basis of any field.

When should you use Query API?

      To query for a module's data and its lookup related data using various comparators, or when you want to query for records that fall into a custom view without actually creating one.
      For instance, when you want to filter all the products in a specific price range, with 4 stars and up rating, use Query API.
      You can also use Query API to query for records from cross module (linked via lookup field). Eg: Filtering deals based on the account's location and industry type. In this example, Deals is the primary module linked with Accounts module via the lookup field 'Accounts_Name'.

Pagination

  • You can retrieve 200 records in one API call using this API.
  • To fetch more than 200 records and upto 10000 records, use the OFFSET clause. 

Points to remember

  • You can use DB comparators such as =, >, <, >=, <=, is null, is not null, between, in, not in, like, and not like in your search query.
  • You can fetch a maximum of 10000 records using this API.
  • You can use Query API to check for record duplication while creating a new record in your web/mobile UI apps.
  • Each Query API call consumes one API credit.

Examples

1. Cross Module Filtering : To filter deals based on its corresponding account's location and industry type.

"select_query": "select Deal_Name, Stage, Probability, Type, Account_Name from Deals where ((Account_Name.Location = 'Texas') AND (Account_Name.Industry = 'Military'))"

2. Consider the following custom view.

You can fetch the records in the custom view using the following SELECT query, without actually creating the custom view.
 { "select_query": "select Last_Name, Owner.last_name from Leads where ((Industry  = 'ERP') and (Owner = '4876876000000327001')) OR (Rating =    'Acquired')" }

For more examples, refer to our Get Records through COQL page. 
TIP : If you want to fetch all the records in a module using COQL Query API, you can still use the COQL query to do it. For example, the below example will fetch all the records in the Leads module.
   {  "select_query": "select Last_Name, Owner.last_name from Leads where ((Industry  = 'ERP') OR (Industry  != 'ERP'))"}

Bulk Read API

Bulk Read API lets you export data in bulk from a module. Using this API, you can export records based on a query, or export all the records in a module with or without filters. The main advantage of Bulk read API is in the huge number of records it can retrieve in one API call. While you can fetch 200 records per API call for GET Records API, Search Records API and Query API, you can export 200,000 records per API call using the Bulk read API. 

When should you use Bulk read API?

When you want to schedule a job to export huge volume of CRM data.
For instance, when you want to export the list of all the records from a  Zoho CRM  module to sync with your local ERP system's data store, use Bulk read API. 

Points to remember

  • Bulk read is an asynchronous API.
  • The result of the bulk read job will be available as a downloadable CSV/ICS file.
  • Each Bulk read API call consumes 50 API credits.
  • To export more than 200,000 records, use the page key in the request body. Setting page to '2' exports data starting from 200,001.

Sample Scenario

Let us now consider the case where you want to fetch (a)2000, (b)5000, (c)10000 and (d)15000 records from a module, and see which API is best-suited for each case.

 Number of records
 Get Records API
Search Records API
Query API
Bulk read API
2000
  • 10 API calls
  • 10 API credits
  • Use pagination
  • 10 API calls
  • 10 API credits
  • Use pagination
  • 10 API calls
  • 10 API credits
  • Use OFFSET
  • 1 API call
  • 50 API credits
5000
  • 25 API calls
  • 25 API credits
  • use pagination (up to 2000 records) & page_token (after 2000 records)

Not possible to fetch more than 2000 records
  • 25 API calls
  • 25 API credits
  • Use OFFSET 
  • 1 API call
  • 50 API credits
10000
  • 50 API calls
  • 50 API credits
  • use pagination (up to 2000 records) & page_token (after 2000 records)

Not possible to fetch more than 2000 records
  • 50 API calls
  • 50 API credits
  • Use OFFSET
  • 1 API call
  • 50 API credits

15000
  • 75 API calls
  • 75 API credits
  • use pagination (up to 2000 records) & page_token (after 2000 records)

Not possible to fetch more than 2000 records

Not possible to fetch more than 10000 records
  • 1 API call
  • 50 API credits

To sum up, for up to 2000 records, the Get Records API, Search Records API, and Query API all use the same API credits. However, Query API has the edge over the other two because it provides you with greater flexibility to tweak your criteria, thanks to all the comparators and logical operations it supports.  If you intend to fetch 10,000 or more records asynchronously, the Bulk Read API is preferable in terms of API credits consumed. For synchronously fetching more than 10,000 records, use the Get Records API.


Feature
Get Records API
Search Records API
Query API
Bulk Read API
Maximum number of records per API call
 200
 200
 200
 200,000
 For Events - 20,000
Maximum number of records that can be fetched
 100,000
 2000
 10,000
 100,000,000
Indexing Delay
 No 
 Yes
 No 
 NA
Pagination
Use page parameter to retrieve more than 200 records and page_token parameter for more than 200 recordsUse page parameter to retrieve up to 2000 recordsUse LIMIT and OFFSET to navigate and retrieve a maximum of up to 10,000 recordsUse page key in the request body to fetch more than 200,000 records. Maximum possible value for page is 500
Sorting supportLimited (id, Created_Time and Modified_Time fields )
 No
 Yes
 No
Credits per API call
 1
 3 - with CVID parameter
 1
 1
 50

We hope you found this post useful. Let us know your thoughts in the comment section or reach out to us at support@zohocrm.com

Thank You!




    • Sticky Posts

    • 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

    • Kaizen #152 - Client Script Support for the new Canvas Record Forms

      Hello everyone! Have you ever wanted to trigger actions on click of a canvas button, icon, or text mandatory forms in Create/Edit and Clone Pages? Have you ever wanted to control how elements behave on the new Canvas Record Forms? This can be achieved

    • Kaizen #142: How to Navigate to Another Page in Zoho CRM using Client Script

      Hello everyone! Welcome back to another exciting Kaizen post. In this post, let us see how you can you navigate to different Pages using Client Script. In this Kaizen post, Need to Navigate to different Pages Client Script ZDKs related to navigation A.

    • Kaizen #210 - Answering your Questions | Event Management System using ZDK CLI

      Hello Everyone, Welcome back to yet another post in the Kaizen Series! As you already may know, for the Kaizen #200 milestone, we asked for your feedback and many of you suggested topics for us to discuss. We have been writing on these topics over the

    • Recent Topics

    • Yahoo is rejecting e-mails sent from a Zoho server

      Diagnostic-Code: 4.7.0 [TSS04] Messages from 136.143.169.51 temporarily deferred due to unexpected volume or user complaints - 4.16.55.1; see https://postmaster.yahooinc.com/error-codes Remote-MTA: dns; mta5.am0.yahoodns.net

    • Yahoo blocks e-mail sent from Zoho servers

      Getting this for a bunch of Yahoo addresses. Do you know if some of your servers got blacklisted? Diagnostic-Code: 4.7.0 [TSS04] Messages from 136.143.169.51 temporarily deferred due to unexpected volume or user complaints - 4.16.55.1; see https://postmaster.yahooinc.com/error-codes

    • Working with dates and Function Field

      Hello friends! I'm trying to add days to a date, however the field function will always shows 00:00:00 after the resultant date. How can I display only the date, whithout the time? toDate(input.request_date.addDay(input.Prazo_acordado),"MM,d,yyyy") The code above will result something like "11-Feb-2020 00:00:00", but I want to display only "11-Feb-2020"

    • What's New in Zoho Analytics - November 2025

      We're thrilled to announce a significant update focused on expanding your data connectivity, enhancing visualization capabilities, and delivering a more powerful, intuitive, and performant analytics experience. Here’s a look at what’s new. Explore What's

    • Unable to send message;Reason:550 5.4.6 Unusual sending activity detected. Please try after sometime.

      Please help my account got blocked automatically, can you help me how to avoid it? Thanks so much

    • Unusual activity detected from this IP. Please try again after some time

      When i try to create new addresses on my account i am getting this error, it has been 24 hours now and i am still getting this error can anyone help

    • temporary system errorlouis

      J'essaye d'envoyer des mails avec mes 2 adresses mail qe nous avons sur le compte arthur@lepunch.fr et louis@lepunch.fr mais j'ai toujours le message temporaire system error, je reçois les mails mais impossible d'en envoyer a qui que ce soit

    • How to Cancel/Delete Queued Mail Merge?

      Hi. I just tried to do a mail merge before realizing there's a limit on number of sends. I accidentally sent one of my lists twice, and all of those emails are currently queued. Is there any way to cancel or delete a queued mail merge? Would love to be

    • Need to add a new admin for my domain

      Hello Zoho Support, I am the owner of the domain localeistanbul.com. The current super admin account (admin@localeistanbul.com) is not accessible. I do not want to reset or delete the existing account because I need to keep all existing emails. Please

    • Possible Fraud Site.

      Hello. I received a text with the sender's name as zoho, claiming that my account was at risk and that I should sign in at https://verify.zohomails.ru/signin to verify my account. I signed in on the web address above, and a few days later someone hacked

    • Zoho mail to Teaminbox

      Hello, We're searching for new mail program. Now I'm testing a bit with zoho mail and team inbox. My findings in the research: Pop mail throught zoho mail is almost instant. Any pop or imap via external provider takes a couple minutes to 15 minutes before

    • Crear tarea CRM con recordatorio desde Zoho Flow

      Hola, estoy intentando crear desde Zoho Flow una tarea en CRM. Lo he logrado hacer pero sin recordatorio, ya que no se como se debe escribir el string adecuado. He probado varias alternativas, pero ninguna me funcionó hasta ahora. - FREQ=NONE;ACTION=EMAIL;TRIGGER=DATE-TIME:${FechaVto}

    • Inquiry Regarding Automated Assignment of Zoho TeamInbox Messages using Zoho Flow and Deluge

      Hello, Our company is currently using Zoho TeamInbox, and we are interested in automating the assignment of responsible parties using tools such as ZOHO Flow and Deluge. Is it possible to achieve this? Allow me to provide more details. Currently, when

    • Upgrade Zoho Desk Agent-Side Answer Bot to GenAI

      Hello Zoho Desk Team, We hope you're doing well. Following the recent announcements and rollout of the GenAI-based Answer Bot in Zoho SalesIQ (Nova '25), we’d like to formally request a similar upgrade for the Answer Bot used by agents inside Zoho Desk.

    • Marketers' Space: The importance of warming up your sender domain

      Hello Marketers, Welcome back to yet another post! Today, we'll talk about why warming up your sender domain matters. Imagine you've recently started a business and want to share the news with your customers. You've designed a great email campaign using

    • An Exclusive Session for Zoho Desk Users: AI in Zoho Desk

      A Zoho Community Learning Initiative Hello everyone! This is an announcement for Zoho Desk users and anyone exploring Zoho Desk. With every nook and corner buzzing, "AI's here, AI's there," it's the right time for us to take a closer look at how the AI

    • Search Just Got Smarter in Notebook

      Hello there! Introducing Our New & Improved Search Experience! We heard your feedback! Many of you shared that our previous search had some challenges like • Inconsistent results across different clients • Limited accuracy in finding the right content

    • Zoho Desk app update - AI Integration for IM Chats

      Hello everyone! We have now introduced AI integration for IM Chats within the Zoho Desk mobile app. To access the feature, please enable the 'Generative AI' settings on the desktop site(desk.zoho.com). Please refer to the help link attached below: Zoho

    • Open A.I assistant Connect with Zoho Desk instant Message Conversations

      I would like to know how do I connect my instant messenger in Zoho desk with my Open A.I Gpt Assistant. this is very easy to setup using the Salesiq Zobot but when it comes to Zoho Desk i cannot figure how to make the connection. Ideal workflow Customers

    • Cannot upgrade subscription plan due to payment error message

      Hi Zoho team, This is to request support on an issue I am facing during an upgrade I am trying to make to our company's yearly Zoho subscription. I am trying to add 3 more license to my plan and during the payment phase I get the below error as in the

    • Enhancing Zia's service with better contextual responses and article generation

      Hello everyone, We are enhancing Zia's Generative AI service to make your support experience smarter. Here's how: Increased accuracy with Qwen One of the key challenges in AI is delivering responses that are both contextually accurate and empathetic while

    • Zoho Desk app update: AI powered features

      Hello everyone! We’ve introduced various AI-powered services on the Zoho Desk app. Let's take a look at what's new. Generate Content: Generate Content uses AI to formulate responses based on the your query and provides a ready-to-use reply which can be

    • Bulk update Archived Ticket

      Dear All We would like to update the "Category" values to the new filed. We found the archived Ticket seems to be don't support the bulk action. Do we have any way to update it. Finally, we would to generate a report for our ticket system. Regards I

    • Channel Configuration and Default Channels

      There are some of the default fields that cannot be removed or changed. Examples are the social media ones, such as Facebook. It would be nice to be able to remove these fields as it would be confusing if someone selected this but it's not configure

    • Automating Employee Birthday Notifications in Zoho Cliq

      Have you ever missed a birthday and felt like the office Grinch? Fear not, the Cliq Developer Platform has got your back! With Zoho Cliq's Schedulers, you can be the office party-cipant who never forgets a single cake, balloon, or awkward rendition of

    • Delay function execute

      I've got a workflow which uses a webhook to send information to Flow, which in return updates a record in Creator. Problem is, by the time this has executed, the rest of my script has run and can't find the (yet to be) updated info in the record. Is there

    • Support www.camcard.com

      Hi, Is it possible CRM Zoho have integrations with https://camcard.com/? Thanks Br, Andy

    • Option to Customize Career Site URL Without “/jobs/Careers”

      Dear Zoho Recruit Team, I hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the Career Site URL structure in Zoho Recruit. In the old version of the career site, our URL was simply: 👉 https://jobs.domain.com However, after moving to

    • Can't make a document editable to anyone

      Hey everyone, I am using Zoho Workdrive and trying to share a document so that it is editable by anyone with the link. I am trying to convince people to shift from Google to Zoho, but they don't have accounts yet. When I try to change the share settings

    • Edit Default Print

      What I want to do is create / edit the "Default Print" template without changing the layout I'm using. Currently I can create "Email Templates" but I don't use them for emailing and getting to that selection takes multiple clicks. If an email template could be set to be the Default Print template that would be helpful. I'd also like to print these in bulk but don't see that option (there is a mail merge macro but that goes straight to emailing, not to print or PDF).

    • Widget shows error

      Hi， May I ask why below characters will be auto added into the widget link and how to solve this error? As my widget shows 404 error now. ?serviceOrigin=https%3A%2F%2Fcrm.zoho.com&frameorigin=https%3A%2F%2Fcrm.zoho.com

    • How to print envelope labels from Zoho CRM

      Can anybody give me any clue how to print envelope/package labels directly from Contacts view? Regards, Alexandru Moderation Update: The Canvas Print View, which also facilitates the formatting of mailing labels, is now available! Learn more here: Zoho

    • Data Import: New interface, improved field mapping, and more

      Hello everyone! We’ve redesigned the data import process to ensure accurate field alignment and verify that every column in the uploaded file maps correctly with Desk fields before import. Here's how: Streamlined Import Steps Importing data is now more

    • Address labels

      Hi, we've been searching for a long time for a simple way for our employees to print address labels using a Dymo Label Writer 450. We came up with two alternatives that work, bur aren't really optimal.  First one is WebMerge. Webmerge is a great application that does 100% what we need but it is way too expensive for our needs. We only need to print a couple of labels per month. The second one is the integrated print tool in Zoho CRM, (Print preview) You would think this is the obvious way to do this

    • This domain is not allowed to add. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details

      I am trying to setup the free version of Zoho Mail. When I tried to add my domain, theselfreunion.com I got the error message that is the subject of this Topic. I've read your other community forum topics, and this is NOT a free domain. So what is the

    • Print Labels

      How can I configure my address to print my labels like this: Name Mailing Address Mailing City, Mailing State Mailing Zip Country Instead of: Name Mailing Address Mailing City Mailing State Mailing Zip Country Thanks!!!!

    • Mailing labels - Improperly formatted

      All I'm trying to do is print one, properly formatted, mailing label. I'm in the Contacts module. In the default "list view" for mailing labels I selected a single client, hit the "more actions" drop down and selected print mailing label. Unfortunately,

    • Printing mailing labels

      The ability to print mailing labels would seem to be an important, basic, function of a good CRM. I find it very surprising that this has still not been addressed adequately by Zoho. When trying to use the existing "mailing label" included: 1. the data

    • Pageless mode needed to modernise Writer

      When we switched from GSuite to Zoho, one of the easiest apps I found to give up, was Docs. In many ways, Writer has always been more powerful than Docs, especially in terms of workflows/fillable forms/etc. However, I went back into Docs because I notice

    • Zoho Projects - Visual improvement to parent and sub-task relationship

      Hi Projects Team, My feature request is to improve sub-task visibility. Please see screenshot below. I really think parent child relationships could be visually improved. Even if the first letter of the parent task was inline with other same level tasks

    • Next Page