Setting up and using connections in Bigin toppings

Setting up and using connections in Bigin toppings

When building a topping to extend Bigin's functionality and connect it with third-party applications, creating and handling connections is an important step. Connections provide a secure way for your topping to authenticate and communicate with other applications' APIs without exposing sensitive credentials to end users. This abstraction is both secure and makes the integration easier because it eliminates the need for developers to implement complex authorization flows manually or handle authorization tokens directly.

Bigin's Developer Console offers a feature called a connection, which acts as a bridge between your topping and the third-party application you wish to integrate with. Once a connection is configured, you can reference it in your topping's functionalities using its unique link name. This enables the topping to execute REST operations such as fetching, updating, or syncing data with the connected application securely.

Now that we've achieved a basic understanding of what a connection is and how it helps toppings interact with other applications, the next step is to understand the types of connections available in Bigin's Developer Console.

Establishing connections with services

The connections feature in Bigin's Developer Console offers two types of services to help developers configure integrations according to their requirements: default services and custom services. Default services are preconfigured services available in Bigin's Developer Console that simplify integrations with some Zoho and third-party applications. If the application you want to integrate with isn't listed in the default services, you can create a custom service and configure it according to the API specifications of the third-party application.

Default services

The connections feature offers certain default services as preconfigured options that can be easily integrated with Bigin. These services come with predefined settings such as authentication type, token endpoints, scopes, and headers, which reduces the need for manual configuration. Currently, there are around 50 default services available in the Developer Console, covering a wide range of applications and platforms. This enables developers to connect to services with minimal effort.


If the application you want to integrate with your topping isn't listed in the default services, you can create a new custom service.

Custom services

Custom services enable developers to configure all aspects of a connection manually, including the authentication type, endpoints, headers, and scopes, which enables integration with third-party applications.

When setting up a custom service, developers can specify the exact authentication flow required by the external application, whether it's basic authentication, OAuth, an API key, or another method.
Notes
Note:

Refer to the official API documentation of third-party applications when configuring these settings, as this will provide the necessary details for authentication and data access.
To create a custom service, navigate to the Connections section and choose Custom Services in the Developer Console. Based on the authentication type supported, configure the custom service for the required product.


For more details on creating and configuring custom services, please refer to this guide.
Notes
Note:

Always handle sensitive information such as client IDs, client secrets, and API keys securely, and never share them publicly. After configuring and authorizing a custom service, reference it in Deluge scripts and workflow functions by using its unique connection link name, just as you do with default services.
Next, let's look at how to implement the default service connection with an example.

Create a default service connection

Let's say you're developing a Bigin topping to synchronize contact information between Bigin and Zoho Books. This integration enables contacts created or updated in Bigin to be automatically reflected in Zoho Books. The topping uses Zoho Books APIs to create, update, and retrieve customer data using a default service connection.

To create a default service connection for the topping, choose Connections from the left panel of the Developer Console and click Get Started.


Next, navigate to My Connections or Default Services. To fetch data from the Contacts module in Bigin, create a connection first. From Default Services, select Bigin and then click Create Connection to set it up.


The system will prompt you to enter the connection details. Provide a name for the connection (for example: Bigin Connection). A connection link name is generated automatically.

Next, select the scopes required for the topping's functionality. In this use case, select ZohoBigin.modules.ALL to access data from Bigin's Contacts module.

After selecting the scope, click Create and Connect to initiate the authorization process. The system redirects you to the authorization page. Click Connect, and you'll be taken to the service's login page. Choose the Bigin organization for which the topping was created, click submit, and the connection will be created.


After establishing the connection with Bigin, you must also create a connection for Zoho Books to enable record creation. To do this, create a default service connection for Zoho Books, similar to the one created for Bigin. Select the scope ZohoBooks.fullaccess.ALL to grant complete access to modules and operations in Zoho Books.

Once you've created the connections for both Bigin and Zoho Books, the system will generate connection link names for each. These link names must be used in the business logic.



Notes
Notes
Note:

During development, authorize the connection in the Sandbox environment to test integration workflows safely.
To understand the authorization process and how to implement them, please refer to this guide on authorizing connections.


After you authorize the connection, set up a workflow rule in the Bigin Developer Console that gets triggered whenever you create or update a contact in your Bigin account. Here, we need to specify the conditions that apply to the workflow and check that the email field isn't empty.

Notes
Note:

In our use case, we'll use the email address to check whether the newly created contact in Bigin already exists as a customer in Zoho Books.



When the workflow meets the specified conditions, an instant action - in this case, a function - which will execute a custom functionality that performs the following operations:
  1. Retrieves the contact details from Bigin by referencing the established connection link name biginandbooksconnection0__booksconnection.
  2. Searches Zoho Books for an existing contact that matches the email.
  3. If a matching contact exists, update the contact's phone and contact person details in Zoho Books.
  4. If the script doesn't find a matching contact, it creates a new contact in Zoho Books with the relevant information.
Below is the code that automates contact synchronization between Bigin and Zoho Books:
  1. //Retrieve contact details from Bigin using the established connection
  2. biginContact = zoho.bigin.getRecordById("Contacts",contact.get("Contacts.ID"),Map(),"biginandbooksconnectionnew__biginconnection");
  3. //Extract relevant contact data
  4. biginData = biginContact.get("data");
  5. contactDetails = biginData.get(0);
  6. email = contactDetails.get("Email");
  7. phone = contactDetails.get("Phone");
  8. mobile = contactDetails.get("Mobile");
  9. fullName = contactDetails.get("Full_Name");
  10. //Search Zoho Books for existing contacts by email
  11. searchParams = Map();
  12. searchParams.put("search_text", email);
  13. booksContactsResponse = invokeurl
  14. [
  15. url :"https://books.zoho.com/api/v3/contacts"
  16. type :GET
  17. parameters:searchParams
  18. connection:"biginandbooksconnectionnew__booksconnection"
  19. ];
  20. info "Searched by name in Books: " + booksContactsResponse;
  21. booksData = booksContactsResponse.get("contacts");
  22. if(booksData != null && booksData.size() > 0)
  23. {
  24. // Extract the existingContactId
  25. existingContactId = booksData.get(0).get("contact_id");
  26. // Update existing contact
  27. updateParams = Map();
  28. updateParams.put("contact_name",fullName);
  29. updateParams.put("phone",phone);
  30. updateParams.put("mobile",mobile);
  31. updateParams.put("email",email);
  32. // Define contact person details
  33. contactPerson = Map();
  34. contactPerson.put("last_name",fullName);
  35. contactPerson.put("mobile",mobile);
  36. contactPerson.put("phone",phone);
  37. contactPerson.put("email",email);
  38. contactPerson.put("is_primary_contact",true);
  39. contactPersonsList = List();
  40. contactPersonsList.add(contactPerson);
  41. updateParams.put("contact_persons",contactPersonsList);
  42. //Prepare and execute update request
  43. parameters_data = Map();
  44. parameters_data.put("JSONString",updateParams.toString());
  45. info "parameters_data value:" + parameters_data;
  46. updateResponse = invokeurl
  47. [
  48. url :"https://books.zoho.com/api/v3/contacts/" + existingContactId + "?organization_id=XXXXXXX"
  49. type :PUT
  50. parameters:parameters_data
  51. connection:"biginandbooksconnectionnew__booksconnection"
  52. ];
  53. info "Updated Contact: " + updateResponse;
  54. }
  55. else
  56. {
  57. // Create new contact
  58. contactDetails = Map();
  59. contactDetails.put("contact_name",fullName);
  60. contactDetails.put("email",email);
  61. contactDetails.put("phone",phone);
  62. contactDetails.put("mobile",mobile);
  63. // Define contact person details
  64. contactPerson = Map();
  65. contactPerson.put("last_name",fullName);
  66. contactPerson.put("mobile",mobile);
  67. contactPerson.put("phone",phone);
  68. contactPerson.put("email",email);
  69. contactPerson.put("is_primary_contact",true);
  70. // Add to contact persons list
  71. contactPersonsList = List();
  72. contactPersonsList.add(contactPerson);
  73. contactDetails.put("contact_persons",contactPersonsList);
  74. // Prepare and execute the create request
  75. parameters_data = Map();
  76. parameters_data.put("JSONString",contactDetails.toString());
  77. createResponse = invokeurl
  78. [
  79. url :"https://books.zoho.com/api/v3/contacts?organization_id=XXXXXXX"
  80. type :POST
  81. parameters:parameters_data
  82. connection:"biginandbooksconnectionnew__booksconnection"
  83. ];
  84. info "Created Contact: " + createResponse;
  85. }
For details about the API endpoints and request formats used in this code, refer to the Bigin Deluge reference library and Zoho Books contacts API documentation.
After you configure the workflow and associate the function with the instant action, test the topping in the sandbox environment.
  1. To do this, click Test Your Topping in the upper-right corner of the Developer Console. This action will redirect you to the Bigin sandbox account, where you can create a new contact to test whether the functionalities work properly.
  2. After creating a new contact in Bigin, navigate to the Customers module in the Sales section of Zoho Books. When you set up the integration correctly, you'll see the newly created contact here, which confirms that Bigin and Zoho Books are synchronizing as expected. This process provides a safe and effective way to validate the workflow before deploying the topping to a production environment.


In this post, we've explained that default service connections in Bigin simplify authentication and connection with third-party applications by using predefined settings such as authentication type, token endpoints, and scopes. These connections are convenient because the Developer Console pre-configures the authentication flow and endpoints of the application you're integrating with.

To sum up: Bigin's connections feature provides a flexible foundation for integrating with a wide range of external services, and using these connections, developers can extend Bigin's integration capabilities.

Stay tuned for more about developing toppings and exploring other related features available in the Bigin Developer Console.

<< Previous                                                                                                                                                      Next>>                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

    • Recent Topics

    • No Need To Fix Something That Is Working

      Zoho Books is a great financial tool which helps businesses to become more efficient and productive with day-to-day operations. As such, every change, upgrade, improvement needs to be carefully thought before implemented in the software and I'm sure Zoho

    • Using email "importance" as workflow-criteria

      I'd like to set up a workflow that triggers if an incoming email has been flagged as "high importance" but I'm not seeing any way to do that. Hopefully I'm just missing something obvious...?

    • 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

    • What is Resolution Time in Business Hours

      HI, What is the formula used to find the total time spent by an agent on a particular ticket? How is Resolution Time in Business Hours calculated in Zohodesk? As we need to find out the time spent on the ticket's solution by an agent we seek your assistance

    • Check & Unchecked Task Segregation in Export

      It must have a feature to represent checked and unchecked tasks as [ ] and [✅] respectively when exporting it to Arratai or WhatsApp ; as Keep Notes by Google contains…

    • WorkDrive Download Issue

      My client has been sending me files via WorkDrive, which generally has worked fine. Recently files won't download at all. If you try and individually select and download a file, a popup will appear in the bottom right saying it's preparing and then it

    • Resolution Time Report

      From data to decisions: A deep dive into ticketing system reports What are time-based reports? Time-based reports are valuable tools that help us understand how well things are going by breaking down key metrics over specific periods. By tracking, measuring,

    • Support Custom Background in Zoho Cliq Video Calls and Meetings

      Hello Zoho Cliq Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the video background capabilities in Zoho Cliq, specifically the ability to upload and use custom backgrounds. Current Limitation At present, Zoho Cliq allows

    • Add RTL (Right-to-Left) Text Direction Button in Zoho Cliq

      Greetings Zoho Team, We would like to request the addition of an RTL (Right-to-Left) text direction button in Zoho Cliq, similar to what is already available in other Zoho apps like Zoho Desk. Currently, while using Zoho Cliq with the English interface,

    • Enable Backgrounds and Video Filters for 1:1 Cliq Calls Across All Zoho Entry

      Hello Zoho Cliq Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement related specifically to 1:1 video calls in Zoho Cliq. Current Behavior Zoho Cliq currently provides background and video filter options in the following scenarios:

    • Zoho Flow: Stripe a Zoho Marketing Automation

      Hola! Quiero hacer un flujo con Zoho Flow, para que cuando se haga un pago en Stripe, añada el lead en Zoho Marketing Automation. Lo he configurado, configurando el disparador como "Payment created" y mapeando el campo de Stripe "Receipt email address".

    • Need Customer Item Inward Module along with QC

      Need Customer Item Inward Module along with QC 1. Using Transfer Orders hit the item balance sheet 2. Items without inventory it becomes difficult for tracking purpose. 3. Custom Modules become tedious to capture multiple items, item subforms are not

    • LESS_THAN_MIN_OCCURANCE - code 2945

      Hi I'm trying to post a customer record to creator API and getting this error message. So cryptic. Can someone please help? Thanks Varun

    • Zoho email

      I need a list of email addresses of all contacts on my zoho

    • Shift-Centric View for Assigning and Managing Shifts in Zoho People

      Hello Zoho People Product Team, Greetings and hope you are doing well. This feature request is related to Zoho People - please don't move it to zoho one! We would like to submit a feature request regarding the shift assignment and management view in Zoho

    • Introducing parent-child ticketing in Zoho Desk [Early access]

      Hello Zoho Desk users! We have introduced the parent-child ticketing system to help customer service teams ensure efficient resolution of issues involving multiple, related tickets. You can now combine repetitive and interconnected tickets into parent-child

    • cant upload images in signature- urgent help needed. ta!

      HI, I have been trying to insert the company logo in the signature. i have tried it several times since yesterday, the longest I waited was 1 hour and 12 minutes for the pop up window to upload a 180 KB .jpg file. what am i doing wrong.. an urgent reply

    • Add Ticket button in Home view

      When I go to the My Tickets or the Knowledge Base view in our Help Centre, the Add Ticket button is available, but not in the Home view. I would really like for it to be displayed in the Home view as well. Is this possible? Thanks.

    • Problem using Zoho Desk API

      Goodmorning, I am trying to use the Zoho Desk API to create a dashboard in Grafana, but I am having a problem. Following the instructions in the API documentation, I created the API Console application (server-based application). Then I created the string

    • Add zoho calendar to google calendar

      Hi I keep seeing instructions on how to sync Zoho CRM calendar with google calendar but no instructions on how to view Zoho calendar in my google calendar.

    • How to print a label from zoho creator app?

      Hello, I would like to print a label from zoho creator app record similar to attached one. Size 74mm x 102mm. I tried record template. It leaves plenty of space around the content and also I couldn't set the height of the page. So it is not printing properly. Could someone please direct me to right direction for this requirement?

    • City field suggestion in Zoho Books

      Hi team, We are using Customers module in Zoho Books. In the Address section, we want to understand whether the City field can show suggestions while typing using any API or built-in feature. For example, if a user types “Mum”, can the system suggest

    • Non-responsive views in Mobile Browser (iPad)

      Has anyone noticed that the creator applications when viewed in a mobile browser (iPad) lost its responsiveness? It now appears very small font size and need to zoom into to read contents. Obviously this make use by field staff quite difficult. This is not at all a good move, as lots of my users are depending on accessing the app in mobile devices (iPads), and very challenging and frustrating. 

    • How can I check all announce?

      Hiii, May I ask how can I check all the announce based on broadcast date instead of reply date based So that I will not will miss out any new function

    • What are the create bill API line item requiered fields

      While the following documentation says that the line items array is requiered it doesn't say what if any files are requiered in the array. Does anyone know? API documentation: https://www.zoho.com/inventory/api/v1/bills/#create-a-bill I'm trying to add

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

      Hello, Just signed up to ZOHO on a friend's recommendation. Got the TXT part (verified my domain), but whenever I try to add ANY user, I get the error: This user is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details I have emailed as well and writing here as well because when I searched, I saw many people faced the same issue and instead of email, they got a faster response here. My domain is: raisingreaderspk . com Hope this can be resolved.  Thank you

    • Cannot connect to imap.zoho.eu on iOS26

      Hey, I recently migrated to another iPhone and since then use iOS26. Every since then, I was not able to connect to "imap.zoho.eu" from Apple Mail. I tried deleting the account and adding it again, did not work. I tried creating an app password, didn't

    • Personalize your booking pages with Custom CSS

      Greetings from the Zoho Bookings team! We’re introducing Custom CSS for Zoho Bookings, designed to give you complete control over the look and feel of your booking pages. With this new feature, you can upload your own CSS file to customize colors, fonts,

    • Marketer's Space: Plan smarter with Zoho Campaigns' Calendar

      Hello Marketers, Welcome to another post! Today, we'll talk about a discreet yet significant feature that's neatly tucked inside Zoho Campaigns: the calendar. It might look like an optional but somewhat unnecessary feature that you can use occasionally,

    • User

      If user is already part of manage engine endpoint central , what hapens when i try to add them to another Zoho org / directory? Are these users added as external users?

    • Create static subforms in Zoho CRM: streamline data entry with pre-defined values

      Last modified on (9 July, 2025): This feature was available in early access and is currently being rolled out to customers in phases. Currently available for users in the the AU, CA, and SA DCs. It will be enabled for the remaining DCs in the next couple

    • Outlook - Zoho CRM Calendar Integration

      I'm facing an issue integrating Outlook with Zoho CRM. Has anyone successfully connected their Outlook to Zoho, and are all your meetings and emails being captured correctly in the CRM? Any insights or troubleshooting tips would be appreciated

    • 【Zoho CRM】ポータル機能のアップデート

      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。 今回は「Zoho CRM アップデート情報」の中から、ポータル機能のアップデートをご紹介します。 ポータル管理の新機能「自動招待」により、Zoho CRMからポータルへの招待を自動化できるようになりました。これまで必要だった、ユーザーごとの手動設定は不要になります。設定した条件に基づいて、対象ユーザーに自動で招待が送信されます。 ポータルの新機能 条件に基づく自動招待：指定した条件を満たすユーザーに、自動で招待を送信 招待設定：招待メールの言語を選択し、言語ごとに条件を設定可能

    • Contact data removes Account data when creating a quote

      Hi, Our customer has address fields in their quote layout which should be the address of the Account. They prefill the information, adding the account name - the address data is populated as per what is in the account - great. However when they then add

    • Export all of our manuals from Zoho Learn in one go

      Hi, I know there's a way to export manuals in Zoho Learn, but I want to export everything in one go so it won't take so long. I can't see a way to do this, can I get some assistance or is this a feature in the pipeline? Thanks, Hannah

    • Automation#31: Automate Splitting Names for New Contact Records

      Hello Everyone, This week, we present to you a custom function, which allows you to split the first and last names from the user's email ID based on the separator used in the ID. Having grown into a large firm, Zylker Techfix aims to optimize its processes,

    • Automatically remove commas

      Team, Please be consistent in Zoho Books. In Payments, you have commas here: But when we copy and paste the amount in the Payments Made field, it does not accept it because the default setting is no commas. Please have Zoho Books remove commas autom

    • Project Change Orders and Additions

      We are in the process of migrating from QuickBooks Online to Zoho Books. We have Zoho One and like the ability to sync all of our data across everything. And I like that projects work in a way that's less dumb than QuickBooks. I'm trying to figure out

    • ZOHO Desk - Description of slave ticket disappeared after Merge

      Dear Support, On Zoho Desk the description of a ticket disappeared after merging two ticket. The one which was the slave one completely disappeared. The problem that in this description there was an image which i had only on Desk in that ticket. Could

    • How do I insert a cross-reference link to a different section within one Knowledge Base article using Zoho Desk?

      I would like to insert a link within a Knowledge Base article to a different section of that same article. The section I want to link to is formatted with the Heading 3 style and is displayed within my TOC. However, I do not see any way to add a link

    • Next Page