Extensions 101: Build Extensions for Zoho Finance suite

Hello Developers!

We are thrilled to announce our 5-day webinar series on building extensions for Zoho Finance Suite products.

Our first session was a resounding success, introducing Extensions, Zoho Developer, Zoho Marketplace, and the Zoho Books Developer platform. The session was not only informative, but also highly interactive. We look forward to continuing this momentum in our upcoming sessions.

If you missed the first session, you can find the recording below. To participate in our upcoming sessions of this series, you can register here.

As part of our commitment to your learning, we have carefully curated the questions received during the session and provided answers. We understand your questions are crucial to your understanding, and we are here to support you.

1. Could you help us with more information related to Zoho Platform in general, Zoho Flow, and Zoho Creator.
   You can find the details about the different platform capabilities in the following link. https://www.zoho.com/developer/apps.html. You can also refer to this video, which explains the Zoho Developer platform and the different sections available in it.
   
   
2. How do we make connections work in the test environment?
   The base URL for testing APIs in the developer portal sandbox is https://extension-books.sandbox.zoho.com.

   The respective team is working on a fix to resolve this, so that "api_root_endpoint" from the Organization map can be used without any issues to test the APIs in the sandbox. We will keep you updated here in this post once the fix is rolled out live.
   
   

   

   [Updated on 02/Jul/2024]

   As mentioned earlier, the issue has been fixed and rolled out. Now, you can use the "api_root_endpoint" from the Organization map, which will automatically fetch the current environment's base URL. You can refer to the code snippet below for fetching Books information with your connection details:
   
   organizationID = organization.get("organization_id");
   apiEndpoint = organization.get("api_root_endpoint");
   respcontacts = invokeurl [
        url :apiEndpoint + "/contacts?organization_id=" + organizationID
        type :GET
        connection:"xxxxxxxxxx"
        ];
   
   
3. What are the criteria to be considered while choosing to utilize a Private Extension or performing the customizations on a Zoho Books instance?
   A private extension would be helpful when you need to share a customized feature with multiple Zoho Books instances (orgs or users). Otherwise, you can go with product customization.
   
   
4. Are global variables created in an extension accessible in other extensions/widgets?
   No, global fields can be accessible within the extension in which they were created. If necessary, visibility can be controlled within the extension.
   https://www.zoho.com/books/developer/extensions/configuration.html#global-fields
   
   
5. Is it possible to connect WhatsApp business account with Zoho books along with its features?
   No. You cannot directly connect an application with Zoho Books. For any integration with Zoho Books, a secure and valid connection with the respective product must be established. Following that, you need to build the integration based on the use cases you plan to achieve. This implementation will depend upon the platform as well as the products' supported features.
   
   
6. How do I construct data for items, materials, and prices without manually editing items as it consumes more time?
   With widgets and APIs, you can use your own user interface to create the respective module's records.
   
   
7. Can we use global variables to store sensitive information needed for use by the extension/widget? What is the alternative to global variables?
   While reviewing the extension, we don't encourage storing users' sensitive information as per privacy policies. Other than that, if you need some data to be stored securely and used within an extension, global variables would be the best option. Otherwise, you can store it through a widget.
   
   
8. Is the sandbox data retained between tests?
   Yes. The data will be retained.
   
   
9. How do widget and extension share data?
   Similar to how you add various components to your extension, widgets are also added as a component. Unlike the other components, widgets must be embedded into Zoho Books at a specific, customizable location. Consequently, data or values defined within an extension will be accessible from a widget. The visibility and accessibility of the data can be controlled depending on how it is defined.
   
   
10. Can I access the Zoho Developer from my Zoho Books?
    No. Zoho Developer is a free cloud platform that allows users to build different types of apps for Zoho products. You can only develop extensions for Zoho Books using this platform.
    
    
11. Use case: When a contact is linked to a product in Zoho CRM, a new ticket needs to be created in Zoho Desk. To implement this, how can I connect to Zoho Desk to create a ticket?
    To implement your use case, you must create an extension for Zoho CRM with a connector for Zoho Desk. You can invoke the Desk API to create a ticket using that connector.
    
    
12. Is approval from the Zoho Books team required for a private extension?
    Yes. A review of private extensions will be done for the initial phase. Since finance suite extensions involve financial data, the review is mandatory.
    
    
13. Which Zoho Books plan is offered in the developer platform? Also, which plan of Zoho Books is required to test and install an extension?
    The Ultimate plan of the Indian edition is applied by default in the Zoho Books developer platform to build extensions. All the features available as part of the Ultimate plan will be available during your extension development on the developer platform.
    
    With regard to the plan required to test an extension, a 14-day trial plan should suffice. However, if you already have a paid org, it's recommended to have a Premium or above plan to test and install the extension. If you're using other paid plans, the suitability depends on the component's limits. Please refer to this link for more details: https://www.zoho.com/in/books/pricing/pricing-comparison.html?highlight=professional#:~:text=Customization%20and%20automation
    
    
14. Should we post in the developer forum or write directly to the support email for suggestions and help.
    If your query is a support question related to a Zoho product, you can email the respective Zoho product's support email address. However, the developer forum is ideal if you want to validate your thoughts from other Zoho users. There are 100+ million users in the forum. The challenge you face could have already been shared and discussed by other users. Hence, the Zoho Cliq developer forum is an efficient mode of quick exchange of thoughts.
    
    
15. When will the comments in threads be accessible to Cliq channel users in EU data center?
    We love for all customers across the world to come together, exchange knowledge, and grow together. Our Cliq team is working to address some bottlenecks, like checking the thread, regardless of your DC. We will be the first to update you once the feature is ready.
    
    
16. How can I use the request method within a widget?
    We have SDKs for widgets to communicate with Zoho Books. The ZFAPPS.request() method will help you to make a network request. You can learn more here.
    
    
17. Will there be support for SDK methods for package module in future?
    We have currently supported SDK methods for limited modules. We will add the missing modules in future updates.
    
    
18. Does the get method work only when we are on a particular module?
    The get method helps you to get records' data only on specific locations. For example, consider that you are on the sales order page; you can get the 'salesorder' data only. If you require other details, you have to use the request method to initiate an API call.
    
    
19. What is the difference between Integration and extension?
    The terms integration and extension are almost similar. Integrations include both API-built apps as well as platform-built apps.
    
    Extensions: We use this term to the apps that are built using the Sigma platform, wherein you can make enhancements to extend the existing functionality of a Zoho product by customising the product or connecting with other applications.
    
    API-built apps: These apps could be built in any development environment of your choice, and you would consume the respective Zoho product REST APIs to implement your use case. In these types of apps, you would be operating more on the data of the respective apps.
    
    
20. What's an example of a web tab?
    Say you've created a Zoho Creator application to manage the manufacturing process, POS, or a specific aspect of your business. You can copy the embed URL and create a web tab for it. Now, you’ll be able to access this Zoho Creator application within Zoho Books instead of opening it in a separate browser tab.
    
    
21. Can we have a Zoho Books web tab directly inside Zoho CRM? Finance is available, but it is limited in its functionality.
    No, the entire Zoho Books product cannot be constructed as a web tab inside Zoho CRM. In general, a web tab is used to embed a page inside the product. However, Zoho finance inside the Zoho CRM is an integration with additional functionalities.
    
    
22. What happens if an extension is not approved after review? Can it not be published on the Marketplace, or can I not use it as well?
    An approved extension can only be deployed in the Zoho marketplace. If it is not approved, you can make the necessary changes and send it again for review. Until then, you can use the extension locally and share it privately with your customers.
    
    
23. What is the size limit for data storage in the Zoho Books widget?
    Up to 10000 characters can be stored.
    
    
24. For third-party integrations, can you host the API pull request on Sigma?
    Yes. To invoke third-party APIs, you can use the request SDK method. These topics will be covered in our upcoming sessions. Stay tuned :)
    
    
25. Is there any charge for building and listing extensions?
    No, the Zoho Developer platform is free, and hence, there is no charge for building extensions or listing them in the Zoho Marketplace.
    
    
26. Can we create extensions using trial account also? I am unable to create extensions for CRM in my trial account.
    In general, trial accounts can be used to test product functionalities. Since Zoho Developer is a free cloud platform, you can sign up for a Zoho Developer account and directly start with extension development. Also, the extensions for Zoho CRM can be developed using a Zoho Developer account in the U.S. DC only.
    
    
27. In the Zoho Books widget, is there any method to retrieve records from another module without using the request method, perhaps through any SDK methods?
    Sorry, this is not possible right now.
    
    
28. As an individual developer and not a company, is it possible for me to create extensions?
    Yes, you can go ahead and create extensions if you have a Zoho Developer account.

• Topic Participants

• Vinoth M

  

• Jeff DeRiso

  

• Nanditha Somasundaram Somasundaram

  

• Sticky Posts

• Zoho Developer Community Monthly Digest - November 2024

  Hello everyone! Welcome back to the November edition of the Developer Community Monthly Digest. Dive in to explore the upcoming events, hands-on training sessions, exciting product updates, insightful discussions, and more to keep you informed and inspired!

• Zoho Developer Community Monthly Digest - October 2024

  Hello everyone, This edition highlights October's product updates, upcoming community events, engaging discussions that sparked inspiration, and celebrates the top contributors who drove progress. Grab your favorite beverage and dive in! Upcoming Events

• Zoho Developer Community Monthly Digest - September 2024

  Hello everyone, This month's Developer Digest is packed with resources to help you build powerful applications. Learn how to leverage Zoho CRM's new features, explore the latest in Zoho Finance and Catalyst, and join exciting bootcamps, webinars, and

• Zoho Developer Community Monthly Digest - August 2024

  Hello everyone, Get ready for another exciting month of Zoho development! Our August digest is packed with events, resources, and community discussions to empower you as a Zoho developer. Let's dive right in! Upcoming Events To stay on top of the upcoming

• Extensions 101: Build Extensions for Zoho Finance suite

  Hello Developers! We are thrilled to announce our 5-day webinar series on building extensions for Zoho Finance Suite products. Our first session was a resounding success, introducing Extensions, Zoho Developer, Zoho Marketplace, and the Zoho Books Developer

• Recent Topics

• Portal orders

  Is it possible to set up an ordering system through the portal so that my customers can place orders through their portal?

• CLIENT PORTAL (If clients can place orders directly on the portal)

  Zoho client portal is excellent. Everything is there except one thing. Client should be able to place orders directly on the portal. This would enhance the portal and end users will be extremely happy. This suggestion infact came from one of our client.

• Macro Email to be determined by a ticket field

  Hi, we are a commercial energy brokerage and are implementing Desk as our helpdesk tool to replace manual emails, personal whataspp and telephone. We have setup a macro rule when we can trigger an email, update ticket status and trigger a task.... but

• Welcome Link Expired

  Hi The links sent to the users didn't get clicked on in time and now all the links have expired. Is there a way to send a new link without deleting them and re-adding them>

• Zoho expense linked with Campaign instead of customers

  Hi, Is there a development planned for linked an expense or a report to a zoho campaign? Indeed, suppose I created a campain in which I add different clients (for example a trip to a foreign country where I meet 3 different clients), I would like this campaign to be linked to the expenses I have. Say I have a plane ticket, taxis and 1 hotel night, I would like those expenses to be linked to the 3 clients. With Zoho expense, it is not possible at the time (or maybe it is but I do not know how!). thanks

• 🎄 Jingle, Mingle, and Automate: Spread Christmas Cheer with Zoho Desk Auto-Replies! 🎄

  Hello Everyone! Welcome to this week's episode of the Community Learning Series. Christmas is in the air, and I’m sure we can all feel the jingle and the mingle of the season! The folks at Zylker Techfix are no exception—they’re busy with holiday plans

• Adjusting Physical Inventory

  Not getting very far with support on this one, they say they are going to fix it but nothings happened since November. Please give this a thumbs up if you would like to see this feature or comment if you have some insight. Use Case: Inventory set to be

• Print PO receipt

  Hi I would like to print the PO receipt. There does not seem to be any way to do this. I track batch numbers and printing the PO does not show this. Only the receipt would show the details of the receipt. Currently I print the screen which does not have

• Create a purchase order in vendor's currency

  I am having a problem working this out and would appreciate some suggestions. We have Books and Inventory working in tandem. We are in Australia, our product is sold in Australia in $A and obviously all our invoices, accounts and reports need to be in

• Work Orders / Bundle Requests

  Zoho Inventory needs a work order / bundle request system. This record would be analogous to a purchase order in the purchasing workflow or a sales order in the sales cycle. It would be non-journaling, but it would reserve the appropriate inventory of

• Change script to add fields

  Hi, I have a custom function (writen by a different implementation company in the beginning) which I would like to edit to add a different field as well. Can't get it to work on my own though. - The script now adds the address fields to a new quote (needs

• 1 API to all channel

  hi zoho team: I am the product manager of anywheel, we are planning to integrate zoho, we want to integrate multiple channels through 1 API, please can you send me the integration document and guideline?

• Revamped Print in Zoho Sheet—customized for paper

  The latest enhancements to Zoho Sheet's Print settings allows you to print a worksheet or a selected range, with customizations that make the data comprehensible, even on paper.   Customize header and footer Make your spreadsheets meaningful with a relevant header and footer. You can now choose to display the file name, sheet name, current page number, total pages, date, and time as the header and footer in your print view. Besides the predefined elements, you can also give a custom text for header/footer.

• Automatic bundling with sales orders

  What I do is I make products to order. Some of my products share same part. So sometimes one product sells better then the other one. When I create a bundle now I might sell out one product but then I cannot make it anymore because I already use the part

• Adding Bluesky channel

  Hello, Is Bluesky (AT protocol) soon added on Social ? Bluesky is being developped and is now open to anyone (no more invitation) Thank you

• How Can i put a form in Zobot

  Hi,how can i integrate a form which has a multiple options to choose from.the form should be opened or displayed by zobot after it meets a requirement in the conversation. Thanks in advance !

• Unified customer portal login

  As I'm a Zoho One subscriber I can provide my customers with portal access to many of the Zoho apps. However, the customer must have a separate login for each app, which may be difficult for them to manage and frustrating as all they understand is that

• message on click of button

  Hi, i added insert task on 'Quick view' below  'Action'  of report just below 'Delete' button,  so i am trying to add a message on click of button that, "This item is now added into Pending Request" like this .... So, how can i achieve this ; because

• Is it possible to disable Chat Waiting Time, or to make it indefinite?

  We have used many online chat services over the years. However, Zoho's SalesIQ appears to be the only one we've tried that has a mandatory time limit where we must respond to new customer queries. We are a small business so we have no dedicated staff

• Access CRM Variables from Formula field

  Is it possible to use a CRM variable (defined in Developer Space -> CRM Variables) in a formula field for calculations ?

• Client Script: $Client.refresh({ triggerOnLoad: true }); not triggering onLoad Client Scripts

  Hey friends! I'm trying to store a temporary var, refresh the page for the user, then check that temporary var and do some actions. Theoretically using the title's code: $Client.refresh({ triggerOnLoad: true }); should refresh the page and trigger on

• Super Admin login to delete certain folders and passwords and clearing the trash folder, they are still appearing on my dashboard

  Hi Zoho Team, I need help with an issue I've encountered. Despite using the Super Admin login to delete certain folders and passwords and clearing the trash folder, they are still appearing on my dashboard. I would like to understand why this is happening

• Automatically add a retainer to every estimate

  Hi all, I've been trying to find a way to automatically add a retainer at a set % to every estimate we create and send. So far I haven't been successful, does anyone know of a way to do this? Thanks,

• Clear String field based on the value of other field

  Hello everyone, We would like to be able to clear a string field (delete whatever has been written and make it empty) when another field (picklist) is changed to a specific value. While I can empty other types of fields, I noticed that I can't do this

• Custom Deal Name in Lead Conversion Mapping

  I know there are ways to change the name of a Deal after conversion using a custom function, so no need to repost that information. I would like to see the CRM Improved with Deal Name Customisation and I think the Lead Conversion Mapping page would be

• Within the Basic KPI component in Analytics, it is impossible to set "next" day range as a filter

  Hi there, I am currently setting up a deal dashboard for the Sales team. While it is possible to filter deal records to show records that were created LAST X days only, it looks like a NEXT X days Closing date filter is not available. Would it be possible

• Invoice status on write-off is "Paid" - how do I change this to "Written off"

  HI guys, I want to write off a couple of outstanding invoices, but when I do this, the status of the invoices shows as "Paid". Clearly this is not the case and I need to be able to see that they are written off in the customer's history. Is there a way

• For each loop with available time slots

  I am very new to Deluge, and this question was unable to be answered by Zoho Creator tech support upon request. Task at hand: I have a Form with 4 fields: - Date Start - Date End - Dropdown: Time Start: contains time slots (12:00PM, 12:15PM, etc) - Dropdown:

• Can we have Backorder Management ?

  Can we have Backorder Management ?

• Converting Amazon Sales Order to Invoice

  Hi there, We need  advice on the Amazon integration with Zoho Inventory. Now, we want to convert all the Sales orders synced from Amazon to Invoices. We want also to include and record the Amazon fees associated with the sales (Amazon fees, FBA fees, Cost of Advertising etc.) However, Sales order only captures the sales proceeds (Gross Sales) in Zoho Inventory. Does anyone currently work with Amazon and can suggest how to correctly process the sales and Amazon payments through Zoho Inventory and

• Zoho Inventory | Can't uncheck/turn off Advance Tracking

  Hi, I wanted to know if there's a way to turn off Advanced Tracking (such as Serial Number or Batch Tracking) for an item in Zoho Inventory. I’ve read that you might need to delete associated transactions and clear the opening stock to disable these features.

• Landed Cost application to Vendor Bills from dropship Purchase Orders

  When trying to apply a Landed Cost to a Vendor Bill generated from a dropship Purchase Order, the Landed Cost pop-up window generates a message that "Landed Cost cannot be applied to Bills from dropship Purchase Orders" when trying to save the landed

• 2 serial numbers for 1 item (Mac address and Serial number)

  There is a way to track 2 serial number type for 1 Item. Ex: Some electronic devices have a MAC address and a serial number. I need to track those 2 numbers

• Zoho Projects Roadshow, USA - 2024

  Dear Users, We are happy to announce the Zoho Projects Roadshows 2024 in USA. This is an excellent opportunity to learn more about Zoho Projects and gain in-depth knowledge of the advanced features. Our team will also discuss industry specific solutions

• [Zoho Writer Webinar] Tips on collaboration control in Writer

  Hi Zoho Writer users, We're excited to announce the Zoho Writer webinar for the month of October 2023: Tips on collaboration control in Writer. This webinar will help you understand the various features available in Writer to control collaboration. We'll

• [Zoho Writer Webinar] Working with tables in Zoho Writer

  Hi Zoho Writer users, We're excited to announce the Zoho Writer webinar for the month of September 2023: Working with tables. This webinar will help you understand the various ways you can use tables to meet your specific needs. The webinar will take

• [Zoho Writer Webinar] Customize Writer to suit your business process

  Hi Zoho Writer users, We're excited to announce the Zoho Writer webinar for the month of August 2023: Customize Writer to suit your business process. This webinar will cover the various ways to customize Writer to streamline business processes and improve

• not able to hit inventory api

  when i hit the api with my account keys and the access is provide by the client

• Is there a way to print the dashboard?

  I would like the capability of printing the dashboard - is that possible?

• Workflows for Timesheet

  Good day, Any way to have timesheet as triggers? I looked into Zoho Flow and into Zoho Project automation but no where can I have timesheet as a trigger. Basically, I would like to trigger something upon timesheet approval. Right now, the only way to

• Next Page