Kaizen #164 : Client Credentials

Hello everyone,

Welcome back to Kaizen. 

In this post, we will discuss Client Credentials Flow and when it can be used.

What is Client Credentials Flow?

According to RFC6749, the official specification for the OAuth 2.0 authorization framework, 

"The client credentials (or other forms of client authentication) can be used as an authorization grant when the authorization scope is limited to the protected resources under the control of the client,or to protected resources previously arranged with the authorization server. Client credentials are used as an authorization grant typically when the client is acting on its own behalf (the client is also the resource owner) or is requesting access to protected resources based on an authorization previously arranged with the authorization server."

For Zoho CRM APIs, the credentials used are client id and client secret.

When can Client Credential Flow be used?

The client credentials flow is appropriate for machine-to-machine communications in which the application does not need to act on behalf of a specific user as the program can authenticate using just their own credentials to receive an access token. Here the credentials are client id and client secret.

Compared to the flow of creating access tokens in the self client flow, the client credentials flow can be used to perform one-time tasks like one-time data migration or testing Zoho CRM API calls, etc. We recommend using self client or server-based authorization for integration purposes. The main benefit of the client credentials flow is the simplicity in creating an access token, requiring only the client ID, client secret, OAuth scopes, and SOID.

If you are a first time user of Zoho CRMs, you can get started with Zoho CRM APIs by using the client credentials flow for authorization. Head over to Zoho CRM API Collection where a Client Credentials sample is added. Make sure that you have the required request parameters available in your environment for a smooth setup.

How to obtain access token in client credentials flow?

To obtain an access token using the client credentials flow, make an API call to the following endpoint

{accounts_url}/oauth/v2/token?client_id={client_id}&client_secret={client_secret}&grant_type=client_credentials&scope={scope}&soid={org_id_or_portal_id}

Request Parameters

• grant_type: Enter the value as "client_credentials".
• client_id: Specify the client-id obtained from the connected app.
• client_secret: Specify client-secret obtained from the connected app.
• scope:  Enter the corresponding scope for the resource you want to access from the user's account. Multiple scopes can be given in comma separated format.
• soid: Enter this parameter in the format ZohoCRM.{zsoid} where zsoid is the unique ID of your org or portal. If your application has multiple orgs or portals, the token created is bound to this org or portal. For example: ZohoCRM.600xxx46

Response

If successful, the response will look something like this:

{     "access_token": "1000.b2caxxxxx3c6",     "scope": "ZohoCRM.org.ALL ZohoCRM.settings.ALL ZohoCRM.users.ALL ZohoCRM.templates.email.READ ZohoCRM.templates.inventory.READ ZohoCRM.modules.ALL",     "api_domain": "https://www.zohoapis.com",     "token_type": "Bearer",     "expires_in": 3600 }

Response Keys

• access_token: Access token to access ZohoCRM APIs.
• scope: The scope for the resource you want to access from the user's account that was provided in the parameters.
• api_domain: The domain for API requests, varies by environment (e.g., sandbox.zohoapis.{domain}).
• token_type: Type of token obtained. "Bearer" indicates this is an access token.
  
• expires_in: Time in seconds after which the access token expires.

This completes the authentication. Once your app receives the access token, send the token in your HTTP authorization header to Zoho CRM API with the value "Zoho-oauthtoken {access_token}" for each endpoint (for each request).

The response does not contain a refresh token. When an access token expires, make an API call to the same endpoint to get a new access token (if required).

We hope you found this post useful. We will meet you next week with another interesting topic!

If you have any questions, let us know in the comment section.

Cheers!

Previous Post: Kaizen #163 - Extension Widgets in Zoho CRM | Kaizen Collection: Directory | Help document link: Client Credentials

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