Automation#32:Auto Add New Portal Users to the Help Center User Groups

Automation#32:Auto Add New Portal Users to the Help Center User Groups

Hello Everyone,
Introducing a custom function that automates the process of adding new portal users to Help Center user groups, making user management effortless!
By default, Zoho Desk allows you to assign new portal users to groups manually. But with this custom function, the process is completely automated, ensuring seamless categorization.


Why User Groups?

Zylker Techfix was dedicated to helping customers through their Help Center. While they actively supported users, there was one challenge: everyone received the announcements, irrespective of their requirements.
Zylker Techfix wanted a smarter way to engage their users by sending targeted announcements based on individual interests, such as gadgets, office equipment, and operations.
To make this happen, they created user groups and assigned new users accordingly. But manually adding users to the right groups was time-consuming.
So, they automated the process! With a custom function, they streamlined operations, ensuring every new portal user was automatically assigned to the right Help Center user group. More relevance, better engagement, zero manual effort.
Let’s walk through the steps to incorporate this custom function into your workflow.

Prerequisites

1. Create a connection
  1.1 Go to Setup(S) and choose Connections under Developer Space.
  1.2 Click Create Connection.
  1.3 Select Zoho OAuth under Default Connection.
  1.4 Set the connection name as zohodesk.
  1.5 Disable the toggle for User Credentials of Login User. 
  1.6 Under Scope, choose the below scope values:
Desk.contacts.READ
Desk.contacts.UPDATE
  1.7 Click Create and Connect.
  1.8 Click Connect and click Accept.
Connection is created successfully.

Create a Workflow Rule

1. Go to Setup, choose Workflows under Automation. 
2. Under Workflows, click Create Rule.

In the Basic Information section,
3. Select Contacts from the drop-down menu under Module.
4. Enter a Rule Name and Description for the rule.
5. If you want to activate the rule right away, select the Active checkbox. Else, create the rule and activate it later.
6. Click Next

In the Execute on section, follow these steps:
7. Select Field Update. Select field isPortalUser. 
8. Click Next.
9. In the Criteria section, add isPortalUser is and select the checkbox. click Next. 
10. In the Actions section, click the + icon and select New next to Custom Functions.
11. Enter a Name and Description for the custom function. Choose Contacts under Module.
12. Under Argument Mapping, give a desired Method Name. Map the arguments as below:
      12.1 In the Argument Name field, type contactId and select Contact ID under the Contacts Section.
13. In the script window, insert the Custom Function given below:
  1. // ---------------User inputs------------------------------------------
  2. deskUrl = "https://desk.zoho.com/api/v1/"; // replace based on user dc
  3. groupId = "<<GROUP ID>>"; // replace the group id in your desk portal
  4. //---------------------------------
  5. logs = Map();
  6. try 
  7. {
  8. getContactStatus = invokeurl
  9. [
  10. url :deskUrl + "contacts/" + contactId + "/helpCenters"
  11. type :GET
  12. connection:"zohodesk"
  13. ];
  14. contactUserId = getContactStatus.get("data").get(0).get("userId");
  15. if(contactUserId != null)
  16. {
  17. addUserToGroup = invokeurl
  18. [
  19. url : deskUrl + "groups/" + groupId + "/users/add"
  20. type :POST
  21. parameters:"" + {"users":{{"id":contactUserId}}}
  22. headers:{"Content-Type":"application/json"}
  23. detailed:true
  24. connection:"zohodesk"
  25. ];
  26. info "addUserToGroup" + addUserToGroup;
  27. }
  28. }
  29. catch (errorInfo)
  30. {
  31. logs.insert("errorInfo":errorInfo);
  32. }
  33. info "logs: \n" + logs;
  34. if(logs.containKey("errorInfo"))
  35. {
  36. throws "Error happen in the CF execution";
  37. }
User Inputs
a. In Line 2, replace .com in the URL based on your DC. 
b. In Line 3, enter the group ID to which you would like to add your new portal users. To access group ID, go to Setup >> Help Center >> Select the Department having your preferred User group >> choose User Groups on the left panel >> Select the user group >> The Id in the address bar is the required Group ID. 
Notes
Note: Configure the Workflow for the contacts module in the respective department where you want to add portal users to be added to the User group. 
14. Click Save to save the custom function.
15. Click Save again to save the workflow.

Share with us how this custom function helps you in your operations! Drop a comment below or reach out to us at support@zohodesk.com, we’re just an email away!

Meet you in the next post!
Regards,
Lydia | Zoho Desk


      Zoho Campaigns Resources


        • Desk Community Learning Series


        • Digest


        • Functions


        • Meetups


        • Kbase


        • Resources


        • Glossary


        • Desk Marketplace


        • MVP Corner


        • Word of the Day


        • Ask the Experts


          • Sticky Posts

          • Register for Zoho Desk Beta Community

            With the start of the year, we have decided to take a small step in making the life of our customers a little easier. We now have easy access to all our upcoming features and a faster way to request for beta access. We open betas for some of our features
          • Share your Zoho Desk story with us!

            Tell us how you use Zoho Desk for your business and inspire others with your story. Be it a simple workflow rule that helps you navigate complex processes or a macro that saves your team a lot of time; share it here and help the community learn and grow with shared knowledge. 
          • Tip #1: Learn to pick the right channels

            Mail, live chat, telephony, social media, web forms—there are so many support channels out there. Trying to pick the right channels to offer your customers can get pretty confusing. Emails are most useful when the customer wants to put things on record. However, escalated or complicated issues should not be resolved over email because it's slow and impersonal.  When you need immediate responses, live chat is more suitable. It's also quick and convenient, so it's the go-to channel for small issues. 
          • Welcome to Zoho Desk Community - Say hello here!

            Hello everyone! Though we have been here for a while, it’s time to formally establish the Zoho Desk Community; we’re really happy to have you all here! This can be the place where you take a moment to introduce yourself to the rest of the community. We’d love to hear all about you, what you do, what company or industry you work for, how you use Zoho Desk and anything else that you will like to share! Here’s a little about me. I am Chinmayee. I have been associated with Zoho since 2014. I joined here
          • Webinar 1: Blueprint for Customer Service

            With the launch of a host of new features in Zoho Desk, we thought it’ll be great to have a few webinars to help our customers make the most of them. We’re starting off with our most talked about feature, Blueprint in Zoho Desk. You can register for the Blueprint webinar here: The webinar will be delivered by our in-house product experts. This is a good opportunity to ask questions to our experts and understand how Blueprint can help you automate your service processes. We look forward to seeing

          Zoho CRM Plus Resources

            Zoho Books Resources


              Zoho Subscriptions Resources

                Zoho Projects Resources


                  Zoho Sprints Resources


                    Zoho Orchestly Resources


                      Zoho Creator Resources


                        Zoho WorkDrive Resources



                          Zoho CRM Resources

                          • CRM Community Learning Series

                            CRM Community Learning Series


                          • Tips

                            Tips

                          • Functions

                            Functions

                          • Meetups

                            Meetups

                          • Kbase

                            Kbase

                          • Resources

                            Resources

                          • Digest

                            Digest

                          • CRM Marketplace

                            CRM Marketplace

                          • MVP Corner

                            MVP Corner




                            Zoho Writer Writer

                            Get Started. Write Away!

                            Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.

                              Zoho CRM コンテンツ






                                ご検討中の方

                                  • Recent Topics

                                  • Introducing Record Summary: smarter insights at your fingertips

                                    Hello everyone, We’re excited to introduce the Record Summary feature. This powerful addition makes use of Zia to simplify how you interact with your CRM data, providing a seamless, consolidated view of critical record information. Scrolling through the
                                  • Zoho SignForms: Prefill parameters with spaces render as “+” in the document (even when using %20)

                                    Hello Zoho Sign team, we are using SignForms with prefill parameters passed via URL. Spaces in parameter values are being rendered as “+” in the finalized document—even when we URL-encode spaces as %20. This is critical for us because we prefill addresses
                                  • Auto CC - Moving Departments

                                    We have Auto CC e-mail replies to your support mailbox enabled. We have two departments: Helpdesk (helpdesk@domain.com) Delivery (delivery@domain.com) If we create a Helpdesk ticket, and reply, replies are CC'd to helpdesk@domain.com (OK) We then move
                                  • Currency selector (based on variable) usage in comparsion

                                    Hi, I've developed a currency selector based on the following topic, and it's working well in pivot tables and charts: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/how-can-i-allow-my-users-to-choose-a-currency-for-the-dashboard I also have a comparison
                                  • Notification received when self-assigning tickets

                                    When I assign tickets in Zoho Desk the relevant agent gets a notification email. When assigning myself a ticket in Zoho Desk, I get a notification email. Now, as I am the person who assigned the ticket to myself, getting a notification in this regard
                                  • Customize Column in Projects - Default View for Template?

                                    Is there a way to have the columns you'd like to see added to a template? I want my customized columns to show up every single time I create a project from that template. It appears I can customize them in the template but when I create the project they do not transfer over.  Template: See below how the columns in order are : Task, Owner, Status, Assigned, Website URL, Blog H1..etc. When I create a project from that same template it comes out as: Task, Owner, Status, Tags, Start Date, End Date, etc
                                  • Ask the Experts 24: Analytics, data administration, and mobile experience with Zoho Desk

                                    Hello Everyone! Welcome back to the Ask the Experts(ATE) series! We were so focused on our Autumn 2025 release that we didn't host an ATE session last month. In this month's ATE, we'd like to expand our areas for discussion: we'd like to listen to your
                                  • Multi-Page Forms in Zoho Creator!

                                    Let’s make long applications easier to handle by dividing them into pages, adding a progress bar, and guiding users step by step through complex data entry. This would be a total game-changer for the user experience and could significantly boost completion
                                  • Unable to Receive Emails on Zoho Mail After Office 365 Coexistence Setup – Error: 553 Relaying Disallowed

                                    Hello, My domain name is bigniter.com, and I’ve been using Zoho Mail as my email service provider without any issues. Recently, I followed the steps outlined in the Zoho documentation to enable Coexistence with Office 365: 🔗 https://www.zoho.com/mail/help/adminconsole/coexistence-with-office365.html#multi-server
                                  • Email login error

                                    Login successfully but email page error
                                  • Shared Mailboxes Disappeared

                                    Zoho Mail users in our company haven't been able to see their Shared Mailboxes for the past few hours. I've checked with App and Web Access, but they can't access them. When I send emails to their addresses, I get no error messages. They're still visible
                                  • Remote Server is misconfigured

                                    Dear Team, I am unable to use email id as remote server is misconfigured. It would be really great if you could help on this and get this resolved. Thanks & Regard Rohit Gupta
                                  • why cant i access my email account. it keeps asking me for reverifiying my account by entering my password.

                                    I cant access my account. it keeps asking me for reverifcaton by entering my password. once its entered it asks for it over and over.
                                  • The attendees will now be redirected to the landing webpage when they exit the webinar, set by the organizer.

                                    Hello All, In the latest version of the Zoho Meeting iOS mobile app (v1.3.16), we have brought in the below enhancements:   Post Webinar Re-direction Revamped exit UI for Webinar Post Webinar Re-direction:  The attendees will now be redirected to the
                                  • Free webinar alert on October 16 - Less Complexity, More Security: Workplace + Directory

                                    Hello Zoho Workplace Community! Security and productivity shouldn't be at odds—and with Zoho, they're not. Discover how Zoho Workplace + Directory delivers seamless collaboration with enterprise-grade security, all in one integrated ecosystem. Join our
                                  • Email Recall Feature In Zoho Mail Which Should Also Work For Outside Organisation Members

                                    Add a feature to recall or undo sending an email within a configurable short time window (e.g., 30 seconds to 2 minutes) after hitting send, similar to Gmail’s undo send. Currently the sent email can not be recall If the recipient is not from within your
                                  • Workdrive and ChatGPT Team Synced Connectors

                                    Hi, we want to be able to integrate Zoho Workdrive with OpenAI’s ChatGPT Team plan. Google Drive and OneDrive both offer this, zoho please catch up asap. We dont want to have to put our company files in google drive, we want to allow chatgpt Team edition
                                  • Zoho CRM IP Addresses to Whitelist

                                    We were told to whitelist IP addresses from Zoho CRM.  (CRM, not Zoho Mail.) What is the current list of IP Addresses to whitelist for outbound mail? Is there a website where these IP addresses are published and updated?  Everything I could find is over
                                  • Alias Name (on items) use case in Zoho inventory

                                    Hey, Hope everyone is well. Wondering if anyone can shed some light on the use case of Alias Names on Products in Zoho Inventory? Cheers, Chris
                                  • Updating an Invoice Line Item's Discount Account via API Call / Deluge Custom Function

                                    I need help updating an invoice line item's discount account via API. Below is a screenshot of the line item field I am referring to. Now the field to the left of the highlighted field (discount account) is the sales income account. I am able to modify
                                  • Send e-mail with attachments

                                    Dear Zoho, How is that possible in Zoho Flow to send an e-mail with attachment?  Just a simple example: Zoho Flow checks my Zoho mails and if the conditions starts the trigger then I would like to send an email with the original email's attachment. Any idea? BR, Adam
                                  • How to I get checkboxes on a subform to update via deluge

                                    Hello, would someone be able to tell me what I'm doing wrong here? I am trying to take the contents of a Deals subform and add them to an invoice then update the checkbox on each row so that 'add to invoice' is unticked and 'invoiced' is ticked. The output
                                  • CRM Related list table in Zoho analytics

                                    In Zoho Analytics, where can I view the tables created from zoho crm related lists? For example, in my Zoho CRM setup, I have added the Product module as a related list in the Lead module, and also the Lead module as a related list in the Product module.
                                  • Cadences

                                    I have just started using Cadences for follow-up up email pipeline. Is it just me or do you find the functionality very basic? For example, it will tell me (if I go looking for it) if someone has replied to a follow-up and been unenrolled; but it won't
                                  • Account in Quick View Filter

                                    I have a report that I often run against a specific Account. Every time, I have to go into the edit menu and change the Advanced Filter. I would prefer to use the Quick View Filter, but it does not allow me to use the one and only field that makes any
                                  • Add Webhook Response Module to Zoho Flow

                                    Hi Zoho Flow Team, We’d like to request a Webhook Response capability for Zoho Flow that can return a dynamic, computed reply to the original webhook caller after / during the flow runs. What exists today Zoho Flow’s webhook trigger can send custom acknowledgements
                                  • Your bot just got smarter: AI-Powered routing that reads between the lines

                                    What if your bot could tell the difference? Between a visitor who just needs a quick answer, someone actively comparing options, and a frustrated customer one click away from leaving? Most bots can't. They deliver the same response to everyone, missing
                                  • Tips & tricks: Make SalesIQ automations work for you

                                    Every day, thousands of visitors land on your website. Some browse, some buy, and some leave without a word. But, wouldn’t it be great if you could automatically know who’s interested, engage them at the right moment, and never miss a lead, and all this
                                  • Zoho Analytics & SQL Server - Live connect

                                    Below are the steps I did Created a fresh database and table in my own virtual server Created a new data source connection with live connect I was able to select the tables and created the data source successfully I am getting the error when I try to
                                  • Mapping a new Ticket in Zoho Desk to an Account or Deal in Zoho CRM manually

                                    Is there any way for me to map an existing ticket in Zoho desk to an account or Deal within Zoho CRM? Sometimes people use different email to put in a ticket than the one that we have in the CRM, but it's still the same person. We would like to be able
                                  • Good news! Calendar in Zoho CRM gets a face lift

                                    Dear Customers, We are delighted to unveil the revamped calendar UI in Zoho CRM. With a complete visual overhaul aligned with CRM for Everyone, the calendar now offers a more intuitive and flexible scheduling experience. What’s new? Distinguish activities
                                  • Urgent Security Feature Request – Add MFA to Zoho Projects Client Portal Hello Zoho Projects Team,

                                    Hello Zoho Projects Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to submit an urgent security enhancement request regarding the Zoho Projects Client Portal. At this time, as far as we are aware, there is no Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) available
                                  • 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
                                  • Microsoft Teams now available as an online meeting provider

                                    Hello everyone, We're pleased to announce that Zoho CRM now supports Microsoft Teams as an online meeting provider—alongside the other providers already available. Admins can enable Microsoft Teams directly from the Preferences tab under the Meetings
                                  • Zoho Projects - Task Owner filter at Project level

                                    Hi Projects Team, The feature requests I would like to raise is the ability to create a custom view at the project level for projects with tasks owned by a user or users. For example "Ashley's Projects" custom view might contain a list of project in which
                                  • How to display Motivator components in Zoho CRM home page ?

                                    Hello, I created KPI's, games and so but I want to be able to see my KPI's and my tasks at the same time. Is this possible to display Motivator components in Zoho CRM home page ? Has someone any idea ? Thanks for your help.
                                  • Cadences

                                    I have just started using Cadences for follow-up up email pipeline. Is it just me or do you find the functionality very basic? For example, it will tell me (if I go looking for it) if someone has replied to a follow-up and been unenrolled; but it won't
                                  • Zoho Books-Accounting on the Go Series!

                                    Dear users, Continuing in the spirit of our 'Function Fridays' series, where we've been sharing custom function scripts to automate your back office operations, we're thrilled to introduce our latest initiative – the 'Zoho Books-Accounting on the Go Series'.
                                  • Custom Fonts in Zoho CRM Template Builder

                                    Hi, I am currently creating a new template for our quotes using the Zoho CRM template builder. However, I noticed that there is no option to add custom fonts to the template builder. It would greatly enhance the flexibility and branding capabilities if
                                  • Would be really awesome to have Created Time and Modified Time showing for custom functions list

                                    It would be SO HELPFUL to be able to sort custom functions by created time/ modified time. Also seeing a created by/ modified by with the little profile picture would be supremely helpful as well. Just really hard sometimes to find a function you were
                                  • Next Page