Getting all the ingredients together for baking an app

Getting all the ingredients together for baking an app

Good day everyone. After reading a lot of the help docs and watching videos, I now started on my app. To prevent hours and hours wasted on going down the wrong track, I would like some clarification on the following. But first some background:

I have a small charter company - all we do is is transport our client's kids between boarding schools and home towns on weekends. In the app they book (only) their own kids for one or both of the directions (to home or to school) - in a single booking, to save on record count and file size. The app then populates another form (or report, maybe - my current app does not have this) with the pickup and drop-off points and times, in sequence.  The driver also has a checkbox  to confirm completion at each point. All entries are written to the Trips table.  So:
      1. I am already creating a Registration form for the clients. They will be portal users whose details I will import from my current app.
        1. I see nowhere where the form is connected to a table.
        2. What is the difference between form edit and form builder, when I right-click on the form title in the portal? I cannot do anything in edit mode, I have to go to builder mode from there.
        3. I currently handle the many-to-many relationships between clients and their children with an intermediary table.
          1. If the Registration form has as (repeating) subform for add children, does it create a link automatically? I have Autonumber fields for the ID's of both users and children in their respective tables.
          2. Or do I need a workflow to add the two ID's to the intermediary table?
          3. Is a repeating subform even possible? I mean to add more children linked to the same user, maybe with an Add button on the subform. If not, how should I handle it? Some users have 3 children making use of the service.

      2. When onboarding users, the help docs say that customer portal users are your clients, vendors etc.
        1. and they cannot have email adresses in the same domain as the super admin. If I don't have a custom domain, this point is surely moot? My customers all have webmail addresses like gmail and yahoo.
        2. In the Creator price comparison it says all plans get 3 portal users free, but in the  Portal price comparison it says 5 free.
        3. Some of my clients use the service irregularly and pay per trip booked. The rest pay a fixed monthly fee. I will add each client's portal user cost of $0.5 to his fee but it will not work for the ad hoc clients. I will therefore not add them as portal users but that means I will have to do their bookings. Is this possible?

      3. After registration, users should open at a form with all their available options.  (Currently a Main Menu form with buttons)
        1. Must the form be in the portal? Or can I use a stateless form as a menu?
        2. Can they access their portal then from the menu? It does not seem so from the Help docs. 
        3. A Page seems to be the wrong choice for a user interface. All the users access the app from a phone so a button-based layout seems best. Should/must I use a page anywhere, and is it suitable for a phone? It looks like a good opton for the Customer portal, though, where I can add some metrics. Didn't I read somewhere a portal is a page?
        4. If I add Quickbooks integration, is the Billing portal a separate entity or can it be incorporated in the User portal? (Or page...)
I apologize for the many questions, but I'm eager to get it running soon - at least the onboarding because it will take time for the new users. 

Many thanks,

      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

          • Share your success story

            We would like to hear from our passionate users how much Zoho Creator has changed the way you work and benefited you. If you would like to share your story to us and be featured as a proud user of Zoho Creator, then this is for you. Fill up the form below and if you want to be included in a case study, we will get in touch with you to get further details. So what are you waiting for? Tell us your story. Charles
          • Merge and Store v1 API depreciation

            Hi Zoho Writer users, The Merge and Store v1 API allows you to store the merged document in Zoho WorkDrive. The response of this API will be returned with the document's ID only after the merge is complete. In Deluge, the maximum timeout for operation
          • Zoho Creator Developer's Conference 2017 !!!

            We welcome all our Creator Developers! You're invited to join us for our annual Zoholics Developers conference August 29th–31st! This is your chance to get training and guidance on Zoho Creator from our most knowledgeable custom app builders.       Zoholics Developers is a three-day event where you'll participate in interactive workshops to hone your app-building skills, get questions answered by Creator experts with personal one-on-one sessions, and connect with other Creator developers from around

          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

                                  • Mapping a custom preferred date field in the estimate with the native field in the workorder

                                    Hi Zoho, I created a field in the estimate : "Preferred Date 1", to give the ability to my support agent to add a preferred date while viewing the client's estimate. However, in the conversion mapping (Estimate to Workorder), I'm unable to map my custom
                                  • Is there a way to request a password?

                                    We add customers info into the vaults and I wanted to see if we could do some sort of "file request" like how dropbox offers with files. It would be awesome if a customer could go to a link and input a "title, username, password, url" all securely and it then shows up in our team vault or something. Not sure if that is safe, but it's the best I can think of to be semi scalable and obviously better than sending emails. I am open to another idea, just thought this would be a great feature.  Thanks,
                                  • Single Task Report

                                    I'd like a report or a way to print to PDF the task detail page. I'd like at least the Task Information section but I'd also like to see the Activity Stream, Status Timeline and Comments. I'd like to export the record and save it as a PDF. I'd like the
                                  • Auto-response for closed tickets

                                    Hi, We sometimes have users that (presumably) search their email inbox for the last correspondence with us and just hit reply - even if it's a 6 month old ticket... - this then re-opens the 6 month old ticket because of the ticket number in the email's subject. Yes, it's easy to 'Split as new Ticket', but I'd like something automated to respond to the user saying "this ticket has already been resolved and closed, please submit a new ticket". What's the best way to achieve this? Thanks, Ed
                                  • How to Push Zoho Desk time logged to Zoho Projects?

                                    I am on the last leg of my journey of finally automating time tracking, payments, and invoicing for my minutes based contact center company - I just have one final step to solve - I need time logged in zoho desk to add time a project which is associated
                                  • Cannot access KB within Help Center

                                    Im working with my boss to customize our knowledge base, but for some reason I can see the KB tab, and see the KB categories, but I cannot access the articles within the KB. We have been troubleshooting for weeks, and we have all permissions set up, customers
                                  • Export to excel stored amounts as text instead of numbers or accounting

                                    Good Afternoon, We have a quarterly billing report that we generate from our Requests. It exports to excel. However if we need to add a formula (something as simple as a sum of the column), it doesn't read the dollar amounts because the export stores
                                  • why my account is private?

                                    when i post on zohodesk see only agent only
                                  • Getting ZOHO Invoice certified in Portugal?

                                    Hello, We are ZOHO partners in Portugal and here, all the invoice software has to be certified by the government and ZOHO Invoice still isn´t certified. Any plans? Btw, we can help on this process, since we have a client that knows how to get the software certified. Thank you.
                                  • 500 Internal Server Error

                                    I have been trying to create my first app in Creator, but have been getting the 500: Internal Server Error. When I used the Create New Application link, it gave me the error after naming the application. After logging out, and back in, the application that I created was in the list, but when I try to open it to start creating my app, it gives me the 500: Internal Server Error. Please help! Also, I tried making my named app public, but I even get the error when trying to do that.
                                  • Client Script | Update - Client Script Support For Portals

                                    Dear All! We are excited to announce the highly anticipated feature: Client Script support for Portals. We understand that many of you have been eagerly awaiting this enhancement, and we are pleased to inform you that this support is now live for all
                                  • Professional Plan not activated after payment

                                    I purchased the Professional Plan for 11 users (Subscription ID: RPEU2000980748325) on 12 September 2025, and the payment has been successfully processed. However, even after more than 24 hours, my CRM account still shows “Upgrade” and behaves like a
                                  • Auto Update Event Field Value on Create/Edit

                                    Hi there, I know this question has been posted multiple times and I've been trying many of the proposed similar scripts for a while now but nothing seems to work... what might I do wrong? The error I receive is this: Value given for the variable 'meetingId'
                                  • Pre-orders at Zoho Commerce

                                    We plan to have regular producs that are avaliable for purchase now and we plan to have products that will be avaliable in 2-4 weeks. How we can take the pre-orders for these products? We need to take the money for the product now, but the delivery will
                                  • Payroll and BAS ( Australian tax report format )

                                    Hello , I am evaluating Zoho Books and I find the interface very intuitive and straight forward. My company is currently using Quickbooks Premier the Australian version. Before we can consider moving the service we would need to have the following addressed : 1.Payroll 2.BAS ( business activity statement ) for tax purposes 3.Some form of local backup and possible export of data to a widely accepted format. Regards Codrin Mitin
                                  • Problem with Email an invoice with multiple attachments using API

                                    I have an invoice with 3 attachments. When I send an email manually using the UI, everything works correctly. I receive an email with three attachments. The problem occurs when I try to initiate sending an email using the API. The email comes with only
                                  • Page Layouts for Standard Modules like CRM

                                    For standard modules like quotes, invoices, purchase orders, etc, it would be a great feature to be able to create custom page layouts with custom fields in Zoho Books similar to how you can in Zoho CRM. For example, and my current use case, I have a
                                  • Non-depreciating fixed asset

                                    Hi! There are non-depreciable fixed assets (e.g. land). It would be very useful to be able to create a new type of fixed asset (within the fixed assets module) with a ‘No depreciation’ depreciation method. There is always the option of recording land
                                  • Fixed asset management

                                    I want to know if there is any individual module for fixed assets management
                                  • One time sale item in billing automatically detects as service

                                    if i have some items which i don't want to add in my "item" list because its sold only for one time. but when i type item name in invoice, it (system) automatically takes it as a service and despite of HSN , it shows SAC code to be entered. if its selectable i.e. either item or service , it would be very helpful and a must have feature.
                                  • Project template after project creation

                                    How can I apply a project template AFTER the project has been created?
                                  • convert the project to templet

                                    i have some deployment ME product for different customer , i need to create a fixed template for use it rather then keeping creating this template every time
                                  • Related Module in Sharing Rules

                                    Zoho CRM team recently added the feature to filter records by Related Records It will be really beneficial if we can have this feature for Sharing Rules as well
                                  • Assignment Thresholds Resetting After Lead Conversion

                                    Hello everyone, We're facing an issue with Zoho CRM's lead assignment thresholds that makes them unsuitable for our workflow. I'm hoping to find a potential workaround or solution from the community. Here’s our current process: A new lead is created automatically
                                  • Territory view for custom modules?

                                    I have recently activated territories however I can't seem to find how to use territories for custom modules? These modules have territories:  Contacts /  Accounts / Opportunities These modules don't have territories:   Buildings (custom module) and 
                                  • Approval Process Comments

                                    Is it possible to view the comments entered during the approval or rejection of a record in the approval process? If not, is there a way to require a field to be completed upon approval or rejection?
                                  • Login for test case

                                    Had a few questions regarding authentication test cases and couldn't find an answer in the the docs. 1. If an app like Zoho Creator requires authentication before providing access, do I need to create a login function and add it to each test case? 2.
                                  • Customer members area

                                    Does FSM support a customer members area? If not what do you propose we use if we want the data used in FSM for customers to give them an area / login to see past orders, create new orders and general announcements.
                                  • Notes created in mobile can no longer be accessed in desktop

                                    Working with a 2013 Mac running OS 10.14.6; Desktop Notebook version 4.5.3. Using Motorola Moto G Power 5G - 2024; Android app version 6.7 I have been using Notebook for some years. Starting several weeks ago, the notes newly created ion the phone can
                                  • Function #49: Manage varying installment payments using Zoho Books

                                    . Hello everyone, and welcome back to our series! Last week, we discussed automating the collection of fixed installment payments in Zoho Books. But what if your payment structure involves charging varying percentages of the invoice total as installments?
                                  • Is it possible for contacts to "Re-enter" a workflow in Zoho Campaign?

                                    We are currently working on a way to automatically add users to from one list to other lists based on specific criteria, but can't seem to find a native way of doing this so we are trying to use Workflows to do this. So, for example, if a user's status is set to "Active," then they should be added to the list "Active Users." If the same user's status is then set to "Paused," they should be added to the list "Paused Users" and removed from the list "Active Users." This works fine for the first go
                                  • Bulk upload images and specifications to products

                                    Hi, Many users have asked this over the years and I am also asking the same. Is there any way in which we can bulk upload product (variant) images and product specifications. The current way to upload/select image for every variant is too cumbersome.
                                  • Out of Office for Just One of My Alias Email

                                    Can I set up the Out of Office Reply for Just One of my Alias Email Addresses?
                                  • Can I map multiple Surveys into the CRM using the same fields?

                                    Hello, We are a healthcare practice that offers two distinct services (Nutrition and Primary Care). We use Zoho Survey for our lead generation form (Get Started Survey), which allows people to express interest in one of the two services and even allows
                                  • Dealing with API responses where integers have more than 16 digits

                                    Hi there How do I deal with an api response contaning an int or float with more than 16 digits (before any decimal places for a float). I constantly receive the response "Unable to cast the 'BigInteger' value into a 'BIGINT' value because the input is
                                  • Add Zoho Mail for users who do not need Zoho One

                                    We have licenses for ZOho One for teams that need to use the suite of products that Zoho One offers.  We have 8 more people who only need email access and we would like to add just a Zoho Mail.  They do not need the Zoho One license.  We are currently
                                  • ZML vs HTML Snippet - which is better?

                                    Are there certain use cases where one is better than the other?
                                  • Auto CheckOut Based On Shift.

                                    This Deluge script runs on a scheduled basis to automatically set the 'Actual_Check_Out' time for employees who haven't manually checked out. If the current time is past their scheduled 'Shift_End_Time', the script updates the check-out time to match
                                  • Load PO_Date field (Purchase Order) with current date in Deluge

                                    Hi, I'm not a full time developer, just helping to customize our CRM, in the small company I work for. There must be something wrong with me, because I can't do something so simple as complete a field with the current date in a function using Deluge.
                                  • Zoho CRM in Microsoft Power Automate Custom Connector

                                    Hi everyone, I’m building a Power Automate flow that integrates Microsoft Bookings with Zoho CRM. The goal is to automatically create a meeting (event) in Zoho CRM whenever a new appointment is booked via Microsoft Bookings. To achieve this, I created
                                  • Next Page