Serving your needs with Bigin toppings

Serving your needs with Bigin toppings

Hey Biginners!

We're excited to kick off our Developer Community series on building toppings for Bigin, and our goal is to provide an accessible, beginner-friendly, and relevant path for every developer.

Imagine creating tiny pieces of software that unlock enhanced functionalities and seamlessly integrate Bigin with other applications. Those pieces of software are Bigin's "toppings."

Let's dive in!

What are toppings?

Toppings are add-ons that help you to integrate Bigin with other third-party applications or extend existing functionalities, eliminating the need for Bigin users to switch between multiple service-providing applications. With Bigin's Developer Center, developers can build toppings and bundle them into all the features necessary to manage the businesses they serve. Users can install them in their Bigin accounts to enhance their user experiences with custom features and integrations.

How are toppings useful?

Imagine using Bigin and managing your business via different pipelines that cater to different business departments, like sales and support. On a daily basis, the customer support team may receive multiple emails related to these different departments; manually checking each email and saving them as records in the appropriate pipelines would be a time-consuming process and might lead to errors. Bigin's Email-In topping serves to address this functional inefficiency. By creating unique email aliases for different departments, Email-In ensures that any emails sent to these aliases are automatically converted into records in the related Bigin pipeline, eliminating manual intervention, saving time, and reducing the risk of errors. Teams can focus on responding to customers quickly rather than spending hours sorting and categorizing emails.

Or consider another scenario: A business is juggling multiple client meetings, managing several projects, and finding it difficult to track contracts and renewal dates. Without a system in place to manage these contracts, they run the risk of missing renewals, disrupting client relationships, and losing revenue. What they'd need is a topping that helps them organize their contracts in Bigin, set automated reminders for renewals or expirations, and seize every opportunity. Then, the team can focus more on nurturing customer relationships instead of worrying about missing crucial deadlines.

These scenarios highlight the important role toppings can play in business processes.

Now, let's explore where you can build toppings and the features available there.

Bigin Developer Center

To develop a topping for Bigin, make sure you have access to the Bigin Developer Center. You also need to have a clear picture of the functionalities and features you want to include in your topping.

The Bigin Developer Center is a cloud platform that provides developers with ready-to-use tools to create and publish toppings. In the Developer Center, each developer has a designated developer workspace where they can create and manage toppings. From the workspace screen, you can create a topping and enter the Bigin Developer Console, which serves as the space wherein you'll build, test, and publish your toppings, and offers various components to create, customize, and automate them. Read more about the platform's functionalities here.



Once you've developed a topping, the next step is to decide how you want to distribute it. For that, let's look into the types of toppings available.

Types of toppings you can build

Toppings can be either public or private, depending on the distribution method you choose, which in turn defines its visibility to users.

Public toppings

Public toppings are accessible to all users and listed in the Bigin Marketplace, an online store where users can find and install toppings. Users can also search for specific toppings or filter them from the available list.

This enables topping developers to generate revenue based on the number of times their toppings are installed. Based on user ratings and reviews, developers can periodically improve and enhance their toppings. The Bigin Marketplace team has provided guidelines for creating public toppings. Once a developer submits the topping, the Marketplace team will review and approve it, provided that it complies with the established approval policies.

Private toppings

You can create or use private toppings for specific users or organizations. The Developer Console generates a hashed URL that allows access to these toppings and enables you to control how your toppings are distributed.

Private toppings don't require approval from the Bigin Marketplace team and receive validation automatically. Once published, these toppings are immediately available for use. You can publish toppings privately if you want to provide an organization or client with customized features.

How to build a topping

Let's dive into the step-by-step process of creating a topping.

Accessing the Bigin Developer Center

1. Log in to or sign up for Bigin's Developer Center.

Note: The Bigin Developer Center is currently available in the US Data Center (DC). If your existing Bigin account is in another DC, you can still develop toppings by creating a free account in the US DC. To create a developer account, please contact our support team, and they'll assist you in setting it up.

2. After logging in successfully, access the Bigin Developer Center and enter a name for your workspace.




3. Click the Create Workspace button to set it up.

4. Once you create your workspace, you'll land on the Developer Center screen, where you can build your toppings.

Creating a topping

1. On the Developer Workspace screen, find and click the Create Topping button in the top-right corner.

2. Provide details for your new topping.




Enter the desired name for your topping in the Name field. The Unique Namespace is automatically created using the name you provide. Remember, you cannot change the namespace after you create the topping.

  1. Provide a brief overview of what your topping does in the Description field.
  2. Select the Terms and Conditions checkbox and click Save.

Now that your new topping has been created, it's ready to be customized. In the next post, we'll dive into the components and features available in the Bigin Developer Console to build your topping.

Stay tuned for more!

Next >>

    Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


      • Recent Topics

      • Add RTL and Hebrew Support for Candidate Portal (and Other Zoho Recruit Portals)

        Dear Zoho Recruit Team, I hope you're doing well. We would like to request the ability to set the Candidate Portal to be Right-to-Left (RTL) and in Hebrew, similar to the existing functionality for the Career Site. Currently, when we set the Career Site

      • 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

      • Zoho Books' 2025 Wrapped

        Before we turn the page to a new year, it’s time to revisit the updates that made financial management simpler and more intuitive. This annual roundup brings together the most impactful features and enhancements we delivered in 2025, offering a clear

      • Can multiple agents be assigned to one ticket on purpose?

        Is it possible to assign one ticket to two or more agents at a time? I would like the option to have multiple people working on one ticket so that the same ticket is viewable for those agents on their list of pending tickets. Is something like this currently

      • Edit default "We are here to help you" text in chat SalesIQ widget

        Does anyone know how this text can be edited? I can't find it anywhere in settings. Thanks!

      • Can't change form's original name in URL

        Hi all, I have been duplicating + editing forms for jobs regarding the same department to maintain formatting + styling. The issue I've not run into is because I've duplicated it from an existing form, the URL doesn't seem to want to update with the new

      • Feature Request: Sync Leave Tracker to Zoho Mail / Calendar or provide option to download information

        Zoho Leave Tracker offers the option to sync the leave Calendar to Microsoft 365 and Google Calendar. Adding an option to sync to Zoho-Mail Calendar would avoid duplication and add significant value for users. An alternative would be to allow users to

      • Compensation | Salary Packages - Hourly Wage Needed

        The US Bureau of Labor Statistics says 55.7% of all workers in the US are paid by the hour. I don't know how that compares to the rest of the world, but I would think that this alone would justify the need for having an hourly-based salary package option.

      • Multiple currencies - doesn’t seem to work for site visitors / customers

        I am trying to understand how the multiple currency feature works from the perspective of the website visitor who is shopping on my Zoho Commerce site. My site’s base currency is US Dollars (USD) but my store is for customers in Costa Rica and I would

      • Archiving Contacts

        How do I archive a list of contacts, or individual contacts?

      • How do people handle using Outlook and Zoho Project calendar at the same time?

        We have an ongoing problem in our organisation where we use Zoho Projects to plan all of our projects tasks and that also allows us to look forward using the workload report to see which of our consultants are overstretched etc and which are available.

      • 10GB Email Storage Limits in Zoho CRM

        We’ve had Zoho One for almost 5 years and have always synced our emails from Gmail via IMAP… As of late, we’ve run into issues with our emails not syncing, due to being over the 10GB storage cap… What’s very odd is that we haven’t changed a thing? I know

      • Performance is degrading

        We have used Mail and Cliq for about three years now. I used to use both on the browser. Both have, over the past 6 months, had a severe degradation in performance. I switched to desktop email, which appeared to improve things somewhat, although initial

      • How to set page defaults in zoho writer?

        hi, everytime i open the zoho writer i have to change the default page settings to - A4 from letter, margins to narrow and header and footer to 0. I cannot set this as default as that option is grayed out! so I am unable to click it. I saved the document

      • Unable to Send Different Email Templates for Different Documents in Zoho Sign

        Hello Zoho Community, I am facing a limitation with Zoho Sign regarding email notifications sent to customers when a document is sent for signing. Currently, whenever I send any template/document for signing, the email notification that goes to the customer

      • Enable History Tracking for Picklist Values Not Available

        When I create a custom picklist field in Deals, the "Enable History Tracking for Picklist Values" option is not available in the Edit Properties area of the picklist. When I create a picklist in any other Module, that option is available. Is there a specific reason why this isn't available for fields in the Deals Module?

      • Vault crashes on Android Devices

        Vault is continuously closing after entering the master password on my Android device. After several attempts I get a system message that says there is a bug in the app. I've uninstalled and reinstalled the app, and cleared the app cache, but nothing

      • ¿Cómo puedo configurar las contraseñas creadas bajo una directiva para que nunca caduquen y no aparezcan como caducadas en los informes?

        ¿Cómo puedo configurar las contraseñas creadas bajo una directiva para que nunca caduquen y no aparezcan como caducadas en los informes? La razón por la cual contraseña estas no deben caducar es porque su actualización depende de mi cliente y no de mí.

      • Camera access

        My picture doesn't appear in a group discussion. (The audio is fine.) The guide says "Click the lock icon on address bar," but I can't find it. Advise, please

      • Are static links available

        I'm still using Zoho Meeting in trial mode. My previous webinar software provided a static link, and I made the mistaken assumption that I could send out my link and start a meeting later. Mass confusion, but my fault. With a paid version do you get a

      • Why is Zoho Meeting quality so poor?

        I've just moved from Office 365 to Zoho Workplace and have been generally really positive about the new platform -- nicely integrated, nice GUI, good and easy-to-understand control and customisation, and at a reasonable price. However, what is going on

      • 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?

      • Integration between "Zoho Sprints Stories" and "Zoho Projects Tasks/Subtasks"

        We have two separate teams in our organization using Zoho for project management: The Development team uses Zoho Sprints and follows Agile/Scrum methodology. The Infrastructure team uses Zoho Projects for traditional task-based project management. In

      • Where can we specify custom CSS in Zoho Forms custom theme ?

        I'm using a form with a dark theme. The OTP popup window is unreadable, because for some reason, the OTP popup background fixes color to white, but still takes the font color specified in the custom theme. This ends up as white on white for me, rendering

      • Team Gamification

        Would love to motivate, engage and encourage our team with our social media posts. Would like to include Gamification features of Social Media in Zoho Social or Marketing Automation. And also bring in Social Advocacy tools/tracking/management to these,

      • Sync Data from MA to CRM

        Currently, it's a one-way sync of data from the CRM to MA. I believe we should have the ability to select fields to sync from MA to the CRM. The lead score is a perfect example of this. In an ideal world we would be able to impact the lead score of a

      • Update CRM record action

        Currently, MA only offers a "Push Data" action to push data to a CRM module. This action is built to cover the need to both create a new record and update an existing record. Because it has been implemented this way all required fields on the CRM module

      • Pro Lite Upgrade - Quick Access Tray

        Hello, I was going to upgrade to Pro Lite but the Quick Access Tray feature isn't available for Windows. Of the four features not available for Windows, the QAT is what I'm most interested in. Are there plans to add this feature for Windows anytime soon?

      • Boost your CRM communication with new font types, sizes, and default reply-to options while composing emails

        Hello Everyone, We’re excited to introduce a series of impactful enhancements to the email composer settings in Zoho CRM. These updates enable you to personalize and optimize your customer interactions with greater efficiency. So what's new? Add custom

      • Feature Enhancement Request – Text Formatting Options in Item Description (Zoho Books/Quotes Module)

        Dear Zoho Development Team, Greetings from Radiant360 Integrated Technical Services LLC. We would like to bring to your attention a functional limitation we've encountered within the Item Table / Quote Description section of Zoho Books (and Zoho CRM Quotes).

      • 3 year sick leave cycle

        How do you set up a sick leave cycle for South Africa? In SA the sick works like this for the first 6 months you get 0.83 paid sick days a month, then after 6 months you sick leave balance is reset to 30 days that can be used over a 36 month cycle.  This

      • WorkDrive and CRM not in sync

        1/ There is a CRM file upload field with WorkDrive file set as the source: 2/ Then the file is renamed in WorkDrive (outside CRM): 3/ The File in CRM is not synced after the change in WorkDrive; the file name (reference) in CRM record is not updated (here

      • Is Zoho Communityspaces now part of Zoho One?

        Is Zoho Communityspaces now part of Zoho One?

      • Bigin’s 2025 Evolution: Highlights from 2025 and What’s Ahead in 2026

        Dear Biginners, Wishing you a very happy New Year! As we stand at the cusp of endless possibilities in 2026, we would like to take a moment to reflect on what we achieved together in 2025. Your continued support, thoughtful feedback, and kind words of

      • Send Supervisor Rule Emails Within Ticket Context in Zoho Desk

        Dear Zoho Desk Team, I hope this message finds you well. Currently, emails sent via Supervisor Rules in Zoho Desk are sent outside of the ticket context. As a result, if a client replies to such emails, their response creates a new ticket instead of appending

      • Zoho Desk - Change Time Zone for all users and set default for new user

        Hi,   Is there a way to set a default time zone so that when user creates an account via the Zoho Desk invitation, they don't need to select the time zone via the hundreds of choice?   And, for already created users, can we edit the incorrect time zone selected by the user at the account creation ?   Thanks ! Fred

      • Allow Manual Popup Canvas Size Control

        Hello Zoho PageSense Team, We hope you're doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the PageSense popup editor regarding popup sizing. Current Limitation: Currently, the size (width and height) of a popup is strictly controlled by the selected

      • Why does Zoho’s diff viewer highlight parts of unchanged lines?

        Hi everyone, I’ve noticed something odd in the Zoho editor’s diff view. When I delete a single line, the diff doesn’t just mark that line as removed. Instead, it highlights parts of the next line as if they changed, even though they are identical. Example:

      • Automating Employee Birthday Notifications in Zoho Cliq

        Have you ever missed a birthday and felt like the office Grinch? Fear not, the Cliq Developer Platform has got your back! With Zoho Cliq's Schedulers, you can be the office party-cipant who never forgets a single cake, balloon, or awkward rendition of

      • Add deluge function to shorten URLs

        Zoho Social contains a nice feature to shorten URLs using zurl.co. It would be really helpful to have similar functionality in a Deluge call please, either as an inbuilt function or a standard integration. My Creator app sends an email with a personalised

      • Next Page