Kaizen 231 - Embedding Zoho Desk Tickets in Zoho CRM

Kaizen 231 - Embedding Zoho Desk Tickets in Zoho CRM



Hello, CRM Wizards!

This week, let us enhance cross-team visibility between Zoho CRM and Zoho Desk.

We will use the Zoho Request Client inside a Related List widget to display open Zoho Desk tickets directly within the Contact record in Zoho CRM. This integration allows Sales and Support teams to access active support issues without switching applications.

Business Problem

At Zylker, a manufacturing company that manages high-value distributors and enterprise buyers, sales operations run in Zoho CRM while customer support manages warranty claims and service issues in Zoho Desk.

This separation creates operational friction during critical customer interactions.

1. Lack of visibility into open support tickets 

Sales representatives cannot see ongoing support tickets when interacting with customers in CRM. This results in: 
  1. Sales conversations happening without awareness of active complaints.
  2. Poor customer experience when unresolved issues surface unexpectedly.
  3. Reduced productivity due to frequent system switching between CRM and Desk.
2. No Controlled Escalation Mechanism

There is no structured way to initiate ticket escalations from within Zoho CRM.

Solution

This week we will focus on solving the visibility gap. 

We will embed a related list widget within Contact detail page and provide real-time visibility of open tickets. 

Prerequisites

1. Create Zoho CRM and Zoho Desk under the same Zoho Organization. 

2. A two-way sync between Zoho CRM and Zoho Desk is required to keep Contacts and Accounts consistent across both applications.

With this support, any change made to a Contact or Account in either application is automatically reflected in the other.

Additionally, each record in Zoho Desk stores the corresponding Zoho CRM record ID. This allows you to reference the CRM record directly and perform further customizations or integrations using that unique ID.

Follow the steps to create the two-way sync:
  1. Log into Zoho Desk.
  2. Go to Settings > Integration > Zoho. 
  3. Choose Zoho CRM and click Integrate. 
  4. On the Authentication page:
    1. Enter your email address.
    2. Choose the CRM organization you want to integrate with.
  5. Click Authorize.
  6. Once authenticated, the sync configuration page opens.
  7. Select the sync type as Two-way Sync.
  8. Map the fields of Accounts and Contacts modules between Zoho Desk and Zoho CRM.
  9. Click Start Sync to initiate the integration. 

Refer to the Integrating Zoho Desk with Zoho CRM help page for more details. 

3. Create a Zoho Desk connection in Zoho CRM with Desk.tickets.READ and Desk.contacts.READ scopes. 

Refer to the Connections help doc for more information. Store the Connection Link Name to use while making API calls. 


4. Create a local project folder for widget using Zoho CLI as mentioned in Creating your First Widget help guide. 

Step-by-Step Implementation

In the widget project directory, code the following logic in the widget.html file.

Step - 1: Get the Current CRM Contact ID

On page load, you can capture the entity ID with the help of PageLoad event listener. 

Also create a reusable ZRC instance configured with the Zoho Desk base URL and OAuth connection name. 

// Initialize the embedded app
ZOHO.embeddedApp.on("PageLoad", async function(data) {
    console.log("PageLoad data:", data);
    // Step 1: Get the entity (module) and entity ID (Contact record ID)
    if (data && data.Entity && data.EntityId) {
        entityModule = data.Entity;
        entityId = data.EntityId;
        console.log("Entity:", entityModule);
        console.log("Entity ID (CRM Contact ID):", entityId);
        // Create reusable ZRC instance for Zoho Desk API
        deskZrc = zrc.createInstance({
            baseUrl: 'https://desk.zoho.com/api/v1',
            connection: 'desk_oauth_connection'
        });
        await loadTickets();
    } else {
        showError("No contact context found");
    }
});
ZOHO.embeddedApp.init();

Step - 2: Fetch Desk Contacts and Match the CRM Contact ID

Make a GET Contacts API call to the Zoho Desk API using the ZRC instance. Loop through the returned contacts and find the one whose zohoCRMContact.id matches the current CRM Contact ID.

// Step 2: Make GET contacts API call to Desk using ZRC
const contactsResponse = await deskZrc.get('/contacts', {
    params: {
        limit: 100
    }
});
console.log("Desk Contacts Response:", contactsResponse);
if (contactsResponse && contactsResponse.data) {
    // Parse the response data 
    const contactsData = typeof contactsResponse.data === 'string' 
        ? JSON.parse(contactsResponse.data) 
        : contactsResponse.data;
    // Find the object where zohoCRMContact.id matches Contact record ID
    if (contactsData && contactsData.data && Array.isArray(contactsData.data)) {
        const matchingContact = contactsData.data.find(function(contact) {
            return contact.zohoCRMContact && 
                   contact.zohoCRMContact.id && 
                   contact.zohoCRMContact.id === entityId;
        });
        if (matchingContact) {
            // Pick the id (Desk contact record ID)
            const deskContactId = matchingContact.id;
            console.log("Desk Contact ID:", deskContactId);
            // Proceed to fetch tickets
            await fetchTickets(deskContactId);
        } else {
            showEmptyState("No Desk contact found linked to this CRM contact");
        }
    }
}

Step - 3: Fetch Open Tickets and Filter by Desk Contact ID

Make a GET Tickets API call to Zoho Desk with the following parameters:
  1. Specify status with Open value to retrieve only open tickets. 
  2. Specify include with value set to contacts fetch each ticket details with its associated contact details. 
Filter the API response with the matched Desk Contact ID and render the results. 

async function fetchTickets(deskContactId) {
    try {
        // Step 3: Make GET Tickets API call using ZRC 
        const ticketsResponse = await deskZrc.get('/tickets', {
            params: {
                include: 'contacts',
                status: 'Open',
                limit: 100
            }
        });
        console.log("Tickets Response:", ticketsResponse);
        if (ticketsResponse && ticketsResponse.data) {
            const ticketsData = typeof ticketsResponse.data === 'string' 
                ? JSON.parse(ticketsResponse.data) 
                : ticketsResponse.data;
            // Filter tickets where contact matches deskContactId
            if (ticketsData && ticketsData.data && ticketsData.data.length > 0) {
                const matchingTickets = ticketsData.data.filter(function(ticket) {
                    return ticket.contact && ticket.contact.id === deskContactId;
                });
                if (matchingTickets.length > 0) {
                    renderTickets(matchingTickets);
                } else {
                    showEmptyState("No open tickets found for this contact");
                }
            } else {
                showEmptyState("No open tickets found");
            }
        }
    } catch (error) {
        console.error("Error fetching tickets:", error);
        showError("Failed to fetch tickets: " + (error.message || error.toString()));
    }
}

Step - 4: Validate and Pack the Widget

Follow the steps given in the Widget help page to validate and package the widget. A complete working code sample is provided as attachment at the end of this post.

Creating a Related List Widget

1. Go to Zoho CRM > Setup > Developer Hub > Widgets and click Create New Widget.

2. Fill in the required details such as:
  1. Name: Zoho WorkDrive
  2. Type: Related List 
  3. Hosting: Zoho 
  4. File Upload: Upload the ZIP created in the dist folder within the widget project directory after packaging in the Step 4. 
  5. Index page: /widget.html

3. Go to Customization > Modules and Fields > Contacts > Standard > Detail View. Then, create and associate the related list widget. 

Refer to the Customize Related Lists help page for more information on creating a related list.

Try it Out! 

Let us look at the output from the Contacts detail page in Zoho CRM. 


Info
Key Points to Remember
  1. Two-way sync is mandatory to link Desk contacts with CRM contacts. 
  2. Connection setup in Zoho CRM for Desk is mandatory with Desk.tickets.READ and Desk.contacts.READ scopes. Ensure to replace the connection name in line 21.
  3. If the account has a large number of contacts or tickets, implement pagination using from and limit parameters to ensure all records are evaluated. 
  4. Ensure to replace the Desk URL to ticket in line 181 with your portal name and company name.
We hope this Kaizen helps your sales team to see active issues instantly. Next week, we will look at how to establish a ticket escalation mechanism from Zoho CRM. 

Have questions or suggestions? Drop them in the comments or write to us at  support@zohocrm.com. 

On to Better Building!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Related Reading 

2. Connections - An Overview
3. CRM Customizations - Related Lists
4. Desk APIs -  GET Tickets API and GET Contacts API
5. Desk Customizations - Integrate Zoho Desk with Zoho CRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    • Sticky Posts

    • Kaizen #198: Using Client Script for Custom Validation in Blueprint

      Nearing 200th Kaizen Post – 1 More to the Big Two-Oh-Oh! Do you have any questions, suggestions, or topics you would like us to cover in future posts? Your insights and suggestions help us shape future content and make this series better for everyone.

    • Kaizen #226: Using ZRC in Client Script

      Hello everyone! Welcome to another week of Kaizen. In today's post, lets see what is ZRC (Zoho Request Client) and how we can use ZRC methods in Client Script to get inputs from a Salesperson and update the Lead status with a single button click. In this

    • Kaizen #222 - Client Script Support for Notes Related List

      Hello everyone! Welcome to another week of Kaizen. The final Kaizen post of the year 2025 is here! With the new Client Script support for the Notes Related List, you can validate, enrich, and manage notes across modules. In this post, we’ll explore how

    • Kaizen #217 - Actions APIs : Tasks

      Welcome to another week of Kaizen! In last week's post we discussed Email Notifications APIs which act as the link between your Workflow automations and you. We have discussed how Zylker Cloud Services uses Email Notifications API in their custom dashboard.

    • Kaizen #216 - Actions APIs : Email Notifications

      Welcome to another week of Kaizen! For the last three weeks, we have been discussing Zylker's workflows. We successfully updated a dormant workflow, built a new one from the ground up and more. But our work is not finished—these automated processes are

    Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


      • Recent Topics

      • Zoho Recruit Community Meet-up - India

        Namaste, India. 🙏🏼 The Zoho Recruit team is hitting the road—and we 're absolutely excited behind the scenes. Join us for the Zoho Recruit India Meet-up 2026, a morning designed to make your recruiting life easier (and a lot more effective). Date City

      • Generate a Zoho Sign link

        From time to time I get a response "I never received your you e-document for electronic signature" is there a way to generate a Zoho Sign link to share.

      • Is it possible to create a word cloud chart in ZoHo Analystics?

        Hi there, I have a volume of transaction text that I would like to analyse using word cloud (or other approcah to detect and present word frequency in a dataset). For example, I have 50,000 records describing menu items in restaurants. I want to be able

      • How to Fix the Corrupted Outlook 2019 .pst file on Windows safely?

        There are multiple reasons to get corrupted PST files (due to a power failure, system crash, or forced shutdown) and several other reasons. If You are using this ScanePST.EXE Microsoft inbuilt recovery tool, it only supports the minor corruption issue

      • [Webinar] A recap of Zoho Writer in 2025

        Hi Zoho Writer users, We're excited to announce Zoho Writer's webinar for January 2026: A recap of Zoho Writer in 2025. This webinar will provide a recap of the features and enhancements we added in 2025 to enhance your productivity. Choose your preferred

      • How to drag row(s) or column(s)?

        Hi. Selecting a row or column and then dragging it to a new position does not seem to work. Am i missing something or this is just not possible in Zoho Sheet? Cheers, Jay

      • Building Toppings #5 - Creating and configuring custom service connections in Bigin Toppings

        Hello Biginners, Integrating Bigin with external applications extends its capabilities and enables customized functionalities. In our last post, we saw how to create a default service connection. Today, we'll see how to create a custom service connection

      • Optimising CRM-Projects workflows to manage requests, using Forms as an intermediary

        Is it possible to create a workflow between three apps with traceability between them all? We send information from Zoho CRM Deals over to Zoho Projects for project management and execution. We have used a lookup of sorts to create tasks in the past,

      • Conditional fields when converting a Lead and creating a Deal

        Hi, On my Deal page I have a field which has a rule against it. Depending on the value entered, depends on which further fields are displayed. When I convert a Lead and select for a Deal to be created as well, all fields are shown, regardless of the value

      • ATE Session on Payment Gateways: Our experts are live now. Post your questions now!

        Hello everyone, Our experts are all excited to answer all your questions related to payment workflows. Please feel free to join this session and learn more about this topic. If you have a query at anytime, please post them here.

      • Upload data deleted all Zoho form data that we manage

        Good morning. Let me introduce myself, I'm Iky from Indonesia. I'm experiencing an error or problem using Zoho Forms. I manage Zoho Forms, but I previously encountered an error when I misclicked the delete button in the upload format. It apparently deleted

      • ZOHO FORMにURL表示ができない

        初心者です。 ZOHO FORM で宿泊者名簿を作っています。 ゲストが、URLをクリックするとStripeで支払いができるようにURLを表示をしたいのですが、 上手くできません。 やり方が分かる方、ぜひ教えてください。

      • No Automatic Spacing on the Notebook App?

        When I'm adding to notes on the app, I have to add spaces between words myself, rather than it automatically doing it. All my other apps add spacing, so it must be something with Zoho. Is there a setting I need to change, or something else I can do so

      • Holidays - Cannot Enter Two Holidays on Same Day

        I have a fairly common setup, where part-time employees receive 1/2 day's pay on a holiday and full-time employees receive a full day's pay. Historically, I've been able to accommodate this by entering two separate holidays, one that covers full-time

      • Campaigns set up and execution assistance

        Hello Community, Can someone recommend a professional who can assist with the completion of my set up and deployment of Campaigns? Looking for a person or company that is not going to ask for big dollars up-front without a guarantee of performance to

      • Kaizen #223 - File Manager in CRM Widget Using ZRC Methods

        Hello, CRM Wizards! Here is what we are improving this week with Kaizen. we will explore the new ZRC (Zoho Request Client) introduced in Widget SDK v1.5, and learn how to use it to build a Related List Widget that integrates with Zoho WorkDrive. It helps

      • Remove Powered by Zoho at the footer

        Hi, I've read two past tickets regarding this but it seems that the instructions given are outdated. I assume the layout keeps on changing, which makes it frustrating for me to search high and low. Please let me know how exactly do I do this now? Th

      • Using email "importance" as workflow-criteria

        I'd like to set up a workflow that triggers if an incoming email has been flagged as "high importance" but I'm not seeing any way to do that. Hopefully I'm just missing something obvious...?

      • What is Resolution Time in Business Hours

        HI, What is the formula used to find the total time spent by an agent on a particular ticket? How is Resolution Time in Business Hours calculated in Zohodesk? As we need to find out the time spent on the ticket's solution by an agent we seek your assistance

      • Check & Unchecked Task Segregation in Export

        It must have a feature to represent checked and unchecked tasks as [ ] and [✅] respectively when exporting it to Arratai or WhatsApp ; as Keep Notes by Google contains…

      • WorkDrive Download Issue

        My client has been sending me files via WorkDrive, which generally has worked fine. Recently files won't download at all. If you try and individually select and download a file, a popup will appear in the bottom right saying it's preparing and then it

      • Resolution Time Report

        From data to decisions: A deep dive into ticketing system reports What are time-based reports? Time-based reports are valuable tools that help us understand how well things are going by breaking down key metrics over specific periods. By tracking, measuring,

      • Add RTL (Right-to-Left) Text Direction Button in Zoho Cliq

        Greetings Zoho Team, We would like to request the addition of an RTL (Right-to-Left) text direction button in Zoho Cliq, similar to what is already available in other Zoho apps like Zoho Desk. Currently, while using Zoho Cliq with the English interface,

      • Enable Backgrounds and Video Filters for 1:1 Cliq Calls Across All Zoho Entry

        Hello Zoho Cliq Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement related specifically to 1:1 video calls in Zoho Cliq. Current Behavior Zoho Cliq currently provides background and video filter options in the following scenarios:

      • Zoho Flow: Stripe a Zoho Marketing Automation

        Hola! Quiero hacer un flujo con Zoho Flow, para que cuando se haga un pago en Stripe, añada el lead en Zoho Marketing Automation. Lo he configurado, configurando el disparador como "Payment created" y mapeando el campo de Stripe "Receipt email address".

      • Zoho email

        I need a list of email addresses of all contacts on my zoho

      • Shift-Centric View for Assigning and Managing Shifts in Zoho People

        Hello Zoho People Product Team, Greetings and hope you are doing well. This feature request is related to Zoho People - please don't move it to zoho one! We would like to submit a feature request regarding the shift assignment and management view in Zoho

      • Add Ticket button in Home view

        When I go to the My Tickets or the Knowledge Base view in our Help Centre, the Add Ticket button is available, but not in the Home view. I would really like for it to be displayed in the Home view as well. Is this possible? Thanks.

      • Problem using Zoho Desk API

        Goodmorning, I am trying to use the Zoho Desk API to create a dashboard in Grafana, but I am having a problem. Following the instructions in the API documentation, I created the API Console application (server-based application). Then I created the string

      • 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?

      • City field suggestion in Zoho Books

        Hi team, We are using Customers module in Zoho Books. In the Address section, we want to understand whether the City field can show suggestions while typing using any API or built-in feature. For example, if a user types “Mum”, can the system suggest

      • Non-responsive views in Mobile Browser (iPad)

        Has anyone noticed that the creator applications when viewed in a mobile browser (iPad) lost its responsiveness? It now appears very small font size and need to zoom into to read contents. Obviously this make use by field staff quite difficult. This is not at all a good move, as lots of my users are depending on accessing the app in mobile devices (iPads), and very challenging and frustrating. 

      • How can I check all announce?

        Hiii, May I ask how can I check all the announce based on broadcast date instead of reply date based So that I will not will miss out any new function

      • Cannot connect to imap.zoho.eu on iOS26

        Hey, I recently migrated to another iPhone and since then use iOS26. Every since then, I was not able to connect to "imap.zoho.eu" from Apple Mail. I tried deleting the account and adding it again, did not work. I tried creating an app password, didn't

      • Personalize your booking pages with Custom CSS

        Greetings from the Zoho Bookings team! We’re introducing Custom CSS for Zoho Bookings, designed to give you complete control over the look and feel of your booking pages. With this new feature, you can upload your own CSS file to customize colors, fonts,

      • Marketer's Space: Plan smarter with Zoho Campaigns' Calendar

        Hello Marketers, Welcome to another post! Today, we'll talk about a discreet yet significant feature that's neatly tucked inside Zoho Campaigns: the calendar. It might look like an optional but somewhat unnecessary feature that you can use occasionally,

      • Accounting for Territories

        We have different territories i.e. Europe and US and although we can manage the sales process for each and allocate different currencies in the CRM - we want to keep the accounting separate for each territory as there are different reporting and accounting requirements - is there any way to do this?   We want to avoid having two separate instances of zoho.

      • User

        If user is already part of manage engine endpoint central , what hapens when i try to add them to another Zoho org / directory? Are these users added as external users?

      • Outlook - Zoho CRM Calendar Integration

        I'm facing an issue integrating Outlook with Zoho CRM. Has anyone successfully connected their Outlook to Zoho, and are all your meetings and emails being captured correctly in the CRM? Any insights or troubleshooting tips would be appreciated

      • 【Zoho CRM】ポータル機能のアップデート

        ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。コミュニティチームの藤澤です。 今回は「Zoho CRM アップデート情報」の中から、ポータル機能のアップデートをご紹介します。 ポータル管理の新機能「自動招待」により、Zoho CRMからポータルへの招待を自動化できるようになりました。これまで必要だった、ユーザーごとの手動設定は不要になります。設定した条件に基づいて、対象ユーザーに自動で招待が送信されます。 ポータルの新機能 条件に基づく自動招待：指定した条件を満たすユーザーに、自動で招待を送信 招待設定：招待メールの言語を選択し、言語ごとに条件を設定可能

      • Next Page