Kaizen #172 - Leveraging the 'crmAPIResponse' Object in Queries

Hello everyone!

Welcome back to another week of Kaizen!

We released the Queries feature sometime back and hope you have tried it out.

A little gist about this feature before we move on to our post.

Zoho CRM's Queries feature enables dynamic data retrieval from both CRM modules and external services, facilitating seamless integration and informed decision-making.

Key Components

• Sources: Pre-configured sources like Modules and COQL are available, with the option to add custom sources via REST APIs.
  
• Queries: Fetch data by selecting modules, writing COQL statements, or specifying REST API endpoints, headers, and parameters.
  
• Variables: Incorporate variables in criteria, COQL statements, and endpoints to pass dynamic values during execution.
  
• Schema: Auto-generated schemas define the structure of query responses, with editable paths, field types, and labels for customization.
  
• Serializer: Utilize JavaScript to manipulate and customize query responses, ensuring data is in the desired format for further processing.
  

Types of Queries

• Modules: Retrieve records by selecting specific modules and fields, applying conditions to filter data as needed.
  
• COQL (CRM Object Query Language): Write SQL-like queries to fetch data, supporting complex operations like joins and aggregations.
  
• REST API: Fetch data from external services by specifying endpoints, headers, parameters, and connections.
  

With the Queries feature, you can efficiently access and display relevant data within Zoho CRM, enhancing workflow efficiency and decision-making capabilities.

A little insight into Functions before we dive into today's Kaizen!

Functions, Queries, you get the connection, right? Read on!

Many of us use Functions in Zoho CRM extensively to perform our business logic and customize the way things work in Zoho CRM. You can use Functions in blueprints, workflows, Circuits etc.

Let's say you have a function that gets the employee records from the Employees module. Technically, the function executes an API call or an integration task, and gives a response.

The response can be a string or map(JSON), depending on how the function is written and where it is used. Since functions can be used in many places, the same response format may not be the right one to be used in a circuit or a workflow.

This is where the genie 'crmAPIResponse' object comes into picture!

The power of the 'crmAPIResponse' object

The crmAPIResponse object to be returned in the CRM function should encapsulate the response in a way that it can be used in Queries, Circuit, workflow etc. The details needed are encapsulated as a map. It should include details like crmStatusCode, status, message, body in order to construct the desired format for handling data and customizing the error handling logic.

Let's consider the following example function where we use the getRecordByID integration task.

The response of the integration task contains all the fields in that module, but we want only certain parts of the response JSON and also add custom error messages, to be used in other components like Queries, Circuits, etc,.

Here is the code.

{ leadId = "3652397000018025772"; // Replace with a valid Lead ID // Initialize customAPIResponse map customAPIResponse = map(); // Fetch lead details crmResponse = zoho.crm.getRecordById("Leads", leadId); // Log the raw response for debugging info "CRM API Raw Response: " + crmResponse; // Validate and process the response to include only the required fields if (crmResponse != null && crmResponse.containsKey("id")) { // Extract required fields filteredData = map(); filteredData.put("id", crmResponse.get("id")); filteredData.put("Last_Name", crmResponse.get("Last_Name")); filteredData.put("Email", crmResponse.get("Email")); customAPIResponse.put("crmStatusCode", 200); customAPIResponse.put("status", "success"); customAPIResponse.put("message", "Lead data retrieved successfully."); customAPIResponse.put("body", filteredData); // Include only filtered data } else { customAPIResponse.put("crmStatusCode", null); customAPIResponse.put("status", "error"); customAPIResponse.put("message", "Invalid or null response from Zoho CRM API."); customAPIResponse.put("body", null); } // Return the customAPIResponse return {"crmAPIResponse": customAPIResponse}; }

Here, you can see that we have parsed the response of the integration task to get the Last_Name, Email, and record ID using the crmResponse.get("field_API_name") statement and constructed the customAPIresponse object using the customAPIResponse.put("key", "value") statement.

The statement return {"crmAPIResponse": customAPIResponse}; returns the response body as depicted in the previous statements.

Response to the info "CRM API Raw Response: " + crmResponse; statement

"CRM API Raw Response: {"Owner":{"name":"Patricia Boyle","id":"3652397000000186017","email":"p.boyle@zylker.com"},"$field_states":null,..}}}

Response of the return {"crmAPIResponse": customAPIResponse}; statement

{     "crmAPIResponse": {         "crmStatusCode": 200,         "status": "success",         "message": "Lead data retrieved successfully.",         "body": {             "id": "3652397000018025772",             "Last_Name": "Math",             "Email": "math@gmail.com"         }     } }

Error response

{     "crmAPIResponse": {         "crmStatusCode": null,         "status": "error",         "message": "Invalid or null response from Zoho CRM API.",         "body": null     } }

You can see that we have used the crmAPIResponse object to get only the required keys from the response and constructed a much simpler response.

Refer to our help page on Response Object for more details.

Finally, to today's Kaizen!

We've established that you can use the crmAPIResponse object to construct responses in a way that's suitable to be consumed at another place like a circuit or a workflow.

We also know that Queries allows you to have sources of the REST API type to fetch data from various sources. This means that you can have a standalone function that is enabled as a REST API as a source in Queries.

Let's see an example.

There is a simple function that uses the getRecords integration task to get the records from the Employees module.

I have used the crmAPIresponse object to construct a response as shown in the following code.

string standalone.getRecords() { result = zoho.crm.getRecords("Employees"); response = Map(); response.put("status_code",200); response.put("body",{"code":"success","details":result,"message":"function executed successfully"}); return {"crmAPIResponse":response}; }

The response of this function is a string in the crmAPIResponse object as shown in this image.

1. Save this function and enable REST API.
   
   
2. You can see that the domain is https://www.zohoapis.com. To be able to use this in a Query, register this domain in Trusted Domain.
   
   
3. To create a REST API type source, you must add the source. Go to Setup > Developer Hub > Queries > Sources tab.
4. Click Add Source and give the details like the name, base URL, headers, and parameters under the Information section.
   
   
5. Click Save.
6. Go to the Queries tab and click Add Query.
   
7. For Source, choose the source you just added.
   
8. Under Information, enter the name, API name of the query.
   
9. For the endpoint, enter the API Key URL of the function.
   
   
10. Enter the parameter name and values in the Parameter field.
    
11. Click Add Serializer if you want to serialize the response. In this example, I have serialized the response to include only the Name, Email, and Position fields in the output. The result contains the 'body' object that we returned in the crmAPIResponse object of the function.
    
    
    
    
12. Click Save to save the serialization.
    
13. Click Next to view the schema of the query. Make changes as required.
    
14. Save the query.
    

You can now use this query in Canvas or associate it with Kiosk to solve your business needs.

Let us see how the crmAPIResponse object in the function affects the response of the query.

Query with the function without crmAPIResponse:

Let's consider that the function getRecords() does not use the crmAPIResponse object. In that case, the function returns a response that is a string. This response string cannot be serialized or used elsewhere.

Schema of the query without crmAPIResponse:

Query with the function with crmAPIResponse and serialization:

The same getRecords() function that uses the crmAPIResponse object allows you to construct the response as JSON. You can serialize this response easily and use it in a circuit, query, workflow etc.

You can see here that the response is now a JSON.

Schema of the query with crmAPIResponse:

In conclusion, you can use the crmAPIResponse object in Functions to construct the desired response and use the REST API-enabled function as a source in Queries.

Leveraging the advantage of the crmAPIResponse object in functions and using it in Queries increases the prospect of solving many more business cases easily and customize more efficiently.

We hope you liked this post and found it useful. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

If you'd like us to cover any other topic in this series, feel free to comment or reach us at support@zohocrm.com.

Cheers!

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

More enhancements in the COQL API are now live in Zoho CRM API Version 7. Check out the V7 Changelog for detailed information on these updates.

See Also

• Related Kaizen - Handling Variables in Queries, Serialization and Schema Management in Queries 
• Queries in Zoho CRM
  
• Functions in Zoho CRM
  
• Response Object in Zoho CRM
  
• Previous Kaizen - FAQs on COQL API
  
• Kaizen Directory
  

• Topic Participants

• Shylaja S

  

• Zsolt Simon self-employed

• 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

• Recent Topics

• Layout Adjustment.

  Hello Latha, Hope you are doing well. I wanted to check with you about adjusting the layout columns in the Service Report from the backend, as currently there is no capability for us to customize the layout from our end. Below is the output that I am

• Invoice emails repeatedly "Bounced back" from perfectly good email address of clients.

  Hi For a couple of months now I am getting tens of invoice email invoices "bounced back" from perfectly sound email addresses when they are sent via Zoho Books. (see attached or an example) (the common theme seems to be that the emails are going to either

• Newby Questions - Vendors, Customers, and Income vs. Other Income Clarifications

  Q1. For Deposits, there does not seem to be an option for "Income". "Other Income" is an option however. What is the process to add the option to assign a deposit to type "Income"? Q2. In many cases Vendors and Customer are the same. Vendors may purchase

• yodlee bank fees

  My bank feeds have been pretty much error-free until this recent Yodlee update.  I have configured it as per the information however nothing comes through. It says that bank feeds have been refreshed as of 30th June, 2022. It is the end of the financial

• Deleting, Adding and Changing a Zoho Books Entry

  Zoho Books Community & Support, If a bulk upload of entries were added to an account, what is the process to: - Delete an entry - Change the amount of an entry - Is there a means to manually add an entry other than upload?

• Create Item group from a composite Item

  I have applied my mind for hours but cannot figure this out. Can you have a composite item in an item group?. E.g. We bundle different color and size SKU's together as composite items. Also Using composite items as Bill of Materials. We want to create

• Better use of contacts

  Zoho inventory has the ability to add multiple contacts to customers. However Zoho inventory doesn't currently provide a way to link a contact to objects like sales orders. This means that while you can tell what company has placed a sales order you can't

• Amazon.in FBA multiple warehouse integration with Zoho Inventory

  My organisation subscribed to Zoho One looking at the opportunity to integrate Amazon.in with Inventory. But during the configuration, we understood the integration has severe limitations when it involves multiple warehouses in the same Organisation.

• Feature Request - Make Available "Alias Name" Field In Item List View

  Hi Zoho Inventory Team, I have noticed that the "Alias Name" field does not appear on the list of selectable columns in the Customise Columns feature in the Items module. This would be very useful to see for businesses who are using the Alias Name field

• Feature Request - Option To Hide Default System Fields on Items

  Hi Zoho Inventory Team, As far as I know it is not possible to hid some of the defult system fields on Items, such as UPC, MPN, EAN, ISBN. A good use case is that in many cases ISBN is not relevant and it would be an improved user experience if we could

• OpenAPI Specs are just plain wrong

  The provided yml files for generating the OpenAPI specs are absolutely riddled with errors and inconsistencies. From missing fields on the objects, to just incorrectly named resource objects. I'm having to go through and manually changing the spec to

• Zoho Inventory - Composite Items - Assembly - Single Line Item Quantity of One

  Hi Zoho Inventory Team, Please consider relaxing the system rules which prevent an assembly items from consisting of a single line item and outputting a quantity of 1. A client I'm currently working with sells cosmetics and offers testers of their products

• Categorize Items with Item Headers

  Hello customers, Did you ever want to classify items based on specific categories to help your customers understand your invoice better? With the new Item Header feature, you can easily categorize items in your invoices and estimates and give them a common title.  Item Headers are available in the Invoices, the Recurring Invoices and the Estimates module. It can be carried forward from estimates to invoices at the time of converting the estimates.  To add an item header: Go to the Estimates, Invoices

• Push Forms to CRM

  Hello, I created a Form but forgot to integrate to CRM before many of the Forms were filled out. Is it possible to push those entries to CRM or should I just export a CSV then upload to CRM?

• Zoho Creator Developer Console | Improved Distribution and Lifecycle Management for apps

  Hello everyone, We're excited to introduce new enhancements now in the Zoho Creator Developer Console. These updates strengthen private app distribution through licensing controls and extend environment support across all installed apps, helping teams

• Logged out

  Hi, just been working on a sheet when a pop up box appeared telling me I'm going to be logged out in x number of seconds and if I reload I may lose any edits, or words to that effect. It did indeed log me out and I did indeed lose my last edits. Any idea

• 554 5.1.1 – Mail sending blocked for the domain(s): [gmail.com]

  Here's your corrected text: Hello, I hope you are doing well. I was unable to send a message and received the following error: "554 5.1.1 – Mail sending blocked for the domain(s): [gmail.com]" I tried to send and deliver an email but got this error. I

• You have reached the maximum limit of bank accounts that can be connected to Zoho Books through token.

  I can no longer connect to my bank account to download transactions into Zoho Books. I egt the error message: "You have reached the maximum limit of bank accounts that can be connected to Zoho Books through token. To connect more accounts, write to us

• First Name in Mail

  While sending a mail/message to the user, I want only the first name to be displayed—for example: “Hi John” instead of the full name using "Hi ${Name_Field}"

• Can you import projects into Zoho Projects yet?

  I see some very old posts asking about importing project records into Zoho Projects. But I can't find anything up to date about the topic. Has this functionality been added? Importing tasks is helpful. But we do have a project where importing projects

• Connectivity issues with Google Calendar and third-party integrations

  Description: We are currently experiencing a critical failure with Zoho CRM third-party connections. This issue is heavily affecting our primary workflow. Symptoms: Sync Failure: Existing Zoho CRM to Google Calendar connections have been failing for approximately

• Add Reauthentication Option for Zoho Bug Tracker Integration in Zoho Desk

  Hello Zoho Desk Team, We hope you're doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the Zoho Bug Tracker integration within Zoho Desk. Current Limitation: At the moment, there is no option to reauthenticate the Zoho Bug Tracker integration in

• Newby Questions

  Q1. The top bar of Zoho Books has a "Search in Banking (/) " field. What is the proper use of this text box? - Searching for Amazon for example has no results but there are transactions. - Is the search case sensitive? - Are regular expressions allowed?

• Transaction Rule Matching

  Q1. Is there a method to have the Transaction Rules applied across multiple Bank Accounts? Q2. To match "contains" text in Transaction Rules, is a wildcard or regular expression required? Is it case sensitive? Would searching for "issue" in the following

• Introducing parent-child ticketing in Zoho Desk [Early access]

  Hello Zoho Desk users! We have introduced the parent-child ticketing system to help customer service teams ensure efficient resolution of issues involving multiple, related tickets. You can now combine repetitive and interconnected tickets into parent-child

• Three Zoho Billing Limitations Blocking Standard Subscription Operations

  After working through Zoho Billing support for over a year on these three issues without resolution, we wanted to flag them to the broader community. We are curious whether other businesses are running into the same walls. 1. Cannot Prepone (Move Earlier)

• Automation #3 - Auto-sync email attachments to tickets

  This is a monthly series where we pick some common use cases that have been either discussed or most asked about in our community and explain how they can be achieved using one of the automation capabilities in Zoho Desk. Most of our customers use email

• Can't add a sender adress from zoho campaigns

  hi, I need to change the sender address for a campaign.  When i try to add it i get a message to say 'duplicated email address found while adding your sender address'.  This is the first campaign i'm sending so I don't understand why this message is displayed? Thanks Jane 

• Using a custom single line External ID form as merge fields in templates

  Hey everyone, We're looking to integrate a few external systems better with our Zoho CRM, and we had hoped to use external fields for this purpose. In this case, it would mean being able to use our own inoice system's invoice numbers are a direct id compatible

• Introducing Workqueue: your all-in-one view to manage daily work

  Hello all, We’re excited to introduce a major productivity boost to your CRM experience: Workqueue, a dynamic, all-in-one workspace that brings every important sales activity, approval, and follow-up right to your fingertips. What is Workqueue? Sales

• Zoho CRM - Feature Request - Analytics Components Group By Week Alternative Formats

  On the Zoho CRM Analytics Components, please consider adding an option to allow group by week format to be changed to other formats such as Week Commencing or Week Ending dates, rather than the current Week Number. This would provide improved usability

• Dashboard target enhancements

  Often individuals in IT are creating dashboards for their sales team. The ability to create a single dashboard that can be used by multiple people is key. A components for a dashboard have the ability to filter by logged in user which is great. However

• Zoho Campaigns - Feature Request - Re-Send Existing Email Action in Automations/Journeys

  Hi Zoho Campaigns and Zoho Marketing Automation teams, I would like to suggest a feature that would make building and managing complex automations significantly easier. The Feature Introduce a “Re-Send” or “Send Existing Email” action within Automations

• Can I write a check in Zoho Books with no associated bill?

  This currently does not seem possible, and I have a client that desperately needs this function if I am able to convert them with Quickbooks. Thank you in advance for your reply. 

• ISO 3166-2 Compliant Country and Regions

  Zoho should consider implementing ISO 3166-2 standards for countries and regions in address dropdowns. It adds a lot of noise in the data when items added programmatically conform to ISO 3166-2 (e.g., TX for Texas, CA for Canada, etc.), but the few items

• US State abbreviations in Address fields

  In regards to all Address fields within Zoho, Is there a way to change the State field to be the 2 letter abbreviation vs the full spelled out US State name? Example: "Washington" should be WA. I am able to type in the abbreviated state, but it's not

• Zoho Booking - TIN vs ATIN & ITIN

  Zoho Booking Vendors allows for TAX ID values of SSN, EIN, ATIN an ITIN. There is no option for TIN. What is the method to properly add TIN to the list of taxable values for companies? For reference: Social Security Numbers (SSN) Individual Taxpayer Identification

• How to see Statement Details Shown in Unclassified Transactions in All Transactions?

  All, The list of Unclassified Transactions show the Statement Details and Descriptions. What is the method to see that column in the All Transactions list? -Thanks!

• Zoho Books | Product updates | October 2025

  Hello users, We’ve rolled out new features and enhancements in Zoho Books. From iOS 26 updates to viewing reports as charts, explore the updates designed to enhance your bookkeeping experience. Zoho Books Updates for Apple Devices At WWDC 2025, Apple

• Bill sent for Payment Approval

  Zoho Books currently supports three levels of transaction approval for bills: Draft, Submit, and Approved. We are looking to add a layer of approval like a bill marked for payment before initiating payment requests through HSBC Bank. Can you please guide

• Next Page