Automating Attendance Tracking with Zoho Cliq Developer Platform

I wish remote work were permanently mandated so we could join work calls from a movie theatre or even while skydiving! But wait, it's time to wake up! The alarm has snoozed twice, and your team has already logged on for the day.

Keeping tabs on attendance shouldn't feel like guiding a flock of rebellious sheep. Hence, let's automate check-in and check-out notifications using the Zoho Cliq Platform Schedulers and the Zoho People API, eliminating the guesswork in attendance management and reducing the risk of errors associated with manual monitoring.

How does this solution benefit a business?

1. Real-time reminders reduce instances of ghost check-ins and ensure accurate recording of everyone's logged hours.
   
2. Essential for attendance tracking, payroll accuracy, compliance with labour laws, and audits.
   
3. The entire team stays informed, fostering a cohesive workflow that eliminates the need for micromanagement.      
   

Pre-requisites:  

Before beginning to script the code below, we must create a connection in Cliq with Zoho People. Once a connection is created and connected, you can use it in Deluge integration tasks and invoke URL scripts to access data from the required service.

Create a Zoho People default connection with any unique name with the scopes - ZohoPeople.Attendance.ALL , ZohoPeople.forms.ALL and ZohoPeople.leave.ALL

ⓘ Document for reference : Connections in Cliq 

 

How to obtain or locate the channel unique name in Cliq?

• Navigate to the top right corner of the channel and locate the three dots. Click it.

• In the menu that appears, select "Channel info" and a pop-up will open, displaying detailed channel information.

Hover over the "Connectors" section and click it. Under "API Parameters," you will find the Channel ID and unique name.

We need to create two schedulers, specifically one for check-in and another for check-out.

1. After a successful login in Cliq, hover to the top right corner and click your profile. Post clicking, navigate to Bots & Tools > Schedulers.
   
2. On the right, click the "Create Scheduler" button.
   
3. To learn more about schedulers and their purposes, refer to the Introduction to Schedulers.
   
4. Create a scheduler using your preferred name. Specify the following details: the scheduler name and a description.  
   

1. For the recurring period, choose the type "Weekly." Select Monday through Friday and set the time of execution to 11 AM or any other time that aligns with your company's check-in time, or customise the recurring period based on your specific use case.
   
2. Finally, click "Save & edit code" and paste the following code.
   

1. currentDate = zoho.currentdate;
2. currentDateString = currentDate.toString("dd-MMM-yyyy");
3. fromIndex = 1;
4. toIndex = 200;
5. // Get all active users
6. users = zoho.people.getRecords("employee",fromIndex,toIndex,{},"{CONNECTION_LINK_NAME}");
7. usersList = List();
8. usersList.addAll(users);
9. iterations = {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25};
10. // Get All Employees ( 4000 MAX )
11. if(users.size() == 200)
12. {
13. for each  iteration in iterations
14. {
15. fromIndex = fromIndex + toIndex;
16. toIndex = toIndex + 200;
17. users = zoho.people.getRecords("employee",fromIndex,toIndex,{},"{CONNECTION_LINK_NAME}");
18. if(users.size() > 0 && users.size() == 200)
19. {
20. usersList.addAll(users);
21. }
22. else if(users.size() > 0 && users.size() < 200)
23. {
24. usersList.addAll(users);
25. break;
26. }
27. else
28. {
29. break;
30. }
31. }
32. }
33.  
34. // Get all the employees checkedin from the morning.
35. getAttendenceEntries = invokeurl
36. [
37. url :"https://people.zoho.com/api/attendance/fetchLatestAttEntries?duration=240"
38. type :GET
39. connection:"{CONNECTION_LINK_NAME}"
40. ];
41. latestAttendanceRecords = getAttendenceEntries.get("response").get("result");
42. checkedInUsers = List();
43. for each  userRecord in latestAttendanceRecords
44. {
45. checkedInEmployeeEmail = userRecord.get("emailId");
46. checkedInUsers.add(checkedInEmployeeEmail);
47. }
48.  
49. // Get all the employees who applied for leave both approved and pending ( Remove PENDING to exclude only the leave approved employees )
50. leaveApprovedEmployees = invokeurl
51. [
52. url :"https://people.zoho.com/api/v2/leavetracker/leaves/records?from=" + currentDateString + "&to=" + currentDateString + "&dateFormat=dd-MMM-yyyy&approvalStatus=[APPROVED,PENDING]"
53. type :GET
54. connection:"{CONNECTION_LINK_NAME}"
55. ];
56. info  leaveApprovedEmployees;
57. leaveApprovedEmployeesList = List();
58. for each  member in leaveApprovedEmployees.get("records")
59. {
60. leaveApprovedEmployeesList.add(member.get("EmployeeId"));
61. }
62. info leaveApprovedEmployeesList;
63.  
64.  
65. // Add the users to yet to checkin list if they are not checked from the morning and not applied for leave
66. usersYetToCheckIn = list();
67. for each  user in usersList
68. {
69. employeeEmail = user.get("EmailID");
70. employeeId = user.get("EmployeeID");
71.     employeeStatus = user.get("Employeestatus");
72. if(!checkedInUsers.contains(employeeEmail) && !leaveApprovedEmployeesList.contains(employeeId) && employeeStatus.equals("Active"))
73. {
74. usersYetToCheckIn.add(employeeEmail);
75. }
76. }
77.  
78. // Mention the list of users in the channel.
79. if(usersYetToCheckIn.size() == 0)
80. {
81. info "No users were found yet to checked-in at 11 PM today. Great to see everyone wrapping in on time! ✅";
82. }
83. else
84. {
85. usersYetToCheckInString = "";
86. for each  user in usersYetToCheckIn
87. {
88. usersYetToCheckInString = usersYetToCheckInString + "[" + user + "](mail:" + user + ") \n";
89. }
90. usersYetToCheckInString = usersYetToCheckInString.subString(0,usersYetToCheckInString.length() - 2);
91. response = Map();
92. card = Map();
93. card.put("title","Employees who haven’t checked in yet ( " + usersYetToCheckIn.size() + " )");
94. card.put("thumbnail","https://i.pinimg.com/originals/85/e9/f3/85e9f3f5ac31fc5aab586e208297f43d.gif");
95. card.put("theme","modern-inline");
96. response.put("card",card);
97. response.put("text",usersYetToCheckInString);
98. info zoho.cliq.postToChannel("{CHANNEL_UNIQUE_NAME}",response);
99. }
    

1. Now, let's follow the same steps and create a scheduler for checkout reminders. Under the recurring period, choose the type as "Weekly." Select Monday through Friday and set the time of execution to 7 PM or any other time that aligns with your company's checkout time, or customise the recurring period based on your specific use case.
   
2. Click "Save & edit code" and paste the following code.
   

1. attendanceResponse = invokeurl
2. [
3. url :"https://people.zoho.com/api/attendance/fetchLatestAttEntries?duration=600"
4. type :GET
5. connection:"{CONNECTION_LINK_NAME}"
6. ];
7. info attendanceResponse;
8. todayDate = zoho.currenttime.toString("YYYY-MM-dd");
9. latestAttendanceRecords = attendanceResponse.get("response").get("result");
10. usersWithoutCheckout = list();
11. if(latestAttendanceRecords.size() > 0)
12. {
13. for each  userRecord in latestAttendanceRecords
14. {
15. userEmail = userRecord.get("emailId");
16. dailyEntries = userRecord.get("entries");
17. for each  dailyEntry in dailyEntries
18. {
19. if(dailyEntry.containsKey(todayDate))
20. {
21. todayEntryDetails = dailyEntry.get(todayDate);
22. attendanceLogs = todayEntryDetails.get("attEntries");
23. for each  logEntry in attendanceLogs
24. {
25. if(!logEntry.containsKey("checkOutTime"))
26. {
27. usersWithoutCheckout.add("{@" + userEmail + "}");
28. }
29. }
30. }
31. }
32. }
33. }
34. usersWithoutCheckoutString = usersWithoutCheckout.toString("\n");
35. if(usersWithoutCheckoutString.trim().length() == 0){
36. usersWithoutCheckoutString = "No users were found checked-in after 7 PM today. Great to see everyone wrapping up on time! ✅";
37. }
38. response = Map();
39. card = Map();
40. card.put("title","List of users who remain checked in ( " + usersWithoutCheckout.size() + " )");
41. card.put("thumbnail","https://media.tenor.com/Hd8nLZZTPRYAAAAi/alarm-clock-alarm.gif");
42. card.put("theme","modern-inline");
43. response.put("card",card);
44. response.put("text",usersWithoutCheckoutString);
45. info zoho.cliq.postToChannel("{CHANNEL_UNIQUE_NAME}",response);
    

Wrapping up and checking out for the day, hopefully

Whether you're from HR, tired of chasing attendance logs, or an enthusiastic team lead trying to increase your team's visibility and adjust workload accordingly, Cliq Platform's schedulers are essential and ensure that accurate tracking is consistent and compliance is maintained. Additionally, this would be scalable to handle organizations of any size.

If attendance tracking is a binge-watchable series, what plot twist would these reminders add to your team's script? Let us know in the comments below!

• Topic Participants

• Harsha SS

  

• Ram Freedman

  

• Sticky Posts

• Cliq Bots - Post message to a bot using the command line!

  If you had read our post on how to post a message to a channel in a simple one-line command, then this sure is a piece of cake for you guys! For those of you, who are reading this for the first time, don't worry! Just read on. This post is all about how

• Add Claude in Zoho Cliq

  Let’s add a real AI assistant powered by Claude to your workspace this week, that your team can chat with, ask questions, and act on conversations to run AI actions on. This guide walks you through exactly how to do it, step by step, with all the code

• 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

• Automate attendance tracking with Zoho Cliq Developer Platform

  I wish remote work were permanently mandated so we could join work calls from a movie theatre or even while skydiving! But wait, it's time to wake up! The alarm has snoozed twice, and your team has already logged on for the day. Keeping tabs on attendance

• Customer payment alerts in Zoho Cliq

  For businesses that depend on cash flow, payment updates are essential for operational decision-making and go beyond simple accounting entries. The sales team needs to be notified when invoices are cleared so that upcoming orders can be released. In contrast,

• Recent Topics

• agentid : Where to find?

  I've been looking around for this agenId to check for the total ticket assigned on a specific agent url :"https://desk.zoho.com/api/v1/ticketsCountByFieldValues?departmentId=351081000000155331&agentId=35108xxxxxx132009&field=statusType,status" type :GET

• Clone entire dashboards

  If users want to customize a dashboard that is used by other team members, they can't clone it in order to customize the copy. Instead they have to create the same dashboard again manually from scratch. Suggestion: Let users copy the entire dashboard

• Anyone worked out how to export or screengrab a full heatmap?

  I'd love to be able to include a copy of a heatmap in a report but can't work out how to grab the whole thing as there doesn't appear to be an export function? Thanks in advance.

• Establishing Relationships among contacts/leads with Reciprocal

  Is there any way to create a relationship between contacts and leads and be able to go into just one of the files and have it reciprocate the entry in the other file? For example, if I have two people say John and Jane Smith who are husband and wife.

• Placeholder for Agent Signature in Email Templates

  Dear Zoho Team, I hope this message finds you well. We currently face a limitation when designing email templates in Zoho Desk. While we can create email templates and include a footer at the end, the agent signature is always appended by default at the

• Cannot give public access to Html Snippet in Zoho Creator Page

  Hi, I created a form in Zoho Creator and published it. The permalink works but I want to override the css of the form. (style based URL parameters is not good enough) So I created a page and added an Html snippet. I can now override the css, which is

• Print a document from Zoho Writer via Zoho Creator

  If i use the code below i can get writer to create a new document or email it to me but i want to be able to print it directly from the browser and not have to send it via email and then print. Below is the code im using. Attached options form zoho writer

• Custom View and Custom Fields on Zoho Books

  Hi, I have some custom fields on Estimates and Invoices. I also use Custom Views so I can have a lot of information at a glance. I want to include my custom fields as columns in my custom views of estimates / invoice, but it looks like is not possible.

• %PaymentLink%

  Does not work. Software creates a BAD link. ....and yes payment options are turned on. Link on the invoice pdf once opened will work but this template is a joke.

• World date & time format

  Hello, Is there a timeline to get the worldwide used date and time format ? I mean not the american one... I mean day month year, and 24 hours clock. Regards

• Allow Global Admin to access/edit all forms without changing owners

  Hi there, Please consider adding a feature where the Global Admin of the account an automatically access/edit any form in the Company Account. I'm the Global Admin on our Zoho One plan, and we have multiple users that use/create forms. But for me to access

• Actual vs Minimum

  Hi all, I am sure I am not the only one having this need. We are implementing billing on a 30-minute increment, with a minimum of 30 minutes per ticket. My question is, is there a way to create a formula or function to track both the minimum bill vs the

• Dont want to list inactive items.

  If an item is made inactive, there is no point in showing it in the item list. Please provide an option to hide all inactive items in 'Preferences'. 

• Can Zoho Marketing Automation send OTP codes via WhatsApp during user registration?

  The flow I would like to implement is: A user signs up in the mobile app and enters their phone number. The system generates a one-time verification code (OTP). The OTP is sent to the user via WhatsApp message. The user enters the code in the app to confirm

• Related lists New option in missing

  hi I have created quite a few modules and added as related lists to my main module. Some have new, some dont I can not see why?

• Where to show Customization Field ?

  Dear Sir, I have made some New Field in Item Field Customisation. Now I don't require that field in Estimate, Sales Orders etc. I just wants that field in Sales Invoice to Show/Hide... Is that possible ?

• What's New in Zoho Analytics - February 2026

  Hello Users! We're back with another round of updates for Zoho Analytics. This month's release focuses on giving you greater flexibility in how you visualize, manage, and act on your data - with new features like custom visualizations, remote MCP server,

• Zoho Books (and other Finance Suite Apps) - Clickable Item Name on Invoices and Reports

  Hi Zoho Books team, It would be really helpful if the Item Name on Reports were clicable to take me to the item. The same on Invoices, often I am looking at an invoice and I want to look at the deails of a product. A link here would be helpful to jump

• ZOHO Reports are taking longer time to get refresh

  Hi Team, Since last few days, I'm facing issues in getting updated reports. For eg: right after making an expense entry or even posting a journal, it is taking longer then expected for the updated reports. Refer below: "You are viewing the report that

• Display actual mileage on an invoice

  My users are creating expenses in Zoho expense. For example, they expense 10 miles and get paid 7 dollars (10 miles * IRS rate of .70). If I look at the expenses in Zoho Books, it does show them at 10 miles at .70 cent When I add these expense to an invoice

• 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

• Can you create relationships BETWEEN contacts within the same module

  I am setting up my CRM, and I want to have a way to connect contacts within the same module.  Is there a way to do this?  If not - how do I decide how to split up contacts to make connections?  What are best practices for this? We have clients who need

• Zoho Projects - Cloning a task does not trigger task workflow when created

  Hello! I have a Project where my team uses a set of tasks from a tasklist as templates, so we could simply clone it and drag it to another list in kanban view to avoid creating a new one from scratch. The process works well, but after cloning it the new

• Function and workflow to create customer payment and send receipt

   I am attempting to set up a workflow/custom function for the automatic creation of a customer payment and sending the email receipt, but am receiving the error "Improper Statement Error might be due to missing ';' at end of the line or incomplete expression" I've been over everything several times and cannot see where the error is (code is copied into the attached document).  I haven't used custom functions before with Deluge, so it's very likely something very simple, or I've completely mucked

• Disable Sign Up option in Zoho Creator Portal and show only Sign In page

  Is it possible to disable the Sign Up option in a Zoho Creator portal? The requirement is to show only the Sign In page and completely remove or hide the Sign Up page, so users cannot create accounts directly from the portal login page. Is there any setting

• Restrict Payment Methods

  Allow us to restrict certain payment methods specific for each customer.

• How to install Widget in inventory module

  Hi， I am trying to install a app into Sales Order Module related list, however there is no button allow me to do that. May I ask how to install widget to inventory module related list?

• Introducing Formula Fields for performing dynamic calculations

  Greetings, With the Formula Field, you can generate numerical calculations using provided functions and available fields, enabling you to derive dynamic data. You can utilize mathematical formulas to populate results based on the provided inputs. This

• Can I view the KB in the same way as a customer logged in as my Agent?

  Sorry if this seems a mad question.  I have some Articles that I want to be seen by my Agents and the status of these is set to Agents only.  We also have some that are set to Public. When I sign in with my private email address (as a customer) I can

• What’s New in Zoho Inventory — Latest Features, Integrations & Updates | December 2025

  Zoho Inventory has evolved significantly over the past months, bringing you smarter, faster, and more connected tools to streamline your operations. Whether you’re managing multichannel sales, complex fulfillment workflows, or fast-moving stock, our newest

• Push Notification for New Bookings in Zoho Bookings App

  when a someone schedules an appointment through the booking page, is there any option to receive a push notification in the mobile app?

• Which user's capacity is used for Shared Mailbox storage?

  We use shared mailboxes at our company, and their size is increasing daily. Which user(s)'s total mailbox limit is being used up by this space?

• Incorrect Functioning of Time Logs API (Version 3)

  We need to fetch the list of time logs for each task for our company internal usage. We are trying to achieve it by using the next endpoint: https://projects.zoho.com/api-docs#bulk-time-logs#get-all-project-time-logs Firstly, in the documentation the

• Evernote (ENEX) import limitations

  I have been with Evernote since 2010, but the latest price increase is ridiculous. I am currently testing Zoho Notebook as a replacement. I am impressed so far - if it were not for critical need to import legacy Evernote notes, I would 100% migrate to

• Can I create a CODE 128 custom field for my items in Zoho Inventory and then use it for generating Sales Orders?

  Can anyone helps me, I don't want to use the SKU code for scanning my products.  ​Because all my products have a CODE-128 label attached.

• Prevent duplicate with custom fields?

  I was wondering something about custom field/custom modules in Zoho Desk. For some reason you can make a custom field mandatory but not unique? For example, if I create a custom module to manage equipment and renewal and make a field serial number no

• 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

• Multiple Vendor SKUs

  One of the big concerns we have with ZOHO Inventory is lack of Vendor Skus like many other inventory software packages offer. Being able to have multiple vendor skus for the same product would be HUGE! It would populate the appropriate vendor Sku for

• Create Invoice automated with Package

  Does anyone knows how to create an invoice from a SO when we have created the package? We do these manually. and validate that the product packed is the product invoiced (if the order is partially packed) Regards, JS

• Unable to integrate Zoho Projects and Zoho Workdrive

  I'm a Zoho One subscriber. When I go to Zoho Projects > Settings > Marketplace > Zoho Apps I do not see an option for Zoho Workdrive but I do see one for Zoho Docs that does nothing. How do I get the option to integrate Zoho WorkDrive and Zoho Proje

• Next Page