Building extensions #2: Publishing an extension

Building extensions #2: Publishing an extension

Hello developers,

Welcome to our next post about building extensions for Zoho Finance Suite applications.

In our previous post, we looked at extensions, their purpose, and how to create and test them. To recap, extensions are installable plugins or add-ons that include customizations to improve the existing functionality of a Zoho product. They can be shared with other users, allowing them to install the plugin and have the customizations reflected in their account as well.

If you wish to customize any Zoho product on your account alone, you can use in-product customizations. Extensions, on the other hand, are created as custom, installable bundles that can be shared and used by multiple users.

In this post, we'll be discussing how to publish extensions both privately and publicly.

Why publish an extension?

The ultimate goal of creating extensions for Zoho products is to share them with users so they can install them and use their features in their own Zoho products.

In order to make the extension available as an installable component, it must first be published.

Private and public extensions

Extensions can be developed for internal organizational purposes or for a larger audience, and they can be published either privately or publicly.
  1. Private: Published to be shared privately with other users or within an organization.
Example: An organization uses Zoho Books to manage its financial activities, and its employees need customizations to meet their specific demands. In this scenario, extensions would be useful so the customizations could be shared with other users in the organization.
  1. Public: Published in Zoho Marketplace and made accessible to Zoho users.
Example: A developer creates an extension with some common or general use cases that would help most business categories, e.g., a payment gateway integration, a message integration app, or an extended feature for a Zoho Finance application. In this scenario, the developer could list the extension publicly for a larger audience.

How to publish an extension
  1. Enter the developer portal of the Zoho Finance extension you want to publish. For our demo, we're using a Zoho Books extension.
  1. Navigate to the Publish section and click Publish.

  1. A pop-up displays the list of components you've added to your extension. Check and validate these components.

  1. Choose either major or minor versioning. Major rounds off and increments your version number to the next integer (version 1, version 2, etc.), while minor increments the version by 0.1 (version 1.1, version 1.2, etc.).
  1. Enter the release notes in the Release Notes section. Click Publish.

  1. The extension is successfully published, and a private installation URL is created.

  1. As a developer, you can use the private installation URL to test the extension in your Zoho Books organization.
Note: In order to install and test the extension privately in Zoho Books, your Zoho Books account should be the same as the one you used to develop the extension.

  1. In order to share the extension with other users, it will have to be reviewed internally by the Zoho Finance team. To do this, click the Submit for Private Review button that appears after publishing the extension. Read the Zoho Finance extension review guidelines for more information.

  1. A pop-up displays the auto-populated details on a mail that will be sent to the Zoho Finance review team. Verify the details and click the Send Mail button.
  3. The extension is successfully submitted for private review and is under the status "Submitted For Review."
Note: If you want to make changes to the submitted version, you have to deprecate the version submitted for review. Once deprecated, the Finance team can't approve the version you originally submitted.

  1. As the developer, you'll also receive a copy of your submission email.
  1. The Zoho Finance team will review the extension and, once successfully validated, approve it, changing the private review status from "Submitted For Review" to "Approved."

  1. Now that the extension has been privately approved, you can share it with other users. Go to the Shared List option in the left panel, and click the Share Privately button.

  1. Enter the organization ID and email ID of the user you want to share the private extension with. Click Share.

  1. The extension is successfully shared.

  1. The user will get an email about the shared extension, along with the installation URL. They can simply click the link to install the extension.
  2. To publish and list the extension publicly in Zoho Marketplace, it'll have to be reviewed and approved by the Zoho Marketplace team as well.
  3. To publish publicly, follow the above steps, then submit your extension for Zoho Marketplace review using the Submit for Marketplace Review button.

  1. You'll be redirected to the extension details page, where you can view a Submit to Marketplace button beside the extension version. Click Submit to Marketplace.

  1. A pop-up appears with extension details that will be listed in Zoho Marketplace. Fill in the details to complete the submission process.


Extension compatibility across Zoho Finance Suite applications

Once you've developed the extension and submitted it for private review, check to see if it has any common use cases that would work with another Zoho Finance application. If it does, you can reach out to extension-submission@zohofinance.com and say you would like to have your extension reviewed for whichever other Finance applications you think it would suit. The Finance review team will evaluate your suggestion and guide you accordingly.

Once these reviews are validated, you can publicly list the extension for the other apps with ease. Using the available Marketplace installation URL, you can directly submit another application through the Zoho Marketplace Partner console.



When providing details in the Zoho Marketplace Partner console for the compatible application, make sure to change the product name in the Marketplace installation URL. Once submitted, the Zoho Marketplace approval team will internally validate it with the Zoho Finance team, review it themselves, and list the extension if it's verified.

Example

Zoho Books includes modules that are present in other Zoho Finance apps. Assume you've created a Zoho Books extension and shared it with the Finance team for private review. You can also contact the Finance team and request a review for Zoho Inventory because the extension's use case is compatible.

If the Finance team approves the review for both applications, and you want to publicly list the extension on both counts, instead of creating and publishing an extension for Zoho Inventory from scratch, simply change the product name from Books to Inventory in the Marketplace installation URL when submitting the application in the Zoho Marketplace Partner console.



In this post, we've given you a detailed outline of the steps involved in publishing an extension for a Zoho Finance application, both privately and publicly.

Going forward, we'll look at Zoho Books extension creation since Zoho Books includes features and functions that are found in the other Zoho Finance Suite products. We hope you found this information useful. Keep following this space for more useful guides!

SEE ALSO

    • Recent Topics

    • Dynamically Fetching Lookup Field Display Value

      I have an audit trail form, Audit_Changes, that tracks old vs new values across different forms. For lookup fields, the old/new value is the ID, but I also need the display value. What's a best practice for dynamically fetching the display value of the

    • Workdrive and ChatGPT Team Synced Connectors

      Hi, we want to be able to integrate Zoho Workdrive with OpenAI’s ChatGPT Team plan. Google Drive and OneDrive both offer this, zoho please catch up asap. We dont want to have to put our company files in google drive, we want to allow chatgpt Team edition

    • Subform Disabled Fields Should Remain Disabled on Edit/View

      Currently, when we disable a subform field using on user input or on add new row, it works perfectly during the initial data entry. However, when the record is saved and reopened for viewing or editing, these disabled fields become editable again. This

    • Ability to Create New Items When Zoho Trident is Minimized via tray or taskbar icon

      Allow users to create new items (emails, calendar events, tasks, etc.) directly from the system tray icon or by right clicking the task bar icon, even when the window is minimized or not actively running in the foreground. This enables quick access to

    • Bug Report and Suggestions for Improvement in Zoho Applications

      Hi Zoho Team, I’d like to report a few bugs and improvement suggestions I’ve noticed while using Zoho products: Zoho Cliq Video Call: The camera sometimes turns off automatically during video calls. This seems to be a bug — please check and fix it. Zoho

    • I can not see Undeliverable emails from my Mass Email Leads activity in CRM

      I am sending email templates and I can not see the Undeliverables? I only receive the "Out of Office" replies and any manual replies from the lead. Can you please let me know where the Undeliverable emails are sent so I can use the information to clean up the database?

    • Select Zoho Contacts as Meeting Participants in Zoho Cliq

      Hello Zoho Cliq Team, We hope you're doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the meeting scheduling functionality in Zoho Cliq. Current Limitation: When scheduling a meeting in Zoho Cliq, participants can only be selected from: Organization

    • Ability to Select External Users from Participants List When Scheduling Meetings

      Hello Zoho Cliq Team, We hope you're doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the meeting scheduling experience in Zoho Cliq. Current Limitation when scheduling a meeting in Zoho Cliq: External users can be selected from the list only under

    • Kaizen #212 - Map Dependency Fields in Zoho CRM using APIs

      Hi Everyone!! Welcome back to another week of Kaizen series! Over the past few weeks, we have been addressing your questions and feedback shared through our Kaizen 200th feedback form. Thank you for your continued engagement and thoughtful queries. We

    • Outdated state in mexico

      Hello Zoho team, the drop down to add the state for customers, when they introduce their state in mexico has a city named “Distrito Federal” that name changed many years ago to “ciudad de mexico”. could you please update this so my clients can find the

    • Is anyone using Zoho Flow with airtable?

      I need to build a flow that collects data from airtable and uses some of that data to create folders and files in google drive. I have fully function version of this in zapier and want to migrate to zoho. I am trying to perform a very basic fetch from

    • SOME FEATURES ARE NOT IN THE ZOHO SHEET IN COMPARISION TO ZOHO SHEET

      TO ZOHO sir/maam with due to respect i want to say that i am using ZOHO tool which is spreadsheet i want to say that some features are not there in zoho sheet as comparison to MS EXCEL like advance filter and other Features which should be there in ZOHO

    • AI in Zoho Workplace: A Sneak Peek into What’s Coming!

      Hello everyone, We’re super excited to share something we’ve been working on and we want you to be part of it! You may have seen our announcement blog post introducing a major evolution in how AI works within Zoho Workplace. Want to be among the first

    • Display Client Name in Zoho Creator Client Portal Dashboard

      Hello Zoho Creator Team, We hope you are doing well. Zoho Creator recently introduced the option to set a client’s display name in the Client Portal settings, which is very helpful for providing a personalized portal experience. However, there is currently

    • Meet Canvas' Grid component: Your easiest way to build responsive record templates

      Visual design can be exciting—until you're knee-deep in the details. Whether it's aligning text boxes to prevent overlaps, fixing negative space, or simply making sure the right data stands out, just ironing out inconsistencies takes a lot of moving parts.

    • Best way to share/download presentation files in Zoho without losing formatting?

      Hello Zoho Community, I often work with PPT/PDF files in Zoho Docs and share them with colleagues. While PDFs usually give a direct download option, I’ve noticed that PPT/PPTX files sometimes only open in the viewer without a clear download link. Is there

    • Workflow Failure - Notifications

      Good afternoon, I have just experienced an error whereby a Workflow failed, for a reason currently unknown. The problem is that one of my users had to flag this manually (thankfully he's very thorough) and this otherwise would have flown under the radar.

    • Introducing Bin Locations In Zoho Inventory

      Hello users, We are excited to let you know that your wait for the Bin Locations feature has now come to an end! Yes, you heard us right! We are here to introduce the much-awaited Bin Locations now in Zoho Inventory. But before we dive into the feature

    • Error "Invalid client task found corresponding properties" only when triggered from workflow ?

      Hi All, I am facing an error message I never encountered previously: Error in executing On Add - On Load script Error in executing thisapp.get_all_projects_api_call function. Line:(2) Error in executing thisapp.getAccessTokenFromRefreshToken function.

    • How to interpret Campaign report statistics - definitions/explanation

      I am trying to make sure I understand the Campaign report correctly Do you have a list of definitions for: Delivered - it has reached the recipient's inbox Campaign reach - is this the number that have opened the campaign email? Unique Opens Clicks/Open

    • Multi-Page Forms in Zoho Creator!

      Let’s make long applications easier to handle by dividing them into pages, adding a progress bar, and guiding users step by step through complex data entry. This would be a total game-changer for the user experience and could significantly boost completion

    • Subforms in Stateless Forms

      Stateless Forms are very useful, but we can't build complex data entry pages without Subforms. Can this be implemented? This would make Stateless Forms truly powerful.

    • Feature request - pin or flag note

      Hi, It would be great if you could either pin or flag one or more notes so that they remain visible when there are a bunch of notes and some get hidden in the list. Sometimes you are looking for a particular name that gets lost in a bunch of less important

    • Schedule a Call by Date and Time when a specific lead status is selected

      Hi Wanting to create a workflow where a call can be scheduled by date & time when a specific lead status is selected. Can only currently set the date by Due Date - Trigger Date - Plus 'x' day(s) Thanks

    • Zoho CRM's Copy Customization functionality now works across DCs, for customized accounts, and more

      Availability This feature is available in Standard, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate editions. These changes have been rolled out to all users in all DCs. For more information, please refer to these help documents: Overview | Instructions Hello

    • How can I bold text on Zoho Forms submit buttons?

      In the old theme builder, I could bold the text on a form's submit button. With the new theme builder, I can only change the text of the header or fields in the form, and not the button itself.

    • 5名限定 課題解決型ワークショップイベント Zoho ワークアウト開催のお知らせ (10/31)

      ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。Zoho ユーザーコミュニティチームの中野です。 10月開催のZoho ワークアウトについてお知らせします。 今回はZoomにて、オンライン開催します。 参加登録はこちら（無料）：https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/BGYTysOnSqa9LA9eY2IKww ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Zoho ワークアウトとは？ Zoho ユーザー同士で交流しながら、サービスに関する疑問や不明点の解消を目的とした

    • Hiding Pre-defined Views

      You can enhance Zoho with custom views - but you cannot hide the pre-defined views. Most users focus on 4 or 5 views. Right now for EVERY user EVERY time they want to move to one of their 4 or 5 views - they have to scroll down past a long list of pre-defined views - we don't use ANY of the pre-defined views. Adding the feature to allow a predefined view to be hidden completely or only visible to certain users would be a big improvement in usability for Zoho CRM. This feature is already available

    • Rich-text fields in Zoho CRM

      Hello everyone, We're thrilled to announce an important enhancement that will significantly enhance the readability and formatting capabilities of your information: rich text options for multi-line fields. With this update, you can now enjoy a more versatile

    • [Integration Edition] Deluge Learning Series – Third-Party Integrations with Deluge | October 2025

      We’re excited to continue this three-month edition of the Deluge Learning Series: Session 1 – Integrating Zoho Apps with Deluge Using Built-In Integration Tasks Session 2 – Integrating Zoho Apps with Deluge Using invokeURL and invokeAPI Session 3 – Third-Party

    • Feature Request: Tag, Search, and Report on Individual Private Comments

      Zoho Desk Team, First, I want to say that we are extensive users of Zoho Desk and it is a core part of our support operations. We rely heavily on the private comments feature for internal communication, knowledge sharing, and maintaining a clear history

    • Zoho CRM Community Digest - August 2025 | Part 2

      Hello Everyone! Here's a quick round-up of handy tips, clever workarounds, and product updates from late August. Product Updates: Meeting Enhancements in Zoho CRM! Track whether a meeting is online, in-office, or at the client’s location using the new

    • Assistance Needed: Ticket Status Not Updating and Sorting by Last Customer Reply in Zoho Desk

      Hello, I’m facing two issues in Zoho Desk that I’d like your guidance on: Ticket Status Not Updating: When a customer replies to a ticket, the status does not change to Reopened. Instead, it remains in Waiting on Customer, even after the customer’s response

    • Round robin

      Hi, I'm trying to set up a round robin to automatically distribute tickets between agents in my team but only those tickets that are not otherwise distributed by other workflows or direct assignments. Is that possible and if so which criteria should I

    • Time Entry Notifications

      Hi All - I have support staff who place notes of their work in the time entry section of Zoho Desk. Is there a specific workflow or setting I need to enable to have the ticket holder updated via email when an entry is saved?

    • Change text in help desk

      Hi, Please let me know how can i change the this text, see screenshot.

    • Customer happiness customisation

      Hi, I was wondering if it's possible to somehow customise to whom and when customer happiness request is sent? Can you enable it only for selected tickets for example based on workflow or any other criteria (customer name, tag or anything else)? Also

    • Sign in process is beyond stupid. I'd rather plug my phone into USB and copy files than sign in to this POS.

      792 clicks and fields to fill in just to get into a 3rd rate app is too stupid for me.

    • No Zoho Support Response in Months

      I want to say that I love Zoho FSM, Books, and CRM, but the support is scary bad. About 2-3 months ago, I emailed Zoho FSM support with two specific issues I needed help with, and I have still not received one single response. I also submitted a support

    • Has anyone built a custom AI support agent inside Zoho (SalesIQ/Zobot)?

      Hi all, I’ve been experimenting with building my own AI support assistant and wanted to see if anyone here has tackled something similar within Zoho. Right now, I’ve set up a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipeline outside of Zoho using FAISS. It

    • Next Page