Episode I : Exploring the World of Custom Functions in Zoho Desk

Episode I : Exploring the World of Custom Functions in Zoho Desk


Hello Again!
Welcome to an Automation Adventure in the World of Zoho Desk
Join us on a journey to explore how custom functions can enhance and extend the capabilities of Zoho Desk.
Automation is everywhere. From robotic arms assembling products on factory floors to automating tasks in the software world, automation has revolutionized how we work out stuff. But what does this have to do with Zoho Desk? 
Anline, a curious resident in the Zoho Desk world, is exploring how automation can transform her workflow.

Anline’s Quest in the Zoho Desk World  

Anline is building her own world within Zoho Desk, but she’s hit a few roadblocks. She wants to perform specific operations; like updating ticket statuses, fetching data from external services, and automate repetitive tasks. She knows Zoho Desk has the tools she needs, but where does she start?
DeskAutomate Services is here as a guide to the Automation City. The citizens of Zoho Desk World operate based on their licenses. Each license unlocks different levels of automation capabilities.
Anline has the Enterprise edition, which grants her the access to the most powerful tools: Custom Functions. How can this empower Anline?

The Power of Custom Functions  

Custom Functions are like magic spells in the Zoho Desk world. They give users flexibility to tailor automation to their exact needs. While basic automation features are available to all license holders, Custom Functions are exclusive to Enterprise users. These functions let Anline go beyond the basics and create automations that meet her unique requirements. What makes them even more accessible is Deluge, Zoho’s in-house scripting language.
But there’s a catch: Anline isn’t a coding expert in Deluge. How can she harness the power of Custom Functions without getting lost in complex scripts? DeskAutomate guides Anline to the prebuilt functions and a user-friendly framework, simplifying the coding process.
Whether you’re new to coding or an experienced developer, Deluge simplifies the process of creating Custom Functions with its intuitive interface and drag-and-drop functionality.

The Deluge Script Editor: Your Coding Playground  

To access the Custom Function window, go to Setup (S) >> Developer Space >> Functions >> New Function.
When you open the Custom Function window in Zoho Desk, you’ll find a user-friendly interface designed to help you build scripts using drag-and-drop options. Here’s what you’ll discover: Each section has predefined variables which you can drag and use based on your requirements.
1. Basic Commands
The Basic section includes essential commands like setting variables, adding comments, and inserting informational text into your script. These foundational elements help you structure your Custom Function logically.
          Example: businessDaysCount = 5; //<variable> = <expression>;
2. Conditional Logic
The Condition section allows you to add conditional operators such as if, else if, and else. These operators let you program decision-making logic into your Custom Function.
Example:
  1. if (TicketStatus == "Open")
  2. {
  3.     info "This ticket is still open.";
  4. }
3. Notifications
The notifications section lets you enter values to send emails or post messages via Cliq.
Example:
  1. sendmail
  2. [
  3. from : zoho.userid
  4. to   : support@zylker.com
  5. subject : "Ticket is created"
  6. message : "Thank you for your enquiry. A ticket has been created and our experts will respond to you."
  7. ]; 
4. Integrations
Zoho Desk makes coding easy for integrations. With drag-and-drop options, you can create webhook integrations and API calls without writing complex code from scratch. The Custom Function window provides all the necessary code snippets, so you can customize them to fit your requirements.
Example: contactRecord = zoho.crm.getRecordbyId("Contacts",9876787);
5. Collections
The Collections feature lets you gather and manage strings of data or specific information within your Custom Function. This is particularly useful when you need to process or analyze multiple data points.
Example:
  1. myList = Collect();
  2. myList.insert("ID1");
  3. myList.insert("ID2");
  4. myList.insert("ID3");
  5. for each ID in myList
  6. {
  7.    info ID;
  8. }
You can also enable the Syntax Builder within your Coding playground. Enabling this option will help you choose variables from the drop-down windows having prebuilt variables/Fields.

Mapping Parameters and Testing Your Script  

Once you’ve built your Custom Function, the next step is to map it to your Zoho Desk environment:
1. Edit Arguments
The Edit Arguments option lets you map params within your Custom Function to fields in your tickets. For example, you can link the Ticket ID, Ticket Owner, or Case ID to the corresponding fields in your Zoho Desk setup. This ensures that your Custom Function interacts seamlessly with your data.
2. Authentication and Connections
Zoho Desk uses OAuth tokens to establish secure connections for Custom Functions. Commonly, this involves using Zoho OAuth to make API calls within Zoho's scope. You can choose the appropriate scopes during authorization to ensure your Custom Function has access to the necessary data and functionalities.
Note: If you choose third-party applications, please create a connection using the required default or custom services.
3. Save and Test
After saving your script, use Save & Execute Script to test it with sample inputs. This lets you test the function, ensuring functionality, debug, and refine your code before deployment.
In the upcoming episodes, we'll dive into how Custom Functions work and contribute to expanding the capabilities within Zoho Desk.
See you in the next episode,
Regards,
Lydia | Zoho Desk. 

    • Sticky Posts

    • Register for Zoho Desk Beta Community

      With the start of the year, we have decided to take a small step in making the life of our customers a little easier. We now have easy access to all our upcoming features and a faster way to request for beta access. We open betas for some of our features

    • Share your Zoho Desk story with us!

      Tell us how you use Zoho Desk for your business and inspire others with your story. Be it a simple workflow rule that helps you navigate complex processes or a macro that saves your team a lot of time; share it here and help the community learn and grow with shared knowledge. 

    • Tip #1: Learn to pick the right channels

      Mail, live chat, telephony, social media, web forms—there are so many support channels out there. Trying to pick the right channels to offer your customers can get pretty confusing. Emails are most useful when the customer wants to put things on record. However, escalated or complicated issues should not be resolved over email because it's slow and impersonal.  When you need immediate responses, live chat is more suitable. It's also quick and convenient, so it's the go-to channel for small issues. 

    • Welcome to Zoho Desk Community - Say hello here!

      Hello everyone! Though we have been here for a while, it’s time to formally establish the Zoho Desk Community; we’re really happy to have you all here! This can be the place where you take a moment to introduce yourself to the rest of the community. We’d love to hear all about you, what you do, what company or industry you work for, how you use Zoho Desk and anything else that you will like to share! Here’s a little about me. I am Chinmayee. I have been associated with Zoho since 2014. I joined here

    • Webinar 1: Blueprint for Customer Service

      With the launch of a host of new features in Zoho Desk, we thought it’ll be great to have a few webinars to help our customers make the most of them. We’re starting off with our most talked about feature, Blueprint in Zoho Desk. You can register for the Blueprint webinar here: The webinar will be delivered by our in-house product experts. This is a good opportunity to ask questions to our experts and understand how Blueprint can help you automate your service processes. We look forward to seeing

    • Recent Topics

    • System flaws and lack of response from Zoho

      I have had to go on here as no-one is replying to my emails regarding my problem (been 10 days and no email reply) and your chat facility online through your Zoho Books software opens and closes immediately, so not functioning properly. I actually called

    • Customer Grouping

      Hi, how can I group multiple customers into single group. So that I can have idea of accounts receivables of all the customers in single group. Like if there are multiple subsidiaries of same company we have having a business with, and want to view the

    • Two currencies

      More and more I am finding that internattional payments' fees are unpredictable. I would like, on my invoices that are in a foreign currency (eg. USD$ or EUR€) for there to be a GBP£ TOTAL display alongside the invoice's currency total. This would make

    • GST Slabs Redefined: Stay Compliant Using Zoho Books!

      Hello Everyone! The Government of India is rolling out new GST rates, a major reform aimed at simplifying the current tax structure starting 22 September 2025. GST will move from four slabs (5%, 12%, 18%, 28%) to two main slabs (5% and 18%), plus a special

    • Edit item custom fields

      Getting this error : Transactions have been created with the custom field. Hence it cannot be deleted. Not trying to delete it, just trying to change which modules to show in or to not show at all in transactions !

    • Use Zoho Books to bill for work done in Zoho Desk??

      I'm trying to see if something is possible (and if yes, how). We use Zoho One to manage our business. We have a lot of clients that will put in a ticket (via portal) to have work done. Out techs will pick up the ticket, do the work, and then log the time

    • Zoho Finance Suite - Customer Custom Tabs - Dynamic Link

      Hi Finance Suite team, When creating a Custom Tab for a Client Portal, there is no option to add dynamic parameters. This would be very helpful for adding Zoho Analytics dashboards which can be dynamically filtered through the URL to only show information

    • Bank Receipt Catagorization

      Hi, how can I match a bank deposit to multiple customer's invoices ? For e.g. A single person paid to us on behalf of different five customers. I need to keep the separated invoices for each customer

    • Payment on a past due balance

      Scenario: Customer is past due on their account for 4 months. We suspend their billing in Zoho books. Customer finally logs into the portal and enters a new credit card. We associate that cardwith their subscription, which will permit the card to be used

    • How to export all line-item descriptions for a specific item in Zoho Books?

      I am trying to audit a specific item (“Item X”) that has been invoiced multiple times with different line-level descriptions. Here’s the situation: I am using Zoho Books (Professional). Each invoice may contain the same item but with different descriptions

    • List of hidden features

      Hi Friends, I had another support chat today and low and behold the feature that I wanted just simply needed to be "enabled". I thought I'd share, and maybe see if others had some similar experiences. 1. This one is from 5 ish years ago. I asked if there

    • How to change a BAS that has been filed

      I have discovered that a group of expense transactions were accidentally placed in a asset account rather than an expense account. As a result I need to adjust the transaction and consequently most of my BAS to correct the error. Because the BAS have

    • How to Export PDF with a custom Template

      I need to export Sales Order with a Custom Template I have created How can I do it? I see an API to export the PDF but how can I choose which template to choose to generate the PDF

    • Associate email with a potential or project.

      I have a pivotal requirement to associate emails from various suppliers (contacts) with different potentials or projects, on an email by email basis as they come in. This question appears to have been raised before but I cannot find a definitive yes "it can be done". Could anyone please tell me, yes or no.  If the later I can stop wasting time and look at alternative crm systems. I would love not to have to do this. Thanks in advance.

    • Function with Search Records was working until a few weeks ago, around when "Connected Records" was released

      I have a custom function that has been running for nearly a year now, which suddenly stopped working around the time Zoho released the "Connected Records" update. The function is no longer finding the record using the searchRecords function. I've changed

    • Is CRM On Premise available

      Hi Zoho team, Can you please let me know that CRM Zoho is available for On Premise as well? Thanks, Devashish

    • How to sync from Zoho Projects into an existing Sprint in Zoho Sprints?

      Hi I have managed to integrate Zoho Projects with Zoho Sprints and I can see that the integration works as a project was created in Zoho Sprints. But, what I would like to do is to sync into an existing Zoho Sprints project. Is there a way to make that

    • Online Assessment or any aptitude test

      This video is really helpful! I have one question — if I share an assessment form link (through email or with the application form on my career page), how does Zoho Recruit evaluate it? Can a candidate use Google or external help while taking the test,

    • 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

    • Incoming Threads Report

      From data to decisions: A deep dive into ticketing system reports Customers raise questions and issues through multiple channels, such as email, chat, or tickets. To monitor the number of queries received on a specific day from each channel, leads can

    • Conditional layouts - support for multi-select picklists

      Hi, The documentation for conditional layouts says the following: "Layout Rules cannot be used on the following field types: Auto Number Lookup Multi Select Lookup User Lookup Formula File Upload Multi Line" I have a custom module with a multi-pick list

    • Cloudflare Turnstile is now available in Zoho Forms!

      Hello form builders! We have added a new layer of protection to help you keep your forms free from bots. Instead of forcing users to prove they are human, Cloudflare Turnstile quietly checks browser signals in the background. Your real users glide through,

    • Power of Automation :: Unique Task & Issue Prefix Format and Sequencing Rule

      Hello Everyone, A custom function is a software code that can be used to automate a process and this allows you to automate a notification, call a webhook, or perform logic immediately after a workflow rule is triggered. This feature helps to automate

    • 【Zoho CRM】キャンバス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、キャンバス機能のアップデートをご紹介します。 目次 グリッドについて フォーム表示のタブについて 1. グリッドについて ビジュアルデザインは細部の調整に手間がかかりますが、キャンバスのグリッドを使えば要素を整理し、バランスよく配置できます。 画像やデータなどの要素をグループ化せずに簡単に配置できます。 余白を調整することで、要素間の視覚的なバランスを保つのに役立ちます。 「表示切り替え基準の幅」を設定すると、デザインをレスポンシブに調整できます。

    • スマホでキャンペンメールを見ると正しく表示されない

      キャンペーンのメール（HTML）を作成しましたが、スマホ表示に切り替えると正しく表示されません（添付参照）過去に作成したキャンペーンでは特に意識してませんでしたが、問題なく表示されていたようです。うまく表示される場合とされない場合の違いは何でしょうか？

    • Zoho Calendar Integrated Into CRM?

      I've searched around the forums but couldn't find anything addressing this . . .  Is there a plan to integrate Zoho's stand alone calendar solution into Zoho CRM?  The CRM calendar does an OK job but is very basic and the Zoho calendar is great, but I've only figured out to subscribe to my CRM calendar within ZCalendar - there is no 2-way sync. My preferred solution would be for ZCal to become the default calendar/event solution within Z CRM. Is this on the roadmap? Thanks

    • Can I Create Different Page Layouts Based on a Specified Module Pick List Field

      I am trying to work out how to create different page layouts based on a specified module pick list field value, like the Salesforce feature where you can define multiple record types and then create custom page layouts for each record type. This is a super important feature as for almost all the modules we are using (Leads, Potentials, Accounts) we need to be able only show fields relevant to the record type. E.g. We need a very different page layout for a consumer lead Vs a commercial lead, same

    • Scheduling Tasks in Relation to Project End Date

      I use Zoho project  to help manage tasks that relate to a number of specific business events that take place.  I would like to be able to have my project end date be the date of the event and then work "back" from that date to say...   Add a task 2 weeks before the project end date to remind me to XYZ.  Does anyone know if there is a way to base task timings back from a project due date rather than a project start date?

    • Notes of Tasks in Zoho CRM

      Hello, Is there a way to filter the Notes that appear on a Task to only show the notes related to that specific Task and not display all the Notes of the objects related to that Task (Accounts, Contacts, Deal, etc). In essence, our team struggles to understand

    • How to next stage blueprint in Zoho Creator

      Hello, I have question, its possible to next stage blueprint? in case, Start - (first stage) Leader 1 (with condition 1) - (second stage) Leader 2 (with condition 2) - (third stage) Leader 3 (with condition 3) - (fourth stage) After first stage, i want

    • Feature Request: Email Follow-Up Sequences Similar to Zoho CRM

      I’m wondering if Zoho Recruit is planning to introduce a feature similar to the Email Automation – Follow-Up Sequences that is available in Zoho CRM. In CRM, this allows users to send a series of timed follow-up emails triggered by specific actions (for

    • Currency limitation when integrating Zoho CRM & Zoho Books

      Brief Video of Problem: https://www.loom.com/share/d61d1d07d0904e149d80c1901a22418e. Background ·       Our business is based in Australia and we have to have Zoho Books in AUD to comply with tax and reporting regulations in Australia. ·       We sell

    • Multi-select Lookup does not have Advanced filter options in CRM

      With much fanfare Zoho announced the advanced filter options for CRM lookup fields which was a nice addition. This feature is not available for Multi-Select lookup fields. Will it be rolled out in the next 3-6 months, considering the standard lookup filter

    • Experience effortless record management in CRM For Everyone with the all-new Grid View!

      Hello Everyone, Hope you are well! As part of our ongoing series of feature announcements for Zoho CRM For Everyone, we’re excited to bring you another type of module view : Grid View. In addition to Kanban view, List view, Canvas view, Chart view and

    • Kaizen #157: Flyouts in Client Script

      Hello everyone! Welcome back to another exciting edition of our Kaizen series, where we explore fresh insights and innovative ideas to help you discover more and expand your knowledge!In this post, we'll walk through how to display Flyouts in Client Script

    • Admin Control Over Profile Picture Visibility in Zoho One

      Hello Zoho Team, We hope you are doing well. Currently, as per Zoho’s design, each user can manage the visibility of their profile picture from their own Zoho Accounts page: accounts.zoho.com → Personal Information → Profile Picture → Profile Picture

    • Published Course Not Reflecting In Hub

      Hi! I am trying to create micro-learning courses for our team to be available for self-guided learning. I have published the courses with enrollment settings open to all users of the hub, but they don't appear to be available for enrollment. Am I missing

    • Unlock Locked Users via Zoho One Mobile App

      Hello Zoho One Team, We have noticed that in the Zoho One web admin panel, we can unlock a locked user when needed. However, when using the Zoho One mobile app, there is no indication that a user is locked, nor is there an unlock button similar to what

    • Tip #47- Stay Ahead with Automated Scheduled Reports in Zoho Assist- 'Insider Insights'

      We’ve made it easier for you to stay informed, even when you’re busy managing remote sessions! With Scheduled Reports in Zoho Assist, you can now automatically receive detailed insights about your remote support and unattended access activities directly

    • Colour Coded Flags in Tasks Module List View

      I really like the colour coded flags indicating the status of the tasks assigned to a Contact/Deal in the module list view. It would be a great addition to have this feature available in the list view of activities/tasks. I understand you have the Due

    • Next Page