Kaizen 228 - Process Large-Scale Migrated Data Using Catalyst Solutions

Howdy, tech wizards!

This week’s Kaizen explores how Catalyst Solutions in the Zoho CRM Developer Hub help import large volumes of data into Zoho CRM while improving data quality and simplifying the migration process.

Why Catalyst Solutions?

Catalyst Solutions provide a library of independent, ready-to-use backend solutions called CodeLibs. The CRM Bulk Data Processor CodeLib helps handle complex data operations on large datasets. Following are the key benefits:

1. Highly Scalable: Processes large datasets efficiently, supporting up to 200,000 records per API call.
2. Automation Made Simple: Automate complex tasks like segmentation, data cleansing and lead scoring with minimal effort.  
3. Effortless Integration: Comes with pre-configured Catalyst resources such as serverless functions and data stores that integrate directly with Zoho CRM.
   

Business Scenario

Zylker, a manufacturing company, migrated over 3 lakh Lead records into Zoho CRM from spreadsheets. 

Post-migration, the Lead data showed the following inconsistencies and challenges:

1. Phone number field did not include country codes, or contained incorrect country codes. This inconsistency made it difficult for sales teams to contact Leads reliably.
2. Identifying potential Leads for follow-up required manual effort and marketing team has to run generic campaigns without lead segmentation. 

Using workflows before record creation to fix phone numbers for this volume would result in 3 lakh individual workflow executions, which can slow imports and cause partial failures.

Solution Overview

Zylker can use the CRM Bulk Data Processor available in Catalyst Solutions to address these challenges at scale.

The solution works as follows:

1. Lead records are fetched in bulk from Zoho CRM using the Bulk Read API.
2. The fetched data is temporarily stored to evaluate the priority and quality of each record. Based on this evaluation, the records are also segmented accordingly.
3. The Country field value is used to identify and append the correct country code to the phone number.
4. The processed records are updated back into Zoho CRM using Bulk Write API.

All operations are executed using pre-configured Catalyst resources provided by the CodeLib. You can explore the Bulk Data Flow in Catalyst help page to understand how each resource participates in the processing pipeline.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure the following:

1. Log into your Zoho CRM and navigate to Setup > Customization > Modules and Fields > Leads.

Create the following custom Single Line fields to map existing record data in Zoho CRM. 

1. Last Activity Days
2. Web Engagement Score

Refer to the Working with Custom Fields help page for detailed guide. 

2. Create the following custom Single Line fields to store the calculated values during bulk processing:

1. Lead Score Value
2. Lead Segment
3. Sales Priority
4. Data Quality Status
   

3. Go to Setup > Developer Hub > Catalyst Solutions > Zoho CRM Bulk Data Processor. 

4. Click Go to Catalyst and create a Catalyst account if required.

5. Refer to the Catalyst CLI Installation Guide and install it on your local system.

6. Create a new folder on your local system, which will act as a local project directory. Use the following command:

mkdir -p <folder_name>

7. Navigate to the project folder in your terminal and execute the following command: 

catalyst init

8. Follow the prompts to select and initialize your desired project from the Catalyst console. 

When prompted to choose a feature, press Enter and proceed without choosing any feature.

9. Run the following command to install the CRM Bulk Data Processor CodeLib.

catalyst codelib:install https://github.com/catalystbyzoho/codelib-zoho-crm-bulk-processor

Step 1: Create a Cron Job

1. Open the Catalyst Console and navigate to the same project in which you have installed the CRM Bulk Data Processor CodeLib.

2. Go to Cloud Scale > Triggers > Cron and click Create Cron.

3. Fill in the following details:

1. Provide a Name and Description for the cron job. 
2. Select Function and choose BulkJobScheduler from the dropdown in the Target Function field.
3. Enter the following parameters and values:
   
   MODULES -> Leads
   FIELDS_TO_BE_PROCESSED -> Last_Name, Company, Mobile, Country, Designation, No_of_Employees, Web_Engagement_Score, Lead_Score_Value, Lead_Segment, Sales_Priority, Data_Quality_Status
   
   Use GET Modules Metadata API and GET Fields Metadata API to get the API names of the required module and fields.
    
4. Choose the Schedule Type as One Time for our use case.
   

Refer to the Implementing Cron Jobs Help Guide for more details.

Step 2: Configure Zoho CRM API Credentials 

1. Create a self-client application in Zoho's API Console.

2. Generate a Grant Token with the following scopes:

1. ZohoFiles.files.ALL
2. ZohoCRM.bulk.ALL
3. ZohoCRM.modules.ALL
4. ZohoCRM.settings.ALL
5. ZohoCRM.org.ALL
   

3. Follow the OAuth Help Section for a step-by-step guide to generate Access and Refresh tokens for your Zoho CRM organization.

Store all the API credentials securely for later use.

4. To allow Catalyst to access Zoho CRM data, configure the stored API credentials as environment variables in the catalyst-config.json file within the BulkDataProcessor function.

For detailed guidance, refer to the Configure Function Components help guide in CRM Bulk Data Processor. 

These environment variables are used by Catalyst Connectors to create access tokens for establishing secure connection between Zoho CRM and Catalyst.

Step 3: Add Business Logic

1. Go to com.processor.record.ZCRMRecordsProcessorImpl.java file of the BulkDataProcessor in the functions directory.

2. Override the ZCRMRecordsProcessor method with the business logic.

The complete code sample for this use case is available on GitHub for reference.

Following is the major custom logic used here:

Use the GET Fields Metadata API to fetch the API names of the fields required throughout the custom logic.

Phone Number Normalization:

This can be implemented in two stages, Country standardization and Phone Number formatting. 

For country standardization, CountryStandardizerUtil maps different variations of the Country field in records to a single standardized country identifier. These variations may include, 

1. Country Names (India, Unites States, United Kingdom)
2. Abbreviations (Ind, IN, USA, US, UK)
3. Calling Codes (+91, +1, +44)
   

With this, we can ensure different interpretations of the same country are interpreted consistently during the process. 

Once the country is standardized, Phone Numbers are formatted to E.164 format in the PhoneNormalizerUtil. 

It removes all non-numeric characters and converts the Phone input to E.164 format with the respective country codes. 

public class PhoneNormalizerUtil {     private static final Pattern NON_DIGIT = Pattern.compile("[^0-9]");     public static Optional<String> normalizeToE164(String rawPhone, String countryCode) {         if (rawPhone == null || rawPhone.trim().isEmpty()) {             return Optional.empty();         }         String digits = NON_DIGIT.matcher(rawPhone).replaceAll("");         if (rawPhone.startsWith("+") && digits.length() >= 10) {             return Optional.of("+" + digits);         }         switch (countryCode) {             case "IN":                 return normalizeIndia(digits);             case "US":                 return normalizeUS(digits);             case "UK":                 return normalizeUK(digits);             default:                 return Optional.empty();         }     }     private static Optional<String> normalizeIndia(String digits) {         if (digits.length() == 10) {             return Optional.of("+91" + digits);         }         if (digits.startsWith("91") && digits.length() == 12) {             return Optional.of("+" + digits);         }         return Optional.empty();     }     private static Optional<String> normalizeUS(String digits) {         if (digits.length() == 10) {             return Optional.of("+1" + digits);         }         if (digits.startsWith("1") && digits.length() == 11) {             return Optional.of("+" + digits);         }         return Optional.empty();     }     private static Optional<String> normalizeUK(String digits) {         if (digits.startsWith("44") && digits.length() == 12) {             return Optional.of("+" + digits);         }         if (digits.length() == 10) {             return Optional.of("+44" + digits);         }         return Optional.empty();     } }

Lead Priority and Segmentation

The lead priority is calculated using the Title, No of employees, Last Activity Days and Web Engagement Score fields in the record.  

Each field value contributes a predefined number of points:

1. If the job title indicates a senior role such as CEO, CTO, Director, or VP, 25 points are added.
2. If the company size is 200 employees or more, 20 points are added.
3. If the Lead has been active within the last 7 days, 15 points are added.
4. If the web engagement score is 70 or higher, 10 points are added.

The sum of all applicable factors is returned as an integer and based on this score the lead's priority and segmentation is assigned as follows:

1. High (Hot): score ≥ 70
2. Medium (Warm): score ≥ 40
3. Low (Cold): score < 40
   

public static int calculateLeadScore(             String jobTitle,             Integer companySize,             Integer lastActivityDays,             Integer webEngagementScore) {         int score = 0;         // Decision Maker         if (jobTitle != null) {             String title = jobTitle.toLowerCase();             if (title.contains("ceo") || title.contains("cto")                     || title.contains("director") || title.contains("vp")) {                 score += 25;             }         }         // Company Size         if (companySize != null && companySize >= 200) {             score += 20;         }         // Recency         if (lastActivityDays != null && lastActivityDays <= 7) {             score += 15;         }         // Engagement         if (webEngagementScore != null && webEngagementScore >= 70) {             score += 10;         }         return score;     }     public static String deriveSegment(int score) {         if (score >= 70) return "Hot";         if (score >= 40) return "Warm";         return "Cold";     }     public static String derivePriority(String segment) {         switch (segment) {             case "Hot":                 return "High";             case "Warm":                 return "Medium";             default:                 return "Low";         }     }

Lead Quality:

Lead quality is evaluated based on the validity of the Mobile and Country fields in the records.

1. Clean: Both field values are valid.
2. Critical: Both field values are invalid.
3. Needs Review: Only one of the field values is invalid.
   

Write Back to Records:

The processed data is written back to Zoho CRM as follows:

1. Mobile: Formatted phone numbers.
2. Lead Score: Total score calculated from all applicable fields.
3. Lead Segment: Segment derived from the lead score.
4. Sales Priority: Priority assigned based on the lead segment.
5. Data Quality Status: Overall quality of the Lead record.
   

if (normalizedMobile.isPresent()) { data.put("Mobile", normalizedMobile.get()); } data.put("Lead_Score", leadScore); data.put("Lead_Segment", leadSegment); data.put("Sales_Priority", salesPriority); data.put("Data_Quality_Status", dataQualityStatus); }

Step 4: Deploy to Development

Run the following command to deploy your local customizations to the Development Environment of Catalyst.

catalyst deploy

You can find the complete code sample on GitHub for reference.

Try it Out!

With the changes deployed to the Development environment, let us now test the solution.

We hope this Kaizen helps you import large volumes of data into Zoho CRM while improving data quality and lead intelligence using the CRM Bulk Data Processor.

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

We will circle back to you next Friday with another interesting topic. 

On to Better Building!

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

Previous Kaizen: Client Script Support for List Page (Canvas) | Kaizen Collection: Directory

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

• Topic Participants

• Kiruthiga G

  

• 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

• Connecting Zoho Mail with Apollo.io

  Hi, I am trying to connect my Zoho Mail account with my Apollo.io account to start sending cold email for prospecting purposes. I have activated the IMAP setting but I am still unable to connect to the Apollo account. I am using my email credentials but

• Where does this report come from in the Zoho One ecosystems?

  Is this directly from MA, Analytics or ??? ???

• Contact's title in "Contact Role Mapping"

  When I'm creating a deal, I'd like to see the contacts title in the listing. Right now, I only see this: How can I get the contact's title in there?

• Zoho CRM - Client Portal - Hide Notes Related List

  Hi Community, I'm building a customer portal and I can't find a way to hide the notes related list. I don't want the client to see the notes I have about them. Is there a way to do this as it is no bin/trash icon when I hover over.

• "Pivot Table" Conditional Formatting

  Team, I there a way to use conditional formatting a "Pivot Table"  report? Thanks, Arron Blue Pumpkin Hosting | Solutions Made Simple

• How many clients can be added to Zoho Practice?

  How many clients can be added to Zoho Practice without having their zoho app?

• Stage History

  when viewing a ticket , and you look at stage history tab (kanban view) and look at the stage duration column in days, it shows the current stage of the ticket as " current stage ". Should it not rather show the amount of days it has been in that current

• Automating Ticket Responses Using Zoho Desk's AI Features

  We’re looking to set up an automation within Zoho Desk that can analyze incoming emails or tickets and automatically respond with relevant knowledge base articles based on the content of the request. Could you please guide us on how to configure this

• Service locations are tied to contacts?

  Trying the system out. And what I discovered is that it seems that the whole logic of the app is, I'd say, backwards. There is a Customer - a company. The company has contact persons and service locations can be associated with different contact persons.

• Enhancements to Zoho Map integration tasks

  Hello everyone, We're excited to announce enhancements to the Zoho Map integration tasks in Deluge, which will boost its performance. This post will walk you through the upcoming changes, explain why we're making them, and detail the steps you need to

• Bug in Total Hour Calculation in Regularization for past dates

  There is a bug in Zoho People Regularization For example today is the date is 10 if I choose a previous Date like 9 and add the Check in and Check out time The total hours aren't calculated properly, in the example the check in time is 10:40 AM check

• Narrative 12: Sandbox - Testing without the risk

  Behind the scenes of a successful ticketing system: BTS Series Narrative 12: Sandbox - Testing without the risk What is a sandbox environment? A sandbox environment is a virtual playground that allows you to test freely and experiment with various elements

• Announcing new features in Trident for Mac (1.27.0)

  Hello everyone! Trident for macOS (v1.27.0) is here with new features and enhancements to improve scheduling and managing your calendar events. Let's take a quick look at them. Stay aligned across time zones. Both the scheduled and original time zones

• Slow uploads of large files

  I'm wanting to use Workdrive for transferring large images and video (we're talking things from 100MB-5GB). I'm running solo on a 500MBit/sec fiber connection. I'm getting upload speeds to Workdrive of no more than about 1-3Mbytes/sec when going through

• need to upload from airtable to google drive

  I have a zapier zap that automates between airtable and google drive. When a customer uploads a new file into airtable via a client portal interface, zapier uploads that file into a folder linked to that customer's project record. I need to replicate

• Can't delete functions that are associated with deleted workflow rules

  We have a handful of functions that were once associated with a workflow rule, but the rule has been deleted. The function still thinks it is associated so I can't assign it to a new rule. It is starting to get really messy because we have a list of functions

• Default Sorting on Related Lists

  Is it possible to set the default sorting options on the related lists. For example on the Contact Details view I have related lists for activities, emails, products cases, notes etc... currently: Activities 'created date' newest first Emails - 'created

• Credit Management: #1 Credit You Owe vs Credits Owed to the Business

  Think about the last time you ordered food online. You might have paid in advance through your card, but you received a $20 refund because your order got delayed or cancelled. In most apps, refunds don't go into the bank account directly; instead, they're

• Tip #46- Turn Every Session into an Insight with Zoho Assist survey report- 'Insider Insights'

  Delivering exceptional remote support isn’t just about resolving issues, it’s about understanding how both customers and technicians experience each session. That’s where Survey Report in Zoho Assist come in. You can configure and customize survey questions

• CRM/Bookings integration edits Contact names

  Hi there, I've installed the extension that connects Zoho CRM and Zoho Bookings. When we get a new appointment from Bookings from an existing Contact, that Contact's record shows this: First Name was updated from asd to blank value Last Name was updated

• Domain Change

  “Please update my Email-in domain from @biginmail.biginmail.in to @biginmail.zoho.com. Messages to the .in domain are bouncing.”

• Webhooks Limit Exceeded

  Today, I received an error message saying, 'Total number of Webhook call exceeded', but when I look at Manage > Billing, it doesn't look like any of my invokeURL calls are being logged. Following the advice from this thread: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/webhooks-daily-limits-in-zoho-creator

• Auto select option in CRM after Zoho Form merge

  Hi, I have a dropdown field in Zoho CRM that is filled with a Zoho Form. The data is filled but not automatically shown. After selecting the right value in the dropdown the information a second field is shown. So the question is; how can I make the dropdown

• Bring your CRM data straight into your presentations in Zoho Show

  Let's say you are working on a presentation about your team's sales pipeline for an upcoming strategy meeting. All the information you need about clients and leads is in Zoho CRM, but you end up copying details from the CRM into your slides, adjusting

• Zoho People 2.0 Help Manual

  Hello All, Zoho People Help Documentation is now available at this link. Please go through and get in touch with us at support@zohopeople.com in case of any questions. Regards, Hemalatha Chandrasekaran | Zoho People

• Introducing New APIs in Zoho Contracts

  We are excited to announce the release of new APIs in Zoho Contracts to help you automate and manage every stage of your contract lifecycle more efficiently. Here’s a quick overview of what’s new: 1. Complete Contract Draft You can use this API to complete

• Vimeo

  For me Vimeo is the most important video social channel for media and filmmakers. Would others agree and like it added to Zoho Social.

• Delete a department or category

  How do I delete a Department? Also, how do I delete a Category? This is pretty basic stuff here and it's impossible to find.

• Organization Emails in Email History

  How can I make received Org Emails to show up here?

• How to setup pricing in Zoho

  Hi everyone, I am relatively new here and have just moved from my old inventory system to the Zoho one. I am trying to get my head around how it all works. I am mostly setup connected to a shopify store, but I do manual sales also For manual invoicing,

• Prefilled Date fields auto-changed and then locked when using “Edit as new”

  If a document out for signature has date fields (not SignedDate fields) that were pre-filled before sending, and then you use “Edit as new” to create a new version of the same document, the value of those date fields gets automatically changed to today

• Access Phone Field Components (Country Code) Directly

  Hello everyone, I'd like to propose an enhancement for the Phone field in Zoho Creator. The Problem: The Phone field captures the country code and local number separately, but stores them as a single string (e.g., +1234567890). To get the country code,

• Send mass messages through WhatsApp from the Tickets module

  Hi Everyone! Effective communication is key to delivering prompt and reliable customer support. Because WhatsApp is one of the most widely used and familiar messaging platforms, it's an effective channel for agents to reach customers who have submitted

• Lead Owner Signature Merge Field

  I want to automatically insert a signature (i.e. contact info usually found at the bottom of an email) into an email template, depending on who the lead owner is. What is the merge code for the Signature from a Users profile? CRM > Settings > Customization > Templates There is a popup near the bottom of the edit screen which says: "You can insert a Signature, which is available as a merge field in the users section." It is also referenced on this page: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/crm/customize-crm-account/customizing-templates/articles/template-builder#Merge_Fields

• How do I create a time field?

  I want a field that only records time. I can only see how to create a date-time field. If I do that and enter a time, without a date, nothing is recorded. If I create a number or decimal field, I cannot use it in time calculations. All I want is a field

• Alternating columns - How to reverse order on mobile - Responsive template

  Can the order of alternating columns be reversed on mobile so that image comes before the text? Example: Desktop Row 1 column Left (image) , column right (text) Row 2 column Left (text) , column right (image) Mobile Currently Row 1 Image over text Row

• InvokeURL butchering JSON for OpenAI API calls

  My organization works with mostly educational institutions. We have a custom module called "Schools", which is the user-entered school name they put when using our service (which they enter along with their state and zip code). We want to map this to

• Custom order for Current Stage (Blueprint field)

  Hi! I suggest adding the option to set a custom order in reports for the Blueprint field ‘Current Stage’. Currently, these fields can only be sorted in ascending or descending order. Thanks!

• CRM E-mail Sync from Outlook

  We are exploring Zoho as a possible new solution for our company. We are trying to understand further on how e-mail sync works. We use outlook. Our current CRM logs anytime we e-mail a customer so we can see in the CRM the message sent to the customer.

• Run your help desk on your schedule

  In business, time is of the essence. This is especially true in a function like customer service, where KPIs such as response time and agent availability are the measures of success. Perhaps the most crucial consideration one needs to make about time is your hours of operation. These set expectations for your customer and for employees. To make communicating this information easier, we've revamped the way business hours and holiday lists work in Zoho Desk.   In order to accommodate teams that work

• Next Page