What?
A ridiculously quick article on resolving a zoho.crm.getRelatedRecords() combined with a zoho.crm.bulkUpdate issue.

Why?
Trying to be clever and reducing the API calls to go through a few thousand records and to update the related records. I was getting the error INVALID_DATA with the details being api_name:'data'... But this is shortcode, not an invokeURL.

{ "code":"INVALID_DATA", "details":{ "api_name":"data" }, "message":"invalid data", "status":"error" }

How?
I recall covering this solution before but it boils simply down to the zoho.crm.getRelatedRecords() not retrieving related records which are clearly visible when using the CRM.

What?
A quick article on making an "upload file" field mandatory.

Why?
Because for some reason, it wouldn't appear as selectable when I tried using a layout rule. Probably everyone else has figured this out and I'm just late to the party.

How?
Through the wonders of Zoho CRM Client Script.

So we're going to check on page onload, onchange for the Create Page (Standard), Edit Page (Standard), and Details Page (Standard).

What?
This is a quick bit of code for my reference so that I don't have to keep finding a function that gives me the syntax of how to either create or update a record using invokeUrl.

Why?
Because my designers keep including custom fields in their transactional modules line items (quotes, sales orders, invoices, purchase orders). The only way to update these are by using the API and deluge function invokeURL rather than the usual shortcode of zoho.crm.updateRecord() or zoho.crm.createRecord().

How?
This is somewhere in the official documentation but here's the bits that I need:

Source: http://www.internetbestsecrets.com/2019/09/google-calendar-event-images.html

art: painting, art workshop, sketching workshop, drawing workshop
badminton: badminton
baseball: baseball
basketball: basketball
bbq: bbq, barbecue, barbeque
beer: beer, beers, Oktoberfest, October Fest, Octoberfest
billiard: billiard
bookclub: book club, reading
bowling: bowling
breakfast: breakfast, breakfasts, brunch, brunches
camping: camping
chinesenewyear: chinese new year, chinese new years, chinese new year's
cinema: cinema, movies
clean: cleaning, clean the house, clean the apartment, clean house, tidy up, vacuum clean, vacuum cleaning
code: learn to code, coding time, hackathon, Rails Girls, Railsgirls, Hour of Code, Codecademy, Computer Science, Programming in Python, Web Programming, Programming in Java, Web Development
coffee: coffee, coffees
concert: concert, gig, concerts, gigs
cycling: bicycle, cycling, bike, bicycles, bikes, Biking
dancing: dance, dancing, dances
dentist: dentist, dentistry, dental
dinner: dinner, dinners, restaurant, restaurants, Family meal
drinks: cocktail, drinks, cocktails
golf: golf
graduation: graduation
gym: gym, workout, workouts
haircut: haircut, hair
halloween: halloween, helloween, hallowe'en, Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, All Saints' Eve
hiking: hiking, hike, hikes
kayaking: kayaking
learninstrument: piano, singing, music Class, choir practice, flute, orchestra, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, cornett, trumpet, contrabass, cello, trombone, tuba, music ensemble, string quartett, guitar lesson, classical music, choir
learnlanguage: French Course, German Course, English Course, …, French Class, German Class, English Class, …, Practice French, Practice German, Practice English, …
lunch: lunch, lunches, luncheon
manicure: manicure, pedicure, manicures, pedicures
massage: massage, back rub, backrub, massages
newyear: new year, new year's, new years
oilchange: oil change, car service
pingpong: ping pong, table tennis, ping-pong, pingpong
planmyday: plan week, plan quarter, plan day, plan vacation, week planning, vacation planning
pride: dyke march, christopher street day, gay parade, gay pride, gayglers, gaygler, lesbian march, lesbian parade, lesbian pride, euro pride, europride, world pride, worldpride
reachout: reach out to, write letter, send invitations
read: reading, newspaper
repair: fridge repair, handyman, electrician, DIY
running: jog, jogging, running, jogs, runs
sailing: sail, sailing, boat cruise, sailboat
santa: Santa Claus, Father Christmas
skiing: skiing, ski, skis, Snowboarding, snowshoeing, snow shoe, snow boarding
soccer: soccer
swimming: swim, swimming, swims
tennis: tennis
thanksgiving: thanksgiving
violin: violin, violins
walk: going for a walk, walking
wedding: wedding, wedding eve, wedding-eve party, weddings
xmas: christmas, xmas, x-mas
xmasmeal: christmas dinner, christmas lunch, christmas brunch, christmas luncheon, xmas lunch, xmas luncheon, x-mas dinner, x-mas lunch, x-mas brunch, x-mas luncheon, christmas eve dinner, christmas eve lunch, christmas eve brunch, christmas eve luncheon, xmas eve dinner, xmas eve lunch, xmas eve brunch, xmas eve luncheon, x-mas eve dinner, x-mas eve lunch, x-mas eve brunch, x-mas eve luncheon
xmasparty: christmas party, xmas party, x-mas party, christmas eve party, xmas eve party, x-mas eve party
yoga: yoga

---

What?
An article on adding an accept and decline button on the estimate (aka Quote) notification template within ZohoBooks.

Why?
The use-case is simply that my client wants to make it easier for their customers to accept or decline a quote. Sure there's a portal and you can probably do it from there but this is a one-click accept or decline then done.

One of the biggest hurdles here, which may sound trivial, was the response when an end customer clicks on either the accept or decline button. Using ZohoFlow or other Zoho app for a webhook response, would result in the end customer suddenly downloading a JSON file. Looked a bit suspicious. The code below opens a new tab in their web-browser displaying a plain output message.

How?
So there are 2 caveats to this solution: 1 is that you will need ZohoCRM. I've tried using the "Incoming Webhooks" feature of ZohoBooks but realised the word "Incoming" is the operative word as the response cannot be configured in ZohoBooks like we need to in this solution; namely the webhook response needs to have a header and a body.

The 2nd caveat is a concern around security. It is difficult to guess a customer's Zoho ID; some might say almost impossible. To use other fields that could be sent via the URL as a verification to be checked at the webhook endpoint would be good as well; but I couldn't spend time finding fields that can be 'placeheld', other than what the interface offers, into the template.

What?
An article on creating a color picker from a specific palette using an input field of a radio type.

Why?
At the time of print, this feature is not provided out-of-the-box and getting our users to learn about hexadecimal color references and Red Green Blue (RGB) values is somewhat difficult. What would be nice-to-have is if they could be presented with a bunch of colors and they click on one to select it.


When are colors used? Well in this use-case, we are using it to color events in a calendar associated with specific staff. Probably not the most essential part of a system but important to some staff...

How?
In an earlier article, I've shown how to change a radio type field in ZohoCreator into a Carousel type of interface. This time, we're going to repurpose and restyle a radio type field into a color picker.

What?
A quick article to document a Zoho Deluge function converting a hexadecimal color reference to a Red Green Blue value (RGB).

Why?
It's likely that Zoho will avail their color picker at some point as an input but at the time of print, this hasn't happened yet. Here's a function in deluge that takes a 3 or 6 character hexadecimal color and returns the RGB values for you.

How?
Very quickly, we take each character from the given string and convert it to its RGB value. Replace letters A to F with their numeric equivalents. Made up of 2 characters to convert to an RGB subset, the 1st value is to be multiplied by 16 and then added to the value of the 2nd; this equals the RGB value.

What?
A really quick article on a pretty cool requirement, making 2 fields mandatory but if one is completed then making the other optional.

Why?
My use-case is that the mobile or email field on a Zoho CRM contact record is used to authenticate the contact on a Wordpress portal. OTP or 2FA or MFA or OTC is in effect however; so a contact email OR phone number is required. Both aren't required but at least one should be.

How?
We can do this without code and only using ZohoCRM layout rules. Let's take a contact record for demo purposes:
If I enter a phone number:
If I enter an email: