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I'm actually part of something bigger at Ascent Business Solutions recognized as the top Zoho Premium Solutions Partner in the United Kingdom.

Ascent Business Solutions offer support for smaller technical fixes and projects for larger developments, such as migrating to a ZohoCRM.  A team rather than a one-man-band is always available to ensure seamless progress and address any concerns. You'll find our competitive support rates with flexible, no-expiration bundles at https://ascentbusiness.co.uk/zoho-services/uk-zoho-support.  For larger projects, talk to our experts and receive dedicated support from our hands-on project consultants at https://ascentbusiness.co.uk/zoho-services/zoho-crm-implementation.

The team I manage specializes in coding API integrations between Zoho and third-party finance/commerce suites such as Xero, Shopify, WooCommerce, and eBay; to name but a few.  Our passion lies in creating innovative solutions where others have fallen short as well as working with new businesses, new sectors, and new ideas.  Our success is measured by the growth and ROI we deliver for clients, such as transforming a garden shed hobby into a 250k monthly turnover operation or generating a +60% return in just three days after launch through online payments and a streamlined e-commerce solution, replacing a paper-based system.

If you're looking for a partner who can help you drive growth and success, we'd love to work with you.  You can reach out to us on 0121 392 8140 (UK) or info@ascentbusiness.co.uk.  You can also visit our website at https://ascentbusiness.co.uk.

Zoho

Zoho Creator: isBlank and isNull: Before or After?

What?
A really quick article to test when to use isNull and isBlank.

Why?
So I've noticed that looking at people's Zoho Deluge code, there will often be a check on a null before or after the variable:
if(v_Test.isBlank())
{
    ...
}
VS
if(isBlank(v_Test))
{
    ...
}
isBlank() can be used to check if the string only contains blanks or if a value is null...

How?
Consider the following test function:
Zoho Deluge: Nested Catch Statements

What?
A really quick article on demonstrating a nested try...catch()... statement working in Zoho CRM.

Why?
To prove a point to ChatGPT who said this was not possible... and to deal with a scenario which exists for a client of mine.

The use-case for my Cx is that they need documents converted from HTML to PDF — as in we send it a bit of code in HTML and we want a PDF file returned. I have severaly instances of an API which accepts HTML and returns a PDF file. Nothing complex but issues with one of the servers being down, or inaccessible due to certificate expirys, means that the Cx business halts. In order to add a bit of clustering, we have added a bit of code for it to try one server first, if there is any kind of an error with that server, it tries a second server... We now want to add a third server to try if the first 2 fail for whatever reason.

How?
Admittedly, perhaps this maybe wasn't possible but as of February 2024; I have been able to test and implement this.

ZohoCRM GetRelatedRecords INVALID_DATA

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.

Zoho CRM: Make Upload File Field Mandatory

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).

Zoho CRM: Updating a CRM record using API v7

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:

Zoho Books: Estimates/Quotes: Accept & Decline Buttons on Template

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.

Zoho Creator: Input Color Picker

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.

Zoho Creator: Input Color Picker: the Button

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.
Zoho Deluge: Convert Hex to RGB

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.

Credit where Credit is Due:


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Disclaimer: Please note that the information provided on this website is intended for informational purposes only and does not represent a warranty. The opinions expressed are those of the author only. We recommend testing any solutions in a development environment before implementing them in production. The articles are based on our good faith efforts and were current at the time of writing, reflecting our practical experience in a commercial setting.

Thank you for visiting and, as always, we hope this website was of some use to you!

Kind Regards,

Joel Lipman
www.joellipman.com

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