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https://github.com/rikas/zoho_hub

Zoho CRM API V2 Wrapper
https://github.com/rikas/zoho_hub

api api-client zoho

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Zoho CRM API V2 Wrapper

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README 

          
# ZohoHub



[![Gem Version](https://badge.fury.io/rb/zoho_hub.svg)](https://badge.fury.io/rb/zoho_hub)



Simple wrapper around Zoho CRM version2, using

[OAuth 2.0 protocol](https://www.zoho.com/crm/help/developer/api/oauth-overview.html) for authentication.



This gem reads your Module configuration and builds the corresponding classes for you, using some

reflection mechanisms. You should then be able to use simple classes with an API close to

ActiveRecord, to do CRUD operations.



**NOTE: this gem is WIP, please try to use it and open an issue if you run into limitations / problems**



## Table of Contents



- [ZohoHub](#zohohub)

  - [Table of Contents](#table-of-contents)

  - [Installation](#installation)

  - [Setup process](#setup-process)

    - [1. Register your application](#1-register-your-application)

      - [1.1 Zoho Accounts URL](#11-zoho-accounts-url)

      - [1.2 Authorized Redirect URI](#12-authorized-redirect-uri)

    - [2. Configure ZohoHub with your credentials](#2-configure-zohohub-with-your-credentials)

    - [3. Authorization request](#3-authorization-request)

      - [3.1 Redirection based authentication](#31-redirection-based-authentication)

      - [3.2 Self-Client Authorization](#32-self-client-authorization)

      - [3.3 More on scopes](#33-more-on-scopes)

      - [3.4 Offline access](#34-offline-access)

    - [4. Access token](#4-access-token)

    - [5. Refresh token](#5-refresh-token)

    - [6. Basic ZohoHub flow](#6-basic-zohohub-flow)

    - [7. BaseRecord and record classes](#7-baserecord-and-record-classes)

      - [7.1 Reflection](#71-reflection)

      - [7.2 Subclassing BaseRecord](#72-subclassing-baserecord)

  - [8 Notifications](#8-notifications)

    - [8.1 Enable notifications](#81-enable-notifications)

    - [8.2 List notifications](#82-list-notifications)

    - [8.3 Caveats](#83-caveats)

  - [Tips and suggestions](#tips-and-suggestions)

  - [Examples](#examples)

    - [Setup auth token and request CurrentUser](#setup-auth-token-and-request-currentuser)

  - [Development](#development)

  - [Contributing](#contributing)

  - [License](#license)



## Installation



Add this line to your application's Gemfile:



```ruby

gem 'zoho_hub'

```



And then execute:



    $ bundle



Or install it yourself as:



    $ gem install zoho_hub



## Setup process



### 1. Register your application



If you want to access your Zoho CRM account from your application you first need to create your

application as described here: https://www.zoho.com/crm/help/developer/api/register-client.html.



This will give you a **Client ID** and a **secret**, that you'll use in

[step 2](#2-configure-zohohub-with-your-credentials).



#### 1.1 Zoho Accounts URL



Registration and authorization requests are made to Zoho's domain-specific Accounts URL which

varies depending on your region:



- China: https://accounts.zoho.com.cn

- EU: https://accounts.zoho.eu

- India: https://accounts.zoho.in

- US: https://accounts.zoho.com



ZohoHub uses the EU Account URL by default, but this can be overriden in a `ZohoHub.configure` block

via the `api_domain` method ([step 2](#2-configure-zohohub-with-your-credentials).)



#### 1.2 Authorized Redirect URI



Per Zoho's API documentation, providing a **redirect URI** is optional. Doing so allows a user of

your application to be redirected back to your app (to the **redirect URI**) with a **grant token**

upon successful authentication.



If you don't provide a **redirect URI**, you'll need to use the

[self-client option](https://www.zoho.com/crm/help/developer/api/auth-request.html#self-client) for

authorization (see [3.2](#32-self-client-authorization).)



---



### 2. Configure ZohoHub with your credentials



> **Note:** Treat these credentials like an important password. It is _strongly_ recommended to not

> paste them anywhere in plain text. Do _not_ add them to version control; keep them out of your

> code directly by referencing them via environment variables. Use something like the dotenv gem or

> encrypted credentials in Rails to keep them as secret and secure as possible.



You need to have a configuration block like the one below (in Rails add a `zoho_hub.rb` in your

`config/initializers` directory):



```ruby

ZohoHub.configure do |config|

  config.client_id    = 'YOUR_ZOHO_CLIENT_ID' # obtained in 1.

  config.secret       = 'YOUR_ZOHO_SECRET'    # obtained in 1.

  config.redirect_uri = 'YOUR_ZOHO_OAUTH_REDIRECT_URL'

  config.api_domain   = 'https://accounts.zoho.com' # can be omitted if in the EU

  # config.debug      = true # this will be VERY verbose, but helps to identify bugs / problems

end

```



---



### 3. Authorization request



In order to access data in Zoho CRM you need to authorize ZohoHub to access your account. To do so

you have to request a specific URL with the right **scope** and **access_type**. Successful

authorization will provide a **grant token** which will be used to generate **access** and

**refresh tokens**.



#### 3.1 Redirection based authentication



To get the right URL you can use this simple line of code:



```ruby

ZohoHub::Auth.auth_url

# => "https://accounts.zoho.eu/oauth/v2/auth?access_type=offline&client_id=&redirect_uri=&response_type=code&scope=ZohoCRM.modules.custom.all,ZohoCRM.settings.all,ZohoCRM.modules.contacts.all,ZohoCRM.modules.all"

```



If you request this generated URL you should see a screen like this one, where you have to click on

"Accept":



![](https://duaw26jehqd4r.cloudfront.net/items/1h1i3C1N0k0i02092F0S/Screen%20Shot%202018-11-25%20at%2019.18.38.png)



You will then be redirected to the **redirect URI** you provided with additional query parameters

as follows (the value after `code=` is the **grant token**):



```

{redirect_uri}?code={grant_token}&location=us&accounts-server=https%3A%2F%2Faccounts.zoho.com

```



#### 3.2 Self-Client Authorization



If you don't have a **redirect URI** or you want your application to be able to authorize with Zoho

programmatically (without a user required to be present and click the "Accept" prompt), Zoho

provides a

[self-client option](https://www.zoho.com/crm/help/developer/api/auth-request.html#self-client)

for authentication which will provide a **grant token**.



#### 3.3 More on scopes



You can change the default scope (what data can be accessed by your application). This is the list

provided as the default scope:



```

ZohoCRM.modules.custom.all

ZohoCRM.settings.all

ZohoCRM.modules.contacts.all

ZohoCRM.modules.all

```



To get the URL for a different scope you can provide a `scope` argument:



```ruby

ZohoHub::Auth.auth_url(scopes: ['ZohoCRM.modules.custom.all', 'ZohoCRM.modules.all'])

# => "https://accounts.zoho.eu/oauth/v2/auth?access_type=offline&client_id=&redirect_uri=&response_type=code&scope=ZohoCRM.modules.custom.all,ZohoCRM.modules.all"

```



Refer to

[Zoho's API documentation on scopes](https://www.zoho.com/crm/help/developer/api/oauth-overview.html#scopes)

for detailed information.



#### 3.4 Offline access



By design the **access tokens** returned by the OAuth flow expire after a period of time (1 hour by

default), as a safety mechanism. This means that any application that wants to work with a user's

data needs the user to have recently gone through the OAuth flow, aka be online.



When you request offline access the Zoho API returns a **refresh token**. **Refresh tokens** give

your application the ability to request data on behalf of the user when the user is not present and

in front of your application.



**By default `ZohoHub::Auth.auth_url` will request offline access**



You can force "online" access by using `#auth_url` with a `access_type` argument:



```ruby

ZohoHub::Auth.auth_url(access_type: 'online')

# => "https://accounts.zoho.eu/oauth/v2/auth?access_type=online&client_id=&redirect_uri=&response_type=code&scope=ZohoCRM.modules.custom.all,ZohoCRM.settings.all,ZohoCRM.modules.contacts.all,ZohoCRM.modules.all"

```



---



### 4. Access token



See Zoho's API documentation for generating an initial **access token**:

https://www.zoho.com/crm/help/developer/api/access-refresh.html



To use an **access token** in a manual request, include it as a request header as

`Authorization: Zoho-oauthtoken {access_token}` (without the braces.)



To use an **access token** with ZohoHub, pass it to the `ZohoHub.setup_connection` method as the

`access_token` parameter.



---



### 5. Refresh token



This gem automatically refresh the access token.



If you want automatic refresh, use the `refresh_token` argument as in the next chapter.



---



### 6. Basic ZohoHub flow



Once ZohoHub has been configured with your credentials (section 2) and you have a fresh **access

token**, setup a ZohoHub connection:



```ruby

ZohoHub.setup_connection access_token: 'ACCESS_TOKEN',

                         expires_in: 'EXPIRES_IN_SEC',

                         api_domain: 'API_DOMAIN',

                         refresh_token: 'REFRESH_TOKEN'

```



Now you can issue requests to Zoho's API with the Connection object, e.g.:



```ruby

# request a (paginated) list of all Lead records

ZohoHub.connection.get 'Leads'

```



A successful request will receive a response like the sample here:

https://www.zoho.com/crm/help/developer/api/get-records.html.



---



### 7. BaseRecord and record classes



At this point, ZohoHub is starting to do some of the heavy lifting, but using `ZohoHub.connection`

still gets tedious after just a handful of requests. But we can improve that by allowing ZohoHub

to build our record classes or by manually defining them ourselves.



#### 7.1 Reflection



TODO



#### 7.2 Subclassing BaseRecord



See `lib/zoho_hub/base_record.rb` and any of the classes in `examples/models/` for reference.



For any Zoho module with which you want to interact via ZohoHub, make a class of the same name that

inherits from `ZohoHub::BaseRecord`. For example, to build a class for the Leads module:



```ruby

# lead.rb



class Lead < ZohoHub::BaseRecord

  ...

end

```



Specify this module's fields as attributes:



```ruby

# lead.rb



class Lead < ZohoHub::BaseRecord

  attributes :id, :first_name, :last_name, :phone, :email, :source, # etc.

end

```



Now you can issue requests more easily with your record class, e.g.:



```ruby

# Request a (paginated) list of all Lead records

Lead.all



# Get the Lead instance with a specific ID

Lead.find('78265000003433063')

```



And even create new Lead entries in Zoho:



```ruby

lead = Lead.new(

  first_name: 'First name',

  last_name: 'Last name',

  phone: '+35197736281',

  email: 'myemail@gmail.com',

  source: 'Homepage'

)



# Creates the new lead

lead.save



# Or in one step:

lead = Lead.create(first_name: 'First name', ...)

```



Updating records:



```ruby

Lead.update(id: lead.id, first_name: "...", last_name: "...")



# Or

lead.update(first_name: "...", last_name: "...")



# Or update up to 100 records in one call:

leads = [{ id: id1, phone: "123" }, { id: id2, first_name: "..." }]

Lead.update_all(leads)

```



Blueprint transition:



```ruby

Lead.blueprint_transition(lead.id, transition_id)



# Or

lead.blueprint_transition(transition_id)

```



Adding notes:



```ruby

Lead.add_note(id: lead.id, title: 'Note title', content: 'Note content')

```



Related records:



```ruby

Product.all_related(parent_module: 'Lead', parent_id: lead.id)

Product.add_related(

  parent_module: 'Lead',

  parent_id: lead.id,

  related_id: product.id

)

Product.remove_related(

  parent_module: 'Lead',

  parent_id: lead.id,

  related_id: product.id

)

Product.update_related(...)

```



Attachments (`ZohoHub::Attachment` is defined in the gem):



```ruby

Lead.related_attachments(parent_id: lead.id)

# -> Array of Attachments



attachment = Lead.download_attachment(parent_id: lead.id, attachment_id:attachment.id)

# -> Attachment (attachment.file contains the file as a Tempfile)



#NB: Lead.upload_attachment not implemented yet

```



## 8 Notifications



Zoho allows you to receive a notification when a record of a module changes. Supported operation types are create, delete, edit, all.



### 8.1 Enable notifications



In order to receive notifications, you have to enable them first.



```ruby

# Enable notifications for a given channel:

notification_url = 'https://example.org/api/notifications' # Zoho will send notifications by POST to this url

token = '123abc' # Zoho will send this token back to you, so you can ensure that the notification is from Zoho

channel_id = 1 # Choose a channel to handle the response

events = %w[Leads.create Deals.edit Contacts.delete Sales_Orders.all] # Which events to receive notifications for

channel_expiry = (DateTime.now + 1.day).iso8601 # choose a date when the channel should expire. 24h is the maximum, default is one hour



ZohoHub::Notifications.enable(notification_url, channel_id, events, channel_expiry, token)

```



After enabling notifications, Zoho will execute a POST request to the provided notification_url every time the requested event occurs.



For a list of an in-depth description of the response, check the [Zoho documentation](https://www.zoho.com/crm/developer/docs/api/notifications/overview.html)



### 8.2 List notifications



You can also retrieve all notifications that are currently enabled and that you are receiving uppdates for.



```ruby

# Get all enabled notifications

ZohoHub::Notifications.all

```



### 8.3 Caveats



- Zoho does not notify you when records are merged.

- Since Zoho does not tell you what changed, you will have to request the record by yourself. Due to this you can miss changes, when they occur quickly after another. This is especially important for status changes, as you might miss state changes.



## Tips and suggestions



- Using a tool such as Postman or curl to issue HTTP requests and verify responses in isolation

  can be a great sanity check during setup.

- Downloading ZohoHub code (as opposed to the gem) and running `bin/console` is a great way to

  learn how the code works and test aspects of setup and Zoho's API in isolation.

- [The Zoho API Documentation](https://www.zoho.com/crm/help/developer/api/overview.html) is your

  friend - especially the sample HTTP requests and responses in the various sections under "Rest

  API" on the left.

- If you're manually implementing your record classes (rather than using the reflection mechanism),

  the files in `/examples/models/` can help you get started.

- Requests can be issued to Zoho CRM's

  [Sandbox](https://help.zoho.com/portal/kb/articles/using-sandbox)

  by configuring `https://crmsandbox.zoho.com/crm` (or regional equivalent) as the `api_domain`.



## Examples



### Setup auth token and request CurrentUser



> This example assumes use of the dotenv gem and is written directly into

> ZohoHub's root directory (rather than using ZohoHub as a gem) for simplicity.



1. Edit `bin/console` to comment out refreshing the token and setting up the connection:



```ruby

# bin/console



...

# puts 'Refreshing token...'

# token_params = ZohoHub::Auth.refresh_token(ENV['ZOHO_REFRESH_TOKEN'])

# ZohoHub.setup_connection(token_params)

...

```



2. [Register your application](#1-register-your-application) to obtain a **client ID** and

   **secret**. (Leave the [Zoho API Credentials page](https://accounts.zoho.com/developerconsole) open;

   you'll need it in step 5.)

3. Determine your [Zoho Accounts URL](#11-zoho-accounts-url).

4. Add your registration and account URL information to a `.env` file:



```

# .env



ZOHO_CLIENT_ID=YOUR_CLIENT_ID

ZOHO_SECRET=YOUR_SECRET

ZOHO_API_DOMAIN=YOUR_ZOHO_ACCOUNTS_URL

```



5. On the [Zoho API Credentials page](https://accounts.zoho.com/developerconsole) from step 1, click

   the three vertical dots and select `Self client`.

6. Paste this into the `Scope` field: `ZohoCRM.users.ALL`, choose an expiration time, and click

   `View Code`; this is your **Grant token**.

7. Run the ZohoHub console from your terminal: `bin/console`

8. Issue a token request with the **grant token** (notice the quotes around the token value):



```ruby

ZohoHub::Auth.get_token('paste_your_grant_token_here')

```



This should return a response with an **access token**, e.g.:



```ruby

=> {:access_token=>"ACCESS_TOKEN_VALUE",

 :expires_in_sec=>3600,

 :api_domain=>"https://www.zohoapis.com",

 :token_type=>"Bearer"

 }

```



exit the console with `exit`.



9. Add the access token to your `.env` file:



```

# .env



ZOHO_CLIENT_ID=YOUR_CLIENT_ID

ZOHO_SECRET=YOUR_SECRET

ZOHO_API_DOMAIN=YOUR_ZOHO_ACCOUNTS_URL

ZOHO_ACCESS_TOKEN=YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN

```



10. Edit `bin/console` to add a new `setup_connection` after the previously commented out one:



```ruby

# bin/console



...

# ZohoHub.setup_connection(token_params)



ZohoHub.setup_connection(access_token: ENV['ZOHO_ACCESS_TOKEN'])

...

```



11. Start the console again: `bin/console`.



12. Issue a request for the current user: `ZohoHub.connection.get 'users?type=CurrentUser'`



## Development



After checking out the repo, run `bin/setup` to install dependencies. Then, run `rake spec` to run

the tests. You can also run `bin/console` for an interactive prompt that will allow you to

experiment.



To install this gem onto your local machine, run `bundle exec rake install`.



## Contributing



Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/rikas/zoho_hub.



## License



The gem is available as open source under the terms of the

[MIT License](https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT).