In this article you will learn, how to integrate Zoho CRM data to ODBC without coding in few clicks (Live / Bi-directional connection to Zoho CRM).
Zoho CRM Connector can be used to integrate Zoho CRM API in your App / BI Tools. You can exchange data on Accounts, Leads, Contacts and many other modules.
Using Zoho CRM API Connector you will be able to connect, read and write data from within ODBC. Let's take a look at the steps below to see how exactly to accomplish that.
Driver mentioned in this article is part of ODBC PowerPack which is a collection of high-performance Drivers for various API data source (i.e. REST API, JSON, XML, CSV, Amazon S3 and many more). Using familiar SQL query language you can make live connection and read/write data from API sources or JSON / XML / CSV Files inside SQL Server (T-SQL) or your favorite Reporting (i.e. Power BI, Tableau, Qlik, SSRS, MicroStrategy, Excel, MS Access), ETL Tools (i.e. Informatica, Talend, Pentaho, SSIS). You can also call our drivers from programming languages such as JAVA, C#, Python, PowerShell etc.
If you are new with ODBC and ZappySys ODBC PowerPack then check below links to get started.
Create ODBC Data Source (DSN) based on ZappySys API Driver
To get data from ZohoCrm using ODBC we first need to create a DSN - Data Source - which will access data from ZohoCrm, which later will be able to get using ODBC. Perform these steps:
Create a User Data Source (User DSN) based on ZappySys API Driver:
You should create System DSN if client application is launched under Windows System Account, e.g. as a Windows Service.
Launch ODBC Data Sources 32-bit version in case your client application is a 32-bit (x86) application (required only for System DSN).
When a window appears, firstly give your data source a name if you haven't done that already, then select "Zoho CRM" from the list of Popular Connectors. If "Zoho CRM" is not present in the list, then click "Search Online" and download it. Then set the path to the one where you downloaded it. Finally, hit Continue >> button to continue configuring DSN:
ZohoCrmDSN
Zoho CRM
Another window appears and it's time to configure the Connection Manager. Firstly, select Authentication Type, e.g. Token Authentication. Then select API Base URL (in most cases default one is the right one). More info is available in Authentication section.
Steps to get Zoho CRM Credentials
To register custom App, perform the following steps (Detailed steps found in the help link at the end)
For Authorized Redirect URI enter https://zappysys.com/oauth (Or enter your own but we recommend using ZappySys one if possible). This URL must match on Zoho Connector UI.
Click CREATE.
Copy Client ID and Secret and paste on Zoho Connector UI.
And finally, fill in all the required parameters and set optional parameters if needed.:
ZohoCrmDSN
Zoho CRM
OAuth [OAuth]
https://www.zohoapis.com/crm/v2
Required Parameters
Optional Parameters
ClientId
Fill in the parameter...
ClientSecret
Fill in the parameter...
Permissions
Fill in the parameter...
AccountUrl
Fill in the parameter...
RedirectUrl
Fill in the parameter...
Once you configured a data source, you can preview data. Hit Preview tab, and use similar settings to preview data:
Click OK to finish creating the data source
Create Custom Store Procedure in ZappySys Driver
You can create procedures to encapsulate custom logic and then only pass handful parameters rather than long SQL to execute your API call.
Steps to create Custom Store Procedure in ZappySys Driver. You can insert Placeholders anywhere inside Procedure Body. Read more about placeholders here
Go to Custom Objects Tab and Click on Add button and Select Add Procedure:
Enter the desired Procedure name and click on OK:
Select the created Store Procedure and write the your desired store procedure and Save it and it will create the custom store procedure in the ZappySys Driver:
Here is an example stored procedure for ZappySys Driver. You can insert Placeholders anywhere inside Procedure Body. Read more about placeholders here
CREATE PROCEDURE [usp_get_orders]
@fromdate = '<<yyyy-MM-dd,FUN_TODAY>>'
AS
SELECT * FROM Orders where OrderDate >= '<@fromdate>'
That's it now go to Preview Tab and Execute your Store Procedure using Exec Command. In this example it will extract the orders from the date 1996-01-01:
Exec usp_get_orders '1996-01-01'
Create Custom Virtual Table in ZappySys Driver
ZappySys API Drivers support flexible Query language so you can override Default Properties you configured on Data Source such as URL, Body. This way you don't have to create multiple Data Sources if you like to read data from multiple EndPoints. However not every application support supplying custom SQL to driver so you can only select Table from list returned from driver.
Many applications like MS Access, Informatica Designer wont give you option to specify custom SQL when you import Objects. In such case Virtual Table is very useful. You can create many Virtual Tables on the same Data Source (e.g. If you have 50 URLs with slight variations you can create virtual tables with just URL as Parameter setting.
Go to Custom Objects Tab and Click on Add button and Select Add Table:
Enter the desired Table name and click on OK:
And it will open the New Query Window Click on Cancel to close that window and go to Custom Objects Tab.
Select the created table, Select Text Type AS SQL and write the your desired SQL Query and Save it and it will create the custom table in the ZappySys Driver:
Here is an example SQL query for ZappySys Driver. You can insert Placeholders also. Read more about placeholders here
SELECT
"ShipCountry",
"OrderID",
"CustomerID",
"EmployeeID",
"OrderDate",
"RequiredDate",
"ShippedDate",
"ShipVia",
"Freight",
"ShipName",
"ShipAddress",
"ShipCity",
"ShipRegion",
"ShipPostalCode"
FROM "Orders"
Where "ShipCountry"='USA'
That's it now go to Preview Tab and Execute your custom virtual table query. In this example it will extract the orders for the USA Shipping Country only:
SELECT * FROM "vt__usa_orders_only"
Conclusion
In this article we discussed how to connect to Zoho CRM in ODBC and integrate data without any coding. Click here to DownloadZoho CRM Connector for ODBC and try yourself see how easy it is. If you still have any question(s) then ask here or simply click on live chat icon below and ask our expert (see bottom-right corner of this page).
Zoho CRM Connectors support following actions for REST API integration. If some actions are not listed below then you can easily edit Connector file and enhance out of the box functionality.
Read Data (Query Mode - Max 200 Rows Only)
Parameter
Description
sql_query
Your SQL query for CRM (i.e. COQL (CRM Object Query Language)). Limtation - You can fetch maximum 200 rows using COQL Query. To read all rows use Table mode. (refer to help link to learn more about COQL)
List Modules
Parameter
Description
List Territories
List Module Settings
To get the metadata for a specific module. Specify the API name of the module, such as Leads, Accounts or Deals in your API request.
Parameter
Description
module
Module name for which you like to get settings
Option
Value
Accounts
Accounts
Activities
Activities
Calls
Calls
Campaigns
Campaigns
Cases
Cases
Contacts
Contacts
Deals
Deals
Events
Events
Invoices
Invoices
Leads
Leads
Price_Books
Price_Books
Products
Products
Purchase_Orders
Purchase_Orders
Quotes
Quotes
Sales_Orders
Sales_Orders
Solutions
Solutions
Tasks
Tasks
Vendors
Vendors
Your_Custom_Module_Name
Your_Custom_Module_Name
List Tags
List tags for module.
Parameter
Description
module
Module name for which you like to get settings
Option
Value
Accounts
Accounts
Activities
Activities
Calls
Calls
Campaigns
Campaigns
Cases
Cases
Contacts
Contacts
Deals
Deals
Events
Events
Invoices
Invoices
Leads
Leads
Price_Books
Price_Books
Products
Products
Purchase_Orders
Purchase_Orders
Quotes
Quotes
Sales_Orders
Sales_Orders
Solutions
Solutions
Tasks
Tasks
Vendors
Vendors
Your_Custom_Module_Name
Your_Custom_Module_Name
Gets record count for specific tag for module
Add tags for specified module and specified record id(s).
Parameter
Description
module
Module name for which you like to get settings
Option
Value
Accounts
Accounts
Activities
Activities
Calls
Calls
Campaigns
Campaigns
Cases
Cases
Contacts
Contacts
Deals
Deals
Events
Events
Invoices
Invoices
Leads
Leads
Price_Books
Price_Books
Products
Products
Purchase_Orders
Purchase_Orders
Quotes
Quotes
Sales_Orders
Sales_Orders
Solutions
Solutions
Tasks
Tasks
Vendors
Vendors
Your_Custom_Module_Name
Your_Custom_Module_Name
Tag Id
Use List Tags to findout Id for tag you like to query
Add / Update Tags for records
Add tags for specified module and specified record id(s).
Parameter
Description
module
Module name for which you like to get settings
Option
Value
Accounts
Accounts
Activities
Activities
Calls
Calls
Campaigns
Campaigns
Cases
Cases
Contacts
Contacts
Deals
Deals
Events
Events
Invoices
Invoices
Leads
Leads
Price_Books
Price_Books
Products
Products
Purchase_Orders
Purchase_Orders
Quotes
Quotes
Sales_Orders
Sales_Orders
Solutions
Solutions
Tasks
Tasks
Vendors
Vendors
Your_Custom_Module_Name
Your_Custom_Module_Name
Record Id(s) (comma seperated list)
List of Record Id(s) you like to update
Tag Id
List of Tag(s) you like to add
Overwrite
Set this to overwrite exising tags for the record(s)
Option
Value
true
true
false
false
List Module Fields
To get the field meta data for the specified module. The fields displayed are from all layouts for the module and the response does not contain layout-specific fields like mandatory fields or picklist values.
Parameter
Description
module
Module name for which you like to get all fields
Option
Value
Accounts
Accounts
Activities
Activities
Calls
Calls
Campaigns
Campaigns
Cases
Cases
Contacts
Contacts
Deals
Deals
Events
Events
Invoices
Invoices
Leads
Leads
Price_Books
Price_Books
Products
Products
Purchase_Orders
Purchase_Orders
Quotes
Quotes
Sales_Orders
Sales_Orders
Solutions
Solutions
Tasks
Tasks
Vendors
Vendors
Your_Custom_Module_Name
Your_Custom_Module_Name
List Views
Parameter
Description
module
Module name for which you like to get all views
Read [$parent.module_name$]
Parameter
Description
Last Modified Date - Read data modified after it
Supply this DateTime (ISO 8601 format) - To get the list of recently modified records
Custom View ID
To get the list of records based on custom views.
sort_by
Specify the field name based on which the records must be sorted.
sort_order
To sort the list of records in either ascending or descending order.
Option
Value
asc
asc
desc
desc
territory_id
To get the list of records in a territory. Use get_territories endpoint to list Id and names.
include_child
To include records from the child territories. Default is false.
Option
Value
true
true
false
false
Search [$parent.module_name$]
Search records by criteria or email or phone or word or id (specify only one parameter for search and keep other blank)
Parameter
Description
Search By Criteria Expression
You can supply upto 10 criterias. For more complex expression use Query API. Example: ((Last_Name:equals:Burns)and(First_Name:starts_with:Ma)). You can lookup row by ID like (id:equals:1458554000067017001). Here is Syntax for expression (({api_name}:{starts_with|equals}:{value})and/or({api_name}:{starts_with|equals}:{value}))
Search By Email
Search By Phone
Search By any Word
Search By Id
Include only converted records
Option
Value
true
true
false
false
both
both
Delete [$parent.module_name$]
Parameter
Description
Record ID(s) - Use Comma for multiple (e.g. 111,222)
Fire Wordflow Trigger
Option
Value
true
true
false
false
Insert [$parent.module_name$]
Parameter
Description
Triggers
Update [$parent.module_name$]
Parameter
Description
Triggers
Upsert [$parent.module_name$] (Update or Insert)
Parameter
Description
Triggers
Duplicate_Check_Fields
Option
Value
By Email
Email
By Phone
Phone
By Mobile
Mobile
Generic Request
This is generic endpoint. Use this endpoint when some actions are not implemented by connector. Just enter partial URL (Required), Body, Method, Header etc. Most parameters are optional except URL.
Parameter
Description
Url
API URL goes here. You can enter full URL or Partial URL relative to Base URL. If it is full URL then domain name must be part of ServiceURL or part of TrustedDomains
Body
Request Body content goes here
IsMultiPart
Check this option if you want to upload file(s) (i.e. POST RAW file data) or send data using Multi-Part encoding method (i.e. Content-Type: multipart/form-data). Multi-Part request allows you to mix key/value and upload files in same request. On the other hand raw upload allows only single file upload (without any key/value)
==== Raw Upload (Content-Type: application/octet-stream) =====
To upload single file in raw mode check this option and specify full file path starting with @ sign in the Body (e.g. @c:\data\myfile.zip )
==== Form-Data / Multipart Upload (Content-Type: multipart/form-data) =====
To treat your Request data as multi part fields you must specify key/value pairs separated by new lines into RequestData field (i.e. Body). Each key value pair is entered on new-line and key/value are separated using equal sign (=). Preceding and trailing spaces are ignored also blank lines are ignored.
If field value has some any special character(s) then use escape sequence (e.g. For NewLine: \r\n, For Tab: \t, For at (@): \@). When value of any field starts with at sign (@) its automatically treated as File you want to upload. By default file content type is determined based on extension however you can supply content type manually for any field using this way [ YourFileFieldName.Content-Type=some-content-type ]. By default File Upload Field always includes Content-Type in the request (non file fields do not have content-type by default unless you supply manually). For some reason if you dont want to use Content-Type header in your request then supply blank Content-Type to exclude this header altogather [e.g. SomeFieldName.Content-Type= ]. In below example we have supplied Content-Type for file2 and SomeField1, all other fields are using default content-type.
See below Example of uploading multiple files along with additional fields.
file1=@c:\data\Myfile1.txt
file2=@c:\data\Myfile2.json
file2.Content-Type=application/json
SomeField1=aaaaaaa
SomeField1.Content-Type=text/plain
SomeField2=12345
SomeFieldWithNewLineAndTab=This is line1\r\nThis is line2\r\nThis is \ttab \ttab \ttab
SomeFieldStartingWithAtSign=\@MyTwitterHandle
Filter
Enter filter to extract array from response. Example: $.rows[*] --OR-- $.customers[*].orders[*]. Check your response document and find out hierarchy you like to extract
Headers
Headers for Request. To enter multiple headers use double pipe or new line after each {header-name}:{value} pair
You should create System DSN if client application is launched under Windows System Account, e.g. as a Windows Service.
