How to use IBM App Connect with Zoho Books
Zoho Books is a complete solution for businesses of all sizes that manage finances across an enterprise. The system automates numerous financial processes, including accounts payable and receivable, time tracking, payroll, transaction management, inventory control, and banking.
App Connect
Enterprise as a Service connector-
Local
connector in containers (Continuous Delivery release) 12.0.12.3-r1 or later
Supported product and API versions
To find out which product and API versions this connector supports, see Detailed System Requirements on the IBM Support page.
Connecting to Zoho Books
Complete the connection fields that you see in the App Connect Designer page or flow editor. If necessary, work with your Zoho Books administrator to obtain these values.
Zoho Books authorization types and connection fields:
- BASIC OAUTH
- Server URL: Select the URL for the API server that makes runtime
calls.Tip: To determine the domain you're accessing Zoho Books from, go to the Zoho Books web app and check the URL. For example, if the URL contains
crm.zoho.com, then you're accessing it from the.comdomain.
To obtain the connection values for Zoho Books, see Obtaining connection values for Zoho Books.
To connect to a Zoho Books endpoint from the App Connect Designer Applications and APIs page for the first time, expand Zoho Books, then click Connect.
Before you use the account that is created in App Connect in a flow, rename the account to something meaningful that helps you to identify it. To rename the account on the Applications and APIs page, select the account, open its options menu (⋮), then click Rename Account.
General Considerations
Before you use App Connect Designer with Zoho Books, take note of the following considerations:
- You can see lists of the trigger events and actions that are available
on the Applications and APIs page of the App Connect Designer.
For some applications, the events and actions depend on the environment and whether the connector supports configurable events and dynamic discovery of actions. If the application supports configurable events, you see a Show more configurable events link under the events list. If the application supports dynamic discovery of actions, you see a Show more link under the actions list.
- If you are using multiple accounts for an application, the set of fields that is displayed when you select an action for that application can vary for different accounts. In the flow editor, some applications always provide a curated set of static fields for an action. Other applications use dynamic discovery to retrieve the set of fields that are configured on the instance that you are connected to. For example, if you have two accounts for two instances of an application, the first account might use settings that are ready for immediate use. However, the second account might be configured with extra custom fields.
Events and Actions
Zoho Books events
These events are for changes in this application that trigger a flow to start completing the actions in the flow.
Show more configurable events: Events that are shown by default are pre-configured by using optimized connectivity. More items are available after you configure events that can trigger a flow by polling this application for new or updated objects. For more information about configurable events, see Configuring polled events to trigger flows.
Zoho Books actions
Your flow completes these actions on this application.
| Object | Action | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Customers | Create customer | Creates a customer with the given information |
| Retrieve customers | Retrieves all customers with pagination | |
| Update customer | Updates an existing customer | |
| Retrieve customers by contact ID | Retrieves details of a customer by using contact ID | |
| Invoices | Create invoice | Creates an invoice for your customer |
| Retrieve invoices | Retrieves all invoices with pagination | |
| Update invoice | Updates an existing invoice | |
| Retrieve invoice by ID | Retrieves the details of an invoice by using invoice ID | |
| Delete invoice | Deletes an invoice by using invoice ID | |
| Email invoice | Sends an email by using the invoice ID | |
| Items | Retrieve items | Retrieves the list of all active items with pagination |
| Create item | Creates a new item | |
| Chart of accounts | Create account | Creates an account with the given account type |
| Retrieve chart of accounts | Retrieves all chart of accounts along with pagination | |
| Expenses | Create expense | Creates a billable or nonbillable expense |
| Retrieve expenses | Retrieves all the expenses with pagination | |
| Update expense | Updates an expense | |
| Retrieve expense by ID | Retrieves the details of the expense by using expense ID | |
| Create employee for an expense | Creates an employee for an expense | |
| Retrieve employees of an expense | Retrieves employees linked to an expense | |
| Quotes | Create quote | Create an estimate for your customer |
Examples
Use templates to quickly create flows for Zoho Books
Learn how to use App Connect templates to quickly create flows that complete actions on Zoho Books. For example, open the Templates gallery, and then search for Zoho Books.
Use IBM App Connect to build flows that integrate with Zoho Books.
Read the blog in the IBM Community to learn how to create a quote in Zoho Books for each new Shopify order and send the quote through Slack. The blog also explains how to create an item in Zoho Books for each new Shopify product. Click Read the blog to go to the blog.