Signals

The Signals feature in Zoho Books sends in-app notifications to users in your organization whenever an action is performed in a third-party app that you had configured. Signals will help you stay updated on activities that will affect your business and take informed decisions. Let’s take a look at a scenario to understand this better:

Scenario: Door to Door is an e-commerce company that primarily operates online. They use Zoho Books to manage their business and Premier Courier to ship their products. By using the Signals feature in Zoho Books, Door to Door receives timely notifications about the status of their packages. This information enables them to inform their customers about the status of their shipments. Also, they receive notifications when a shipment could not be delivered to the customer. In such cases, they immediately contact the customer and re-initiate the delivery after identifying why the shipment wasn’t delivered. This helps them provide a positive customer experience.

Similarly, you can use the Signals feature to connect your Zoho Books organization with a third-party app and receive notifications based on your business needs.

Note: This feature is available only in specific plans of Zoho Books. Visit the pricing page to check if it’s available in your current plan.

Create a New Signal

To create a signal in Zoho Books:

Click + New Signal Create a new signal

Note: If you select the Trigger Type as Function and if you are using a Connection in the function, you will have to select the ZohoBooks.Signals.CREATE and ZohoBooks.Signals.READ scopes as these will not be included in the ZohoBooks.fullaccess.All scope.

Insight You can format the content in the message field of the function or the API. The following formatting options are supported:

  • Bold: Enclose the contents in asterisks (*). For example, *This content is bold.*
  • Italics: Enclose the contents in carets (^). For example, ^This content is in italics.^
  • Line break: Use ~br~ to insert a line break.

If you selected the Trigger Type of the signal as Function, the OAuth URL and ZAPI Key URL will be generated and displayed in a pop up. You can copy the URL from the pop up.

Webhook URL

If you selected the Trigger Type of the signal as API, the namespace will be generated and displayed in a pop up. You can copy the namespace from the pop up.

Namespace

For both function and API trigger types, the OAuth URL and ZAPI Key URL will be displayed on the Edit page of the signal. You can copy them from there as well.

Click Copy

You can also copy the URLs by clicking the More button next to the signal on the Signals’ list page.

Click the more button

Insight: You should use OAuth if the third-party app supports OAuth authentication. You should use ZAPI Key when the third-party app doesn’t support OAuth authentication or if you want to configure the signal easily.

You can now configure the URL in the third-party application to set up signals. If you want to add any additional attributes to the script, you can do so at the time of the API call.

Attribute Description
Header The header of the API request.
Parameters The query parameters of the API.
Body It is a string that contains the request body of the API call.

Pro Tip: Limit access to the URL to a few trusted and authorized users. If exposed, any user who has access to the URL can use it to trigger notifications for the signal.

Now that you’ve created a signal, you’ll receive in-app notifications in your Zoho Books organization when the third-party app performs the task that you have configured.

Notifications for a signal

Manage Signal Notifications

A user with access to Settings can manage the notification preference for signals from the Signals list page. Here’s how:

Slide the toggle to disable

A user who doesn’t have access to Settings can manage the notification preference for signals from the Notifications section. Here’s how:

Click the Notifications icon Click the gear icon in notifications Slide the toggle to disable

Note: If the user who created the signal selected the Recipients as All Users, all the users in your organization will receive notifications from that signal and they’ll not be able to disable it.

Edit a Signal

If you want to make any changes to the signal, you can do that on the Edit page of the signal. Here’s how:

Click the Edit button

Delete a Signal

If you no longer need a signal, you can delete it.

Warning: Once you delete a signal, you’ll not able to retrieve it and you’ll stop receiving notifications for that signal.

To delete a signal:

Click Delete

Even after deleting a signal in Zoho Books, the corresponding configuration made in the third-party app will exist. Ensure that you delete the configuration in the third-party app as well.

Mark as Inactive

If you don’t need a signal but you don’t want to delete it, you can mark it as inactive. Here’s how:

Click Mark as Inactive

Regenerate ZAPI Key URL

The ZAPI Key will be included in the invoking URL as a part of the query parameter. Since it’s included in the invoking URL, it requires no extra configuration. However, if the ZAPI Key URL is exposed, any user can use it to trigger notifications for the signal. If the ZAPI Key is exposed, you can regenerate it. Here’s how:

Click Regenerate

The ZAPI Key will be regenerated. Ensure that you replace the old ZAPI Key with the new one in all the other places where you used it.


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